Moraya Blog

NAPLES, Fla.-August 13, 2010-

The Naples Beach area leads the way to the market recovery with strong summer sales according to a report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island).

Overall pending sales in the Naples Beach area increased 13 percent with 112 contracts in July 2010 compared to 99 contracts in July 2009. “Despite the concerns that we had last month regarding the extent of the oil spill, sales on the beach remained strong,” said Tom Bringardner, President of Premier Properties.

“The median closed price for single-family homes in the Naples Beach area increased 123 percent,” stated Kathy Zorn, Broker/Owner of Florida Home Realty of Collier County. The Naples Beach median closed price for single-family homes increased to $1,117,000 in July 2010 up from $500,000 in July 2009.

The available inventory declined 7 percent to 8,731 in July 2010 compared to 9,359 in the same month last year.

“The fact that the month’s supply continues to go down and the median price is slowly increasing, indicates the Collier Real Estate market is continuing to recover,” said Michael J. Timmerman, Senior Associate, Fishkind & Associates, Inc.

The overall median closed price for properties over $300,000 increased in July 2010 compared to the same month last year. According to Mike Hughes, NABOR Media Relations Director, and Vice-President of Downing-Frye Realty, “The median closed price for properties over $300,000 is up significantly. It increased 21 percent to $592,000 up from $489,000 a year ago.”

The report provides annual comparisons of single-family home and condo sales (via the SunshineMLS), price ranges, geographic segmentation and includes an overall market summary. The statistics are presented in chart format, along with the following analysis:

Overall pending sales in the $1 million to $2 million category increased 82 percent with 31 contracts in July 2010 compared to 17 contracts in July 2009. For the 12 months ending July 2010, overall pending sales increased 28 percent with 9,785 contracts compared to 7,655 contracts for the 12 months ending July 2009.

For the 12 months ending July 2010, pending sales increased 15 percent with 5,096 contracts compared to 4,443 contracts for the 12 months ending July 2009.

Condo pending sales saw a 6 percent increase with 328 contracts in July 2010 compared to 309 contracts in July 2009.

The overall median closed priced increased 17 percent up from July 2009.

“We saw a 24 percent decrease in the days a property was on the market in the 1 million to 2 million category, and a 25 percent decrease in the 2 million and above category. This bodes well for the high end of the market,” said Brenda Fioretti, NABOR President, and Managing Broker of Prudential Florida Realty.

To View all Stats visit Naplesarea.com

Copied from Nabor press realease

The beaches of southwest Florida have long been an important nesting area for the loggerhead sea turtle. Along the beaches in Moraya Bay we have many nests that are protected with what looks like  caution tape. Loggerhead sea turtles emerge from the Gulf of Mexico to nest on our beaches each summer (May 1 to August 31). Females crawl from the Gulf late at night to lay their nests. Loggerheads deposit, on average, 100 ping pong ball sized eggs in each nest. They usually lay 2 to 3 nests per season on a 2-3 year cycle. The eggs begin to hatch after about 60 days. As the sand begin to cool (usually late evening) the hatchlings scratch their way out of the nest emerging as a group. As the young turtles exit the nest they instinctually seek the Gulf by looking for natural light reflecting off the water.

The main nesting months run from May to October, but there are many exceptions to the rule. Leatherbacks have been known to start as early as February, and depending on water temperature, hatchlings emerge well into the winter months.

When you are on the beach look out for the squared off nesting area……

The transformation of 701 at Moraya Bay was done by Pat Crawford interior designer of both the lobby and the club house at Moraya Bay.  She did an incredible job of customizing the space.

Here are some before and after pictures

Master Bath Before

Master Bath After

Entrance Before

Entrance After

taken yesterday outside Moraya Bay

On July 3rd NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) released a report modeling the wind and ocean currents to project the likelihood of oil impacting addional U.S. coastlines.

In the technical report released, the model’s results aggregate information from 500 distinct scenarios. Each assume a 90 day oil flow rate. The model also accounts for the natural process of oil breaking down, and considers oil a threat to the shoreline if there is enough to cause a dull sheen within 20 miles of the coast.

Example- if 250 of the 500 models scenarios indicated a shoreline threat for a particular area, the overall threat for that area would be a 50 percent probability.

The Models indicated

Highest probability for impact extend from the Mississippi River to the western Panhandle of Florida.

