Halloween is next week, so as you’re decorating your home with spooky and creepy stuff from the Dollar Store, think about the spine-chilling increase in population right here in Manatee County.
There’s a good reason why the traffic on the roads never seems to take a break and why your favorite doctors are all of a sudden working weeks out for an appointment. So far this year, the population of Manatee County is reported as 429,125. We grew by 29,420 in three years, per the U.S. Census. In April of 2010, the population was 322,833 per the U.S. Census, an increase of over 100,000 residents in not quite 13 years. Manatee County is the 15th most populated county in Florida out of 67 counties.
The above numbers, of course, do not include the scary number of visitors and part-time residents flowing into Manatee County every year. They also do not include the many thousands of residents that will be added to the county when the large construction projects are completed.
Lake Flores, Aqua by the Bay and Peninsula Bay, all on the southwest side of the county near or on the bay are already being developed or getting ready to start. The east and southeast sides of the county are exploding with plans for new subdivisions with good access to the interstate. In addition, all this construction is coming on the heels of the construction of both a new Cortez Bridge and Anna Maria Island Bridge. Are you scared yet?
Selling a property always involves disclosing anything that can be a material change to the value of the property. This usually involves structural issues not obviously observed and even appliances and air conditioning and heating systems. And, since we’re in scary season, you will be happy to know that you don’t need to disclose if your house is haunted, or if there was a murder or death in the home.
Also, there is no obligation I could find that a homeowner must disclose construction projects near the property, even if that construction could be a nuisance. Nevertheless, everything you know should be disclosed. This is not only the right thing to do, but it will also protect you as a seller from potential future lawsuits.
At least one thing that’s not haunted this Halloween is the September sales reported by the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee.
Single-family homes closed 46.9% more properties than in September of last year. The median sale price was $503,495, down 2.6%, and the average sale price was $661,608, up 6.0%. The median time to contract was 29 days versus 19 days last year, and the month’s supply of available properties was 2.9 versus 2.7 last year.
Condos closed 48.6% more properties. The median sale price was $350,000, up 3.9%, and the average sale price was $402,480, up 0.3%. The median time to contract was 46 days versus 15 days and the month’s supply of properties was 3.3 months versus 1.9 days last year.
One interesting statistic in the September report is that cash sales are up for both single-family homes, 38.3%, and for condos, 58.3%. I suspect this has a lot to do with the high interest rates on new mortgages.
The Association of Realtors sums up the market this way, “While closed sales registered an unusually high year-over-year growth, median prices stayed relatively stable.”
Spooky or not, those are the numbers that reflect sales transactions booked during the slow summer months. We’ll see how that changes when we get into the selling season. Happy Halloween.