Geri and Bob Quinn

We are traveling out of state on family business this week, so this is an updated version of a column we wrote on Dec. 11, 2020, discussing how we track the real estate market statistics specifically for Cape Coral, along with how to quickly identify the information that is most pertinent to your specific situation. We will be back next week with the updated market data and statistics for the Cape’s single family home market for the month of April.

We pull our market data from the Multiple Listing Service provided through our local Royal Palm Coast Realtors Association for properties listed, bought and sold through Realtors. We isolate the information from the MLS specifically for Cape Coral, separating the data for single-family homes and condominiums, before compiling it and then analyzing and comparing it across various time frames and property segments. We wait until at least the 15th of each month before pulling the market numbers for the previous month because some of the MLS data can change quite a bit prior to mid-month due to late reporting, updates and corrections. We also update our data every month to stay current with any adjustments made in the MLS throughout the year. Also, from time-to-time, we will analyze the Cape’s vacant residential lot market, along with taking a closer look at our high-end luxury home and condo segments. We also provide occasional snapshots about other areas of Southwest Florida, such as Fort Myers, Sanibel-Captiva, Pine Island, Naples or Lee and Collier county.

We generally focus on three primary market statistics each month, which include the number of closed sales, the median sales prices and the monthly supply of unsold homes. We show these numbers separately for our overall single-family home market and our condominium market, which provides a broad market overview and then we break these numbers down more specifically into the four primary property segments in the Cape. These four specific property segments for single-family homes include indirect gulf access canal homes (boaters have bridges in the canal system), direct sailboat access canal homes (boaters have no bridges in the canal system), freshwater canal homes (landlocked canals with no access out to the Gulf of Mexico) and finally, dry lot (non-canal) homes.

When it comes to our condominium market, we also provide information about the broader overall condo market in the Cape, along with a more specific breakdown into three additional, more specific segments. Since our condo market is much smaller than our single-family home market, we do not include a segment for freshwater canal condos and we track our “saltwater” condos differently than we do with our much larger single-family home market. Our condo segments are broken down into gulf access condos (includes all “saltwater” access condo properties), direct sailboat canal condos (a subgroup of gulf access canal condos that have no bridges in the canal system) and dry lot (non-canal) condos.

Because of the increasingly tight inventory this year, we also started providing updates about the number of active listings and the price ranges for these active listings, along with updates about properties that are currently under contract with buyers as pending sales. Since most pending sales will become closed sales sometime within 30 to 60 days after they go under contract with a buyer, this information helps to provide a snapshot of the future near-term sales trends. We do not include foreclosures and short sales in our numbers, unless otherwise noted, because they remain a very small portion of our recent market, although that could change after the COVID-19 mortgage forbearance program comes to an end.

From a statistical standpoint, we measure the most recently concluded month of this year versus the same month from a year ago, and we also compare it to the prior month of this year. This let’s us analyze the trends based on the year-over-year and month-over-month changes in our market. As an example, sometime on or shortly after May 15, we will pull the specific data for the Cape Coral real estate market from the MLS for the recently completed month of April, and separate it by each property segment. Then we compile the results so we can compare it to April of last year and to March of this year, while analyzing the trends versus the historical market data we have collected. We also compare the year-to-date market data every month, so sometime after May 15, we will compile the numbers for the first four months of 2021, and compare them to the numbers for the first four months of 2020, updating this data each month throughout the year. We do the same thing after the end of each quarter throughout the year, comparing the data from the most recently completed quarter to both the same quarter from the previous year and to the results from the prior quarter. Looking at these various time frames can help us to identify any developing changes in the market trends as they occur throughout the year.

We realize all of these statistics for each property segment can come across as an overwhelming read for some people. Because of that, we have structured our column in a way that makes it easy to take several short cuts to the specific information that applies to your situation. First, we typically begin the column with a brief overview of the important “takeaways,” to give you a quick snapshot of the current market conditions, statistics and trends. Then we provide information about the overall market in Cape Coral, followed by the details for each specific property segment. So if you are only interested in non-canal properties, you can just skip down to the heading for “dry lot” homes or condos to get the information you need and bypass the information that is not pertinent to your situation.

As far as the property segments are concerned, we find that a lot of “market experts” take a general broad based brush to the market statistics, which can oftentimes present misleading and inaccurate market data in a city such as Cape Coral because of our uniquely different property types. Although we are currently in a very low inventory seller’s market in each of our property segments, there have been numerous times in the past when our overall market conditions have been “neutral,” meaning that neither a buyer nor a seller had any distinct advantages in negotiating the price and terms of the sale of a home or condo. But at the very same time, our saltwater canal home segments actually had a much higher level of unsold supply, placing these segments in a higher inventory “buyer’s market,” thus giving buyers a negotiating advantage. While at the same time, the dry lot home segment actually had a much lower level of unsold supply, placing it in a lower inventory “seller’s market,” giving seller’s an upper hand in the negotiations over buyers. By analyzing the Cape’s market based on each specific property segment, both buyers and sellers will have more accurate information upon which to base their decisions when negotiating a deal.

Any sales data for this article was obtained from the Florida Realtors Multiple Listing Service Matrix for Lee County, Fla., as of May 17, 2021. It was compiled by Bob and Geri Quinn and it includes information specifically for Cape Coral single-family homes, and does not include condominiums, short sales or foreclosures, unless otherwise noted. The information, data and statistics are believed to be reliable, however, they could be updated and revised periodically, and are subject to change without notice. The Quinns are a husband and wife real estate team with the RE/MAX Realty Team office in Cape Coral. They have lived in Cape Coral for over 41 years. Geri has been a full-time Realtor since 2005, and Bob joined Geri as a full-time Realtor in 2014. Their real estate practice is mainly focused on Cape Coral residential property and vacant lots.