Along the U.S Gulf of Mexico shorelines, the oil is more likely to move east than west, with much of the coast of Texas showing a relatively low probability of oil to 40% near the Louisiana border.

Much of the West Coast of Florida has a low probability 20 % or less and NAPLES AND FORT MYERS have a less than 1% of oil hitting our shoreline and beaches

Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a greater probability due to the potential influence of the loop current.  We are extremely lucky that our beaches and water are clear and as beautiful as ever!
Here is the map indicating where the likely hood of impact is.

NEW YORK – Home prices in April rose for the first time in seven months as government tax credits bolstered the housing market. But the rebound may be short-lived now that the incentives have expired.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday posted an 0.8 percent gain. It had fallen in each of the past six months.

Eighteen of 20 cities showed price increases in April from March. Washington, San Francisco and Dallas each posted gains of 2 percent or more. Eleven cities reversed their declines from the month before.

Only Miami and New York recorded price declines. Prices in New York were the lowest since 2004.

Nationally, prices have risen 3.8 percent from their April 2009 bottom. But they remain 30 percent below their July 2006 peak.

The overall price gains highlight the impact of the federal tax credits for homebuyers at the start of the traditionally strong spring selling season. Buyers rushed to purchase before the tax credits expired at the end of April. The numbers are likely to drop in the next report.

“Demand for homes has softened since then, and that is likely to weigh on prices, particularly in May and June,” wrote TD Bank Financial Group economist Martin Schwerdtfeger Tuesday.

Low taxes, warm sunshine and deep discounts on real estate. No wonder IRS data shows the wealthiest among us are headed south.

Surprise: America’s wealthy like warm weather and low taxes. That’s the takeaway from IRS data, analyzed by Forbes, on moves between counties. We looked for counties that the rich are moving to in big numbers.

Topping the list: Collier County, Fla., which includes the city of Naples. Tax returns accounting for 15,150 people showed moves to Collier County from other parts of the country in 2008, the latest year for which IRS data is available. Their average reported income: $76,161 per person–equivalent to $304,644 for a family of four. Although slightly more taxpayers moved out of Collier County than into it, the departing residents’ average income came out to just $26,128 per person.

Households that moved to Collier County principally came from other parts of Florida, with Lee, Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties leading the list. Big northern cities also sent lots of migrants: Cook County, Ill. (home to Chicago); Oakland County, Mich. (near Detroit); and Suffolk County, N.Y. (on Long Island) each sent more than 100 people to Collier County during 2008.

In second place is Greene County, Ga., with a population of just 15,743 at the Census Bureau’s last estimate. The IRS data show that in 2008, 788 people moved to the county, about 75 miles east of Atlanta.

Rounding out the top five: Nassau County, Fla., near Jacksonville; Llano County, Texas, 70 miles northwest of Austin; and Walton County, Fla., 80 miles east of Pensacola.

The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas–the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four– makes sense to Robert Shrum, manager of state affairs at the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., since neither state has an income tax. “If you’re a high-income earner, then that, from a tax perspective, is going to be a driving decider if you’re going to move to one of those two states,” Shrum says.

After accounting for property taxes, Shrum’s analysis shows that Texas has the fourth-lowest personal tax burden in the country, and Florida has the eighth lowest. Shrum also points to eight states that have targeted wealthy households with extra-high tax brackets: California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Six of the top 10 counties the rich are fleeing are located in those states.

Pitkin County, Colo., home to the pricey Aspen ski community, where home listings average more than $3.5 million, saw an exodus of rich people in 2008 as the economy began to contract. The 962 tax filers and dependents who left Pitkin had an average income of $71,473 per capita, while the equivalent figure for those moving to the county was $30,000 lower. Of those leaving Pitkin County, 224 moved to neighboring Garfield County where, according to real estate information service Trulia, homes list for 75% less than those in Pitkin County. IRS data also show movement from the resort area to cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

Behind the Numbers

To find places the rich are moving, Forbes used IRS data on household moves broken down by county and income. We included counties where arriving households are richer than households that didn’t move and departing households are poorer than households that didn’t move. The final ranking orders counties by the difference in per-capita income between incoming households and those that didn’t move.

Our ranking of places the rich are fleeing essentially reverses these criteria, looking for counties where departing households are wealthier than the population as a whole and where incoming households are poorer.

