May Statistics Confirm Growth Trend - Tampa Bay Beaches!

May 2010 Market Statistics for Pinellas County, located on the beach side of Tampa Bay were posted yesterday and have been added to the Home Page of our website. I think we are were waiting for these numbers to see what impact the Gulf Oil Spill crisis had on consumer confidence and the growth trend we were seeing take hold. In addition, there was a great deal of speculation about the April 30th deadline for the 1st time buyer credit and what that would mean in May... would this growth in sales be able to maintain its momentum???

Click on the Chart to View
As we do each month, we go directly to the Absorption Rate (or Inventory Turnover) to get the "overview". This is determined by dividing the number of units sold during the month by the total number of listings in MLS.

This is the first place we look and we were not disappointed. As a matter of fact, considering the oil spill and the end of the 1st time home buyer credit, we are actually looking at these numbers as tremendously impressive!

In Single Family Homes, the Absorption Rate was 12.5% (the second highest of the year). The 12.5% compares to May 2009's 8.9% and May 2008's 6.8%! And in Condos... 9.1% in May, compared to May 2009's 5.7 and May 2008's 4.7%!!!

What we are looking for is Inventory going down while Sales continue to climb... Here are the pertinent facts and you are welcome to review the entire report right from our website:

2010 Single Family Home Sales:
For the month of May, compared to 2009... sales are up 27.6%! Year to date, sales are up 22.6% over 2009, yet listings are down 15.5%!

2010 Condo Sales:
For the month of April, compared to 2009... sales are up 37.7%! Year to date, sales are up 52.6% over 2009, yet listings are down 17%!

We are still seeing the trend for CASH Sales... May's sales represented 52% cash and 26% conventional. Investors are picking up on this trend to take advantage of the best deals... ahead of the mainstream. Again, it was very enlightening to see the numbers hold up as well as they did for May!