Collier County Homes continue to surge!

The median price of an existing Collier County home reached an all-time high of a half-million dollars in August — a 26 percent increase from a year ago and the highest in Florida."I don't know if it's good or bad," real estate agent Bruce Babcock of John R. Wood Inc. Realtors said wryly. "I'm worried it'll eliminate a lot of buyers, that's all. I know we're the gem of Florida but it's getting too pricey. I'm afraid there'll be some kind of adjustment."Nationally, sales of existing homes unexpectedly surged to the second-highest level on record and prices reached an all-time high in August, spurred by job growth and interest rates within a percentage point of historic lows. The median price rose 15.8 percent to a record $220,000 and the supply of homes for sale rose from the previous month.
Prices in August for Lee and Charlotte weren't available for the monthly report issued Monday by the Florida Association of Realtors. The prices are based on data provided by local boards of Realtors. In July, the median price in Lee was $287,500 and in Charlotte it was $236,600.In Collier County, the median price — half the sales for more and half for less — was $500,800, up from $397,300 in August 2004. In July 2005, the median price was $490,400.
The next priciest areas in the state were West Palm Beach/Boca Raton at $391,600 and Fort Lauderdale at $385,600.In Collier, "There's almost nothing under $300,000 and even under $400,000," said Babcock — who last month listed and sold a beachfront house on Gordon Drive in Naples for $24.8 million, the second highest ever paid for a home in Southwest Florida.To get under $500,000 for a typical three-bedroom, two-bath house, he said, "If you were lucky, you could probably find one in Naples Park, although they've gone up to $500,000 on most of them" in the North Naples neighborhood.
More likely, he said, the prospective home buyer would have to head east to communities such as Laurel Lakes on Immokalee Road, two miles east of Interstate 75.