The Cape Coral, FL market saw a drop in new home sales year-over-year in October, and there were signals of weakening market conditions with a percentage fall steeper than that of September 2011. Sales slumped 16.3% from a year earlier to 118, relative to a 15.3% drop in September from the year earlier.

A total of 1,674 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in October, down from 1,697 for the year that ended in September.

As a percentage of overall housing sales, new home sales accounted for 6.5% of overall housing sales. New home sales were 6.2% of overall sales last year. Sales of new and existing homes dropped year-over-year in October after also falling in September year-over-year.

For newly sold homes, there was a 3.4% rise year-over-year of average price in October, moving to $246,304. This is a swing up from the 1.8% decline in September from a year earlier.

For newly sold homes, average mortgage size moved from $171,575 in October 2010 to $171,265 in October 2011. In September 2011, average mortgage size rose 6.4% from a year earlier. Of the overall sale price, the percentage that was being financed slipped 2.5 percentage points year-over-year to 69.5% in October 2011. This came after a 5.8 percentage point rise in September from a year earlier.

Single-family homes accounted for a greater percentage of new home sales than last year. Single-family home sales jumped from 60.3% of new sales in October 2010 to 74.6% of sales in October 2011. At the same time, the share of new home sales belonging to attached units slid to 25.4% of sales from 39.7% of sales.

There was a 1.4% rise year-over-year in the average unit size of newly sold homes to 2,018 square feet in October 2011. An increase in both the average size and price of newly sold homes was also seen in September 2011 when the average size increased 7.3% to 2,051 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales declined in October from a year earlier, but remained a drag on the market. Together, foreclosures plus REO sales represented 49.1% of existing home sales, down from 70.0% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures fell to 25.0% in October from 35.3% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales declined to 24.1% from 34.7% a year earlier.

Please refer to the ABOUT THIS MSA tab to learn more about geographic coverage and data availability in this market area.