As a increase of new sellers joined the market in January, there was evidence of rising confidence in the Naples housing market. According to the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which records property listings and sales in Collier County, new listings increased in January by 74.5 percent compared to December 2022 and by 3.2 percent to 1,338 new listings from 1,297 new listings a year earlier (excluding Marco Island). Nonetheless, despite the increase in housing alternatives in January, property values continued to rise, with the median closing price rising 11.1 percent to $600,000 from $540,000 in January 2022.
The good news is that single-family homes and condominiums are equally represented among the new properties that are hitting the market, according to Mike Hughes, vice president and general manager of Downing-Frye Realty, Inc. Since January of last year, inventory in both of these locations has increased, giving buyers wanting to buy in either sector this year much more possibilities.

From 839 homes in January 2022 to 555 homes in January 2023, closed sales fell by 33.8%. Nonetheless, the surge in new listings is a positive development as it increased inventory in January by 122.7 percent, from 1,212 properties in January 2022 to 2,699 properties in 2019. Optimistic broker analysts who are studying the report say it might lead to a better-than-anticipated winter house purchasing season.

According to broker associate at Downing-Frye Realty and NABOR® President Nick Bobzien, inventory increased by almost 10% between December and January. Buyers were enthusiastic to see fresh listings come on the market and took advantage of the opportunity, as demonstrated by the enormous increase in pending sales over the same period, with the number of showings nearly doubling in January 2023 compared to December 2022.

When the new year got underway, pending sales recovered after seven months of equable activity. In fact, January’s pending sales were noticeably greater than those in December (682), January 2019 (660), and January 2020 (660). (892). Although pending sales in January declined 20.5 percent from 1,373 pending sales in January 2022 to 1,092 pending sales this month, they still outperformed last January’s record-breaking sales activity.

Budge Huskey, CEO of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, said, “Looking at sales over the last 12 months, the current report shows a whole category of homes [those under $500,000] are practically gone and will likely never come back to levels we experienced before the pandemic.”

In January, the repressed demand was obvious. While showings were 20 percent lower in January 2022 than in January 2021, they were almost twice as high as in December. Of course, the 1,092 price reductions announced in January also played a role in the rise in contracts (pending sales), as they reduced the overall percentage of current list price value to 95.8 percent, a decline of 4.2 percent from 100 percent in January 2022.

According to Wes Kunkle, President and Managing Broker of Kunkle International Realty, “Investors were first to start lowering home prices in January and this helped prompt an upsurge in sales for the month.”