The Samuel Team at John R. Wood Properties is pleased to present the May 2020 Real Estate Market Report for SW Florida. In recent months, 12-month rolling closed sales have maintained a 7% to 12% lead over preceding 12-month periods. Through May, however, 12-month closed sales posted only a 1.1% lead. The reason, of course, is recent declines in closed sales due to the pandemic. Closed sales are a trailing indicator, meaning they reflect not what’s happening in the market right now, but what happened weeks or months ago. Most of May’s closed sales went under contract during the height of travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders when newly pended sales were at their lowest, so May’s closings reflect what was occurring during that time. If closed sales are a trailing indicator, how do we gauge what’s happening currently or, better yet, where the market may be headed? What’s a good leading indicator? To answer this question, we turn to newly pended sales. A sale goes “p https://issuu.c
