“…waiting to see what happens with the election.”

How many times have you heard this uttered over the past year? You don’t have to be a productive REALTOR® to understand the sentiment in America right now. Whether it is buying a home, taking a big trip, or retiring, many people all over the country have shown hesitation to perform what is in their heart of hearts. Ask someone what they think is going to happen in November and you might hear a buffet of theories. I certainly have my own. A friend of mine believes inflation will increase no matter who wins, another friend is mentally preparing for civil war. I would be lying if I told you that my wife and I haven’t been preparing for…something to happen. It’s called being an adult and monitoring the world around you and making adjustments to your life just in case you need to start living a different way. Can anyone argue that the world has gone mad? Everyone has their own thresholds, but I think most of those thresholds have been tripped by now. So many things could happen after the election. But in Christ, there is no fear.

Keeping Current Matters Media | Source NAR

One thing is absolutely certain; After this presidential election, we won’t have anxiety about this upcoming presidential election. It will be over and everyone will be able to take a deep breath. That is, until next time, lol. Once this current one is behind us, I imagine a lot of pressure will be released and we will all move forward knowing what we will either be forced to deal with, or be happy to deal with. Tax wise, regulatory wise, gas & grocery price wise, so on and so forth. Life goes on and Americans are some of the most resilient people in world history. Things never remain the same, but also, there is nothing new under the sun. Knowing the game plan helps us to play the game to the best of our abilities.

The Naples sales numbers released every month by the Naples Area Board of Realtors expose many of the motivations, strengths and weaknesses of those who take the official step into participating in the Naples housing market. As I try to drive home every month in these real estate market updates I publish; Comparing our current sales stats to the sales stats of the covid era makes our current Overall Naples Market statistics look like an absolute dumpster fire. It’s really not that bad folks. I continue to argue that the market is actually really good in Naples, considering the spike in prices over the last 4 years. Let’s go over the most recent published numbers.

Median Sales Price

Overall Naples Market – 588,780 | +2.4%

34102 – $1,945,000 | -0.4%

34103 – $1,026,250 | -24.8%

Golden Gate Estates – $565,000 | +3.2%

Striking Gold in The Estates | 2112 16th St NE

After peaking in August 2024 at the highest Median Sales Price since May 2023, ZIP 34102 (Old Naples, Royal Harbor, Aqualane Shores, Port Royal) dropped 20.6% from August 2024 to settle at $1,945,000 for September 2024. This is just a .4% decline from September 2023, which is a better gauge of how the market is doing. ZIP 34103 also saw a Median Sales Price decline in September and is now 24.8% lower than it was last September. But if you remember from my August Market Update, 34103 was 66.6% up from August of 2023. These higher priced neighborhoods and Zip codes fluctuate like this and is normal. Golden Gate Estates is hanging in there with a nice 2.9% increase over September 2023 with a current Median Sales Price of $536,500, which is pretty close to the Overall Naples Market Median Sales Price of $585,000, which grew 1.7% over September 2023. So, not a lot of sky falling there. This is the “off-season” too.

Median Sales Price | Naples September 2024 Real Estate Market

Days on Market

Overall Naples Market – 69 | +91.7%

34102 – 44 | +63.0%

34103 – 147 | +58.1%

Golden Gate Estates – 63 | +65.8%

Now this one is interesting. Look at the rocket ship that is the 34103 line. Similar to the popularity of the Naples Housing Market Update Blog, 34103’s Days on Market have spiked! Up 63% from September 2023, this is the highest spike for this metric since August 2023 when 34103’s Days on Market shot up 173% from 33 to 90 days. That is basically around the time that DeSantis signed into law the bill that mandates engineer studies on condo buildings due to the Surfside condo building collapse in Jan 2021. This is just conjecture, but could the August 2023 spike for 34103 and this current spike have anything to do with people not wanting to buy condos right now due to those high assessments? There are A LOT of 3 story + condo buildings in 34103 that are all included in the new law and I don’t believe 1 and 2 story condo buildings are required to follow the new engineering study rules, much of which are in 34102 and other ZIP codes not mentioned in this article. Sellers have been holding strong as I can see that condo prices in 34103 haven’t changed much. They are down about 30% from September 2023, but as I have mentioned before, the higher priced ZIP codes tend to have big swings in Median Sales Price, naturally.

But let’s not drone on about ZIP 34103. That big red line does catch the eye, but all of our focus areas have big jumps. Golden Gate Estates is up 65.8% over September 2023 and even though ZIP 34102 is up 63% to 44 Days on Market over the last year, it is down from 102 days in June 2024. Big improvement, but still higher than September 2023. Overall Naples Market is sitting at 69 Days on Market for September 2024, a number that would be pretty average pre-covid. Actually, even during the summer of 2020, when you were being forced to stand 6 ft apart from the next person at Subway, the Median Days on Market was 64-67.

Days on Market | Naples September 2024 Real Estate Market

What’s Going On in Royal Harbor?

Inventory

Overall Naples Market – 4,343 | +39.1%

34102 – 324 | +20.4%

34103 – 276 | +13.6%

Golden Gate Estates – 372 | +47.6%

The Overall Naples Market has just a little more stock of available properties to purchase than it did in September 2020 and 2015 and about 1000 less properties for sale than it did from 2016-2019. Isn’t that interesting? Inventory has certainly come up over the last couple of years, but you would think that an increase in supply would make prices go down. Hasn’t happened. You could say that prices have stabilized, but they have not really gone down. It seems like the government’s solution to the housing lockup is to stimulate demand through various forms of down payment assistance. This is just a temporary tactic to give the real estate market has “life”. But once that demand pushes price up a bit further, we are right back to the affordability crisis we are in now. We need more homes to be built and for the existing homes that are in rental portfolios to be released to the open market for purchase. There is certainly one way to get sellers to let go of that amazing 3% interest rate, and that is for them to start seeing their equity melt away due to enough housing stock being added to the market. We still have a ways to go before that will happen though, in my opinion.

Total Inventory | Naples September 2024 Real Estate Market

Total Sales

Overall Naples Market – 531 | -12.5%

34102 – 28 | +16.7%

34103 – 16 | -15.8%

Golden Gate Estates – 59 | +18.0%

Total Sales | Naples September 2024 Real Estate Market

Total Sales. Well this is the bread and butter for guys like me. The Median Sales Price, and Inventory don’t really matter much to a Realtors bottom line, as long as the number of transactions are consistent. Of course, as listing agents, we try our best to get the seller the most amount for their property and when we represent buyers, the best deal for the property. That aside, it is the number of transactions that really show the health of a market. Are people freely moving in and out of the area? Are they able to take that job across the country for higher pay? Again, taking covid out of the graph, the sales numbers look pretty close to what they were before, it’s just taking those sales longer to happen. Lending rules are not any more stringent, nor is there a lack of agents available to keep deals together. The increase in sales in 34102 and Golden Gate Estates in September 2024 is certainly encouraging and probably an indicator of where things are heading, especially after this darn election!