Amelia Island Nassau Co. Assoc. Realtors
May 27, 2020
During our “Safer at Home” shutdown, there was a breath-taking pause on economic activity for our county and indeed our entire nation. Our Florida shutdown began on Friday, April 3 and coincided with what is traditionally our busy, annual, spring real estate season. Due to uncertainty surrounding the virus, many potential buyers and sellers put their real estate plans on hold. Because real estate, title services and lending were all considered “essential services”, transactions continued to take place. Agents here continued to serve clients by becoming very creative with virtual showings of their listings via Facetime, Zoom and video walk-throughs. Other aspects of real estate employed strategies such as socially distanced closings.
As we look ahead at the national economic recovery, Florida’s re-emergence into a “new normal” and our Nassau County community get back to business over the coming weeks, real estate will likely emerge as a leading indicator for how things are progressing. Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief Economists for CoreLogic ( a leading provider of consumer, financial and property data, analytics and services to business and government) tweeted: “For the first 6 decades after WWII, the housing sector led the rest of the economy out of each recession. Expect to do so this time as well.” Optimism for this is vested in the pent up demand for housing. Additionally, , mortgage interest rates fell to a new record low hitting 3.23% the week ending April 20, 2020.
With these factors in mind, here are our local numbers for April 2020, prepared by the Florida Association of Realtors from data submitted by our Amelia Island Nassau Co. Assoc. Realtors:
Countywide, there were 142 single-family residential sales, an increase of 11.8% from 2019. 25% of the closed sales were for cash which was also up 24% year over year. The median sales price in our county in April was $331,500 which is 7.3% higher than last year. The average sales price of a home was just slightly higher as well at $386,376 which was up 2.9% from last year. Homes in Nassau County sold at 98.2% of their original list price. The average number of days on the market for homes in our county was 40 which was 21% faster than April of 2019. Interestingly, it was also 47 days faster than in March of this year. The number of homes that went under contract during April was down sharply by 31% year over year and coincided with a sharp decrease in the number of homes being put on the market, down 42% from last year. Not surprisingly, the month’s supply of inventory was down locally to 3.8 months. The benchmark for a neutral market (not favoring buyers or sellers) is 5.5 months worth of inventory. In April of 2020, there were no closings reported as short sales or foreclosures for the $54.9 million dollars of real estate that changed hands here in Nassau. The vast majority of transactions (97 of 142 homes) involved properties priced between $250,000 and $599,000.
Editor’s Note: We thank Elizabeth Huben and the Amelia Island Nassau Co. Association of Realtors for providing this information.