In order to find patterns among the wealthy, we restricted the lists to counties where departing or arriving households had per-capita incomes of $35,000 or more. That figure is equivalent to an annual income of $140,000 for a family of four–a very high income for any large subset of the American population (of 3,142 counties with IRS data, only 130 have average incomes above this level). And in order to avoid statistical anomalies, we only included counties with at least 500 people listed as arriving or departing.

This technique essentially finds new hot spots–places that aren’t necessarily wealthy now but where wealthy people are moving. Some upscale places like Westchester County, N.Y., and Teton County, Wy., don’t make the list because people moving into those counties aren’t as rich as the people who already live there.

The IRS warns that these counts are only approximations; because they don’t include households that don’t file income tax returns, poor and elderly people are underrepresented. These counts also don’t include returns filed after late-September 2009–a small fraction of total returns that tends to include some very rich people with complex returns who file for extensions.

Top 5 Places Where America’s Money Is Moving

No. 1: Collier County, Fla.
Arriving average income per capita: $76,161
Departing average income per capita: $26,128
Stationary household average income per capita: $49,959
Total arriving people: 15,150
Total departing people: 16,802
Top origin: Lee County, Fla. (2,987 people)

No. 2: Greene County, Ga.
Arriving average income per capita: $56,414
Departing average income per capita: $25,432
Stationary household average income per capita: $30,875
Total arriving people: 788
Total departing people: 778
Top origin: Putnam County, Ga. (76 people)

No. 3: Nassau County, Fla.
Arriving average income per capita: $51,833
Departing average income per capita: $29,312
Stationary household average income per capita: $32,306
Total arriving people: 4,785
Total departing people: 3,690
Top origin: Duval County, Fla. (1,721 people)

No. 4: Llano County, Texas
Arriving average income per capita: $44,324
Departing average income per capita: $22,541
Stationary household average income per capita: $26,201
Total arriving people: 1,192
Total departing people: 1,018
Top origin: Burnet County, Texas (312 people)

No. 5: Walton County, Fla.
Arriving average income per capita: $45,591
Departing average income per capita: $28,360
Stationary household average income per capita: $30,553
Total arriving people: 3,939
Total departing people: 3,230
Top origin: Okaloosa County, Fla. (1,148 people)

Taken from yahoo

Single Family and Condo  pending sales in the 1 million to 2 million-price segment increased 200 percent in April!!!!

We should know, Moraya Bay had 5 new pending and sales contracts in the last two months!

Let’s take a look at what this selling season brought us! Most people that live in Southwest Florida know that we increase in population for the winter season, typically that is when most people come and buy property. We saw a huge increase in sales this past season! We looked at the sales from January 1, 2009-May 15, 2009 and compared them to the same time this year. Beach or Gulf view high rise condo’s had 81 sales in that 4 month window in 2009. They ranged in price from $750,000.to $5,500,000. Only 8 condo’s sold for more then 3 million in the first quarter of 2009. Take those same 4 months in 2010 and we see a huge increase! 136 condo’s were sold and 19 more pending. Prices ranged from $661,000 to $7,900,000. There were 12 sales over 3 million in the first quarter of 2010. Not only did people come to Naples to buy, but they bought big! Priced per square foot MORAYA BAY is still the best value on the beach in Naples, Don’t miss out when the market not only hit bottom, it has slowly started to come up.

When the financial crisis hit, the government had to essentially take over Fannie Mae (FNM 1.22, -0.03, -2.40%) and Freddie Mac (FRE 1.46, -0.06, -3.95%) — the two giant mortgage agencies whose job it is to keep money flowing into the housing market, especially in just such times of crisis. So Fannie and Freddie were able to keep doing their job.

But the private mortgage market didn’t fare so well. That largely is made up of jumbo mortgages, the home loans that exceed the Fannie and Freddie limits. Jumbo rates jumped well above rates on conforming loans, assuming you could get them at all as underwriting tightened up considerably. Securitization of jumbo loans, necessary to replenish lenders’ supply of funds, dried up.

Finally, though, the jumbo market may be returning to some semblance of its former self. Rates have fallen so they are now more in line with historical premiums to the conforming rate. There also are some financial institutions who appear once again ready to take on jumbo securities. That’s good news for the confidence of the entire mortgage market.

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