Housing Prices
 

Housing prices have dropped from their highs 2-3 years ago everywhere, some places more than others. I have looked at both new and pre-owned homes on both the villages website and Lyle Gant's website for the past month or so. It appears that a nice pre-owned 1200-1400 square foot home with a double garage can be purchased for about $150 to $180K right now.

My question is, how much have the pre-owned and also the new homes, fallen from the market highs in the Villages? Anyone have an educated guess?

Several people here keep good records on TV home prices and I'll defer them for the precise numbers. Generally, things went down about 20% or so but that is very location and condition dependent. TV recently raised the price (knocked off the discounts) on new homes but I think the sales of those have been consistent at around 200-250 per month vs. 400+/mo in 2007. The last few weeks may show slightly better sales numbers due to the large number of life-style visitors in January. The few resales underpriced to the market go fast.

Just wondering ............... and perhaps this has previously been discussed. If buying/selling a preowned home with Properties of The Villages, is the recommended listing price pretty firm, ie is there much room for negotiating? I realize that there are many factors that may enter but in general, are preowned homes sellng at the list price?

Depends on whether the tide is in or out.

Let's say you list your home for $200,000. Similar new homes are selling for about $200,000. The tide is in, all things equal you'll probably get close to your listed price. If you list your house for $240,00, you'll probably get still sell it at $200,000 or a little less because that's what the market will bear.

Suddenly TV new homes have a reduction in price to $185,000. The tide is out and so is your expectation of getting your list price of $200,000.

Housing prices are very localized and whether by design or not TV sales department sets the prices for new and resale homes in TV. (IMHO)

It is openly negotiated, i.e. offer-counter offer. I think we went back and forth 2-3 times before we agreed on a price for a listing by Properties of The Villages.

In my opinion the bottom of the TV housing market was last year. They had a lot of inventory on the market at substantial discounts. Now they have moved more towards a build to order sales structure and prices seem to be stable or rising slightly. The building rate seem to have slowed somewhat and there is a steady stream of new buyers. For the price range you are looking in, I would say that the market is very stable and not subject to the problems you see throughout the rest of Florida.

Remember, a recession here is when sales drop from 500 per month to 250 per month. Everywhere else in the country that would still be considered a building boom.