Vero Beach-the State of the Business

Vero Beach-the State of the Business

 

Every time we see a hopeful sign, we take one on the chin. Unbelievably, Coastal Escrow announced their insolvency yesterday. I say “unbelievably”, because “escrow” is supposed to represent safety and security. Unfortunately, I guess what appears to be a case of bad business practices trumps the concept of “escrow”. The deposit monies that were being held and are necessary to fund closings are simply not available.

 

We do not use the services of a third party escrow agent, as our deposits are typically held by our buyer’s attorneys. In part because of the accounting requirements necessary to maintain escrow accounts, many brokers did have deposits being held. And unfortunately, I would expect that the brokers are responsible for those monies and will be writing checks to cover those funds.

 

That will not be a problem to most, and I sincerely hope that none of my colleagues or their clients are harmed by this failure. It is not what our real estate market needs at this point.

 

It will, however, create another series of buying opportunities as sellers continue to lose faith in market conditions. We continue to hope for a storm-free summer, which will also help things considerably.

 

The numbers for the past two weeks are consistent both with what we have been seeing and with the fact that we are in the summer doldrums.

 

Sales activity in the county (transactions that are contingent, pending or sold) are running at a little under 60% of the new listing activity (new listings or listings that are back on the market). There were 163 properties in the process of closing or closed, and 286 new offerings. There were also 274 price changes, the vast majority of them down!, and 243 expired listings.

 

The island results, which will always be worse in the summer, were worse. There were 14 sold, pending or contingent units against 44 listings. Again, there were 39 price changes and 30 expired listings. On the island, there were a few prices that changed “up”. The Village Spires owners are getting aggressive, with units being increased in price as they get close to being finished. They are now asking about $750 per sq. ft., of $750,000 for 990 square feet. Clearly, they know something I don’t.  

 

With all of that said, here’s my call. Buy now!

 

For all of business cycles I’ve experienced in my time in this business, Vero Beach has followed the trends of our feeder markets. When metropolitan New York got soft, we followed within six months. This time, with the local price spikes of ’03-’05 and the hurricanes of ’04 largely responsible, this market went soft first. I think we’re going to rebound first as well.

 

I really believe that for the kind of products we recommend, of which there are never many, the opportunities are as good as we will see.

 

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