I enjoy reading each month the letter I receive from Sharon Davidson, president of Davidson Realty, that summarizes the most recent market conditions from NEFAR.
The report for April is very optimistic and it gives us reason to hope that we are finally seeing some light at the end of this long, six-year tunnel.
But, I'm wondering if we shouldn't remain cautious.
Some of the good news:
Pending sales were up 49 percent in April 2013 over April 2012, with 2,432 pending sales, close to 2005 peak market pending sales of 2,500.
The median sales price was up 13 percent over a year earlier to $152,000, prices were up 14 percent and the average sales price has increased 11 percent from April 2012 to $199,124.
There are reasons to be guarded however, according to the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida.
Housing financing continues to be handcuffed with 51 percent of single-family sales and 77 percent of townhome and condo sales in Florida via cash transactions, threatening a housing recovery.
This often means that investors are buying up housing stock to flip, preventing true homebuyers from making mortgage financed housing purchases. Plus flippers inflate housing prices, once again making it more difficult on true homebuyers.
According to an article in the Tampa Bay Times, Mark Vitner, a senior economist for Wells Fargo, said home ownership has continued to fall and housing prices are rising. That, Vitner said, could hurt prices when institutional investors and speculators decide to sell.
"It's hard to imagine we had a sustainable recovery in housing underway when we have fewer homeowners," said Vitner.
While housing starts continue to increase in Florida, a forecasted 171,500 starts in 2016 will still be 32,000 less than in 2006.
Like most people, I prefer to see the glass as more than half full. I'm an optimist by nature, and I believe having a reason for hope is very important.
Having a strong housing market in Jacksonville does not just depend on available stock, modest interest rates and reasonable prices. Our quality of life and ability to compete with other cities will have a lot to do with the strength of the real estate market as we move forward.
That's why, after reviewing the recently released JAX2025 report, I believe the 2,000 citizens who helped stitch together the 10 "Vision Targets" to make Jacksonville a great city give us hope that people thinking about our future.
I think private citizens outlining a 2025 vision for Jacksonville's future is very important to builders and real estate professionals.
Certainly, there will be more people wanting to move here and much more of a demand for real estate if we have an even greater city 10-12 years from now than we do today.
JAX2025 began when 14,000 people responded to a Jacksonville Community Council Inc. online survey asking what they liked about Jacksonville, what they are concerned about and what they plan to do about it.
Now that the report has been issued, the next step is an implementation meeting scheduled June 26.
All the hard work and thought, facilitated by JCCI, is not an exercise for the people who sat at the round tables during four Saturday sessions to discuss our future.
Instead, the results are intended for the youngest among us who will be taking their places on the Jacksonville stage in 2025 and beyond.
Will those young people be drawn to remain here to raise their own families, become our contractors, builders, real estate agents, teachers, first responders, doctors, lawyers, and business and political leaders?
Or will they look elsewhere for something better?
We live in a pretty nice city. It's not like we have to start from scratch to become great.
We have a good foundation upon which to build the city envisioned by those who came together beginning last September to create JAX2025.
It's the promise of the 2025 plan that Jacksonville will grow and change "in ways according to our ideals and values," says J.F. Bryan IV, chair of the JCCI board of directors.
There's certainly no guarantee that will happen, but if we can find strong leaders for the future and keep people engaged in the details of this report, we have a better chance of being that kind of city because of the work done thus far.
In many ways, the 10 outcomes are predictable. They read like "apple pie," i.e., platitudes that any person with knowledge of Jacksonville could have written without all of this fuss.
But that's the real point, isn't it?
There was a lot of fuss around developing the targets for JAX2025.
This was not created by a single individual from a perch on high.
Instead, it's the product of the collective minds of people who care enough about Jacksonville to show up for meetings on Saturday morning and talk about how we make our city the best it can be for our children and grandchildren.
Without continuous citizen engagement, powerful institutional support and strong leaders who embrace these visions, I fear that in a few years JAX2025 will become just another failed plan.
We can't allow that to happen.
— Jim Bailey is publisher of Realty/Builder Connection and president of Bailey Publishing & Communications Inc. He can be reached at [email protected].