Oceanfront Daytona Beach Condos and Homes - Watch the Maintenance Costs

Living on the beach in Florida is great. It’s a pleasure to get up in the morning and take a walk on the beach, or enjoy your first cup of coffee watching the waves breaking and birds and people. Sunset walks are my favorite. It always seems brighter and more relaxed on the beach.

We’ve lived both on the beach at 3072 Oceanshore north of Ormond Beach and in the Sherwin Condos in Daytona Beach Shores. We enjoyed both, but I must say that it was much easier living in the condo.

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Update on June 2008 Daytona Beach Florida Real Estate Sales

After two months of significant gains, it looks like sales of Daytona Beach Homes will fall in June. At this point, we are 28.3% behind the May pace. What does this mean?

Well first, when sales increased 27% in April, we were cautious about saying that the market has turned around. Second, trends almost always take a sawtooth pattern, not a straight line.

Now, the truth is that we really don’t know what is going to happen next. I have several properties under contract that will close next month and agents in my company also have several contracts ready to close next month. I am working with more people to find properties than in the past two years. I can tell you that activity is up and my sales are up, but that’s one agents story.

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Buying Daytona Beach Homes - What’s Most Important Right Now?

I’ve just posted a new article, Should I Buy That Daytona Beach Home Now or Wait?, on my main Daytona Beach Real Estate Information website that looks at the two most important factors to buying a home:

Home Price StabilityMortgage Rates

If you’ve seen some of our recent posts, you know that we are as concerned about interest rates on home loans as we are price stability. There is just so much inflationary pressure in this economy that we see long term interest rates increasing to provide a hedge against that inflation.

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Is affordability Driving Market Bottom for Daytona Beach Homes?

Maybe. Over the past few days, we’ve seen a few articles that are saying that the bottom of the recent big price drops may have been reached. We also see that the median price of Daytona Beach Homes has jumped from $175,000 in May to $189,000 this month. That’s a fairly big increase, but we are not ready to call the bottom of the market. Here’s why:

Just as we are increasing sales and prices are rising, mortgage rates jumped 0.5% over the past two weeksMarket behavior by sales price range is very differentDaytona Beach Condos are selling below historic percentagesMortgage Rates Jump

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Daytona Beach Real Estate News - Mortgage Rates Up 1/2%

Mortgages rates are up 1/2% over the past two weeks. This is not good news for people in the market for Daytona Beach Homes or condos. The 30 year fixed conventional mortgage rate was at 5.8% two weeks ago. The rate today is 6.3%.

What does an increase of 1/2% mean when making your home buying decision. If $200,000 is financed, here’s how it breaks down:

$200,000 financed at 5.8% = $1,183.71 monthly payment
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Where to eat in Daytona Beach - When You Just Don’t Want A Chain

What do good restaurants have to do with Daytona Beach Homes for sale? Well, to me it’s very important. When looking at property, a good meal can be a good break. And after a day of looking at Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach real estate, you may be ready for a great meal.

If you’re planning a visit from out of town, these are some great restaurants to try and enjoy.

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How Do Florida Foreclosures Impact Daytona Beach Real Estate?

It’s prices not foreclosures hurting the Daytona Beach Homes market.

Foreclosures in Florida continue to headline news stories, and nationwide over 1,000,000 homes are in foreclosure. Daytona Beach Homes have been impacted, but not nearly as much as other areas in Florida.

Here are some of the numbers for comparison (1 foreclosure for every x number of homes)

Florida Foreclosure Rates for April 2008

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Daytona Beach Real Estate Market Update for June 9, 2008

Sales of Daytona Beach Homes and condos for June are lagging behind the first week of May by 13 properties (41 vs. 54). We don’t find this alarming, but, we will watch the coming weeks with interest.

Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates were up slightly for fixed conventional mortgages, while the 30 year jumbo rate was down slightly. 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) dropped slightly. We continue to emphasize our concern that mortgage rates will come under pressure unless inflationary pressures from fuel, food and government borrowing abate. We don’t see that happening soon.

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Daytona Beach Real Estate Unit Sales Up 2.9% for May

The Daytona Beach real estate sales figures for May 2008 show the highest sales since June 2007. Overall sales were up 2.9% over April which was up 27% over March meaning that we held the big gains from April. The strength of the market remains in the lower price ranges. House sales increased by 13%, while condo sales dropped by 36%.

Unit sales of residential properties for March came in at 285 properties topping 277 in April, 218 in March, 222 in February and the low point of 164 in January. Most of the properties sold were single family homes, while 37 condos were sold. Last month, 58 condos were sold. This is against the recent trend of 20-21% of condos sold of the total. The numbers say that there is more strength in the house market than in the condo market - at least in May. We’ll continue to monitor this number, but this is a 36% drop in condo sales, and, a 13% increase in house sales.

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Mortgage Rate Alert for Home Buyers

Mortgage rates moved up about 3.5% over the last week from 5.8% to 5.99%. If you are in the market for a new home or condo, or considering a purchase in the near future, you should be paying attention to the rates.

We track interest rates and other key information about Daytona Beach homes and condos weekly on my website. You can see the latest version at Daytona Beach Real Estate Market Report.

There is no reason to panic. The cost of a 0.2% increase is less than $8 per month per $100,000 borrowed. However, we believe that significant inflationary pressures are in place in the US economy. The economy is still the strongest in the world, but with high government borrowing and a weakening dollar, we may see more inflation in the next two years than we’ve seen in the last decade. We wrote a post a while back, Daytona Beach Home Buyers - Remember 1980s Interest Rates, outlining some of our concerns.

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