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FORT MYERS -- Home price appreciation is slowing down in many parts of the country, but not in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers market, where median home prices have doubled since 2010.
Buying a home in Lee County typically cost $151,500 in February, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. That's a 102% increase over the median price reported in November 2010 of $74,900 -- the fourth largest growth in the nation behind Detroit; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and San Francisco.
Cape Coral and Fort Myers were the only Florida cities to have such a boost from the market bottom, with half the top 10 list coming from California.
Yet, home price appreciation is starting to cool off elsewhere. The U.S. median home price in February increased 14% from a year ago, but was flat from the previous month at $183,000, RealtyTrac says. The median price of distressed homes -- those in the foreclosure process or bank-owned -- jumped 13%, but was still 33% below the median sales price of non-distressed properties.
“Inventory of distressed properties is drying up in many markets, even while demand for those properties -- which typically fall into the target market for both investors and first-time homebuyers -- is ramping up,” says Daren Blomquist, a vice president of the Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, in a release. “That is in turn resulting in nationwide home prices skewing higher as a smaller share of homes sell at the lower end of the market.”
Home price appreciation in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market slowed from 20% a year ago to 10% last month, listing among the top appreciation declines in the nation. Tampa-St. Petersburg, however, is going to the other way, finishing among the top 10 markets in the nation where appreciation continues to climb -- from 11% in 2014, to 12% this past February.
The RealtyTrac home price appreciation report looked at areas with a population of 500,000 or more. It's pulled from recorded sales deeds where the home price is included on such deeds, or from median list prices from states that don't provide that information on deeds.
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