September 1 - Downtown St Petersburg has 162 condos actively on the market, a drop of 10% from July. The only price range that has increased inventory is the $500,000 to $1 Million range. The number of closings dropped significantly from 13 to 3. More relevant, though, is the number of condos that actually went to contract, and that stayed the same as last month, with 6 condos going under contract.

Using the number of condos going to contract we have a 27 month supply - that's a lot better than using closed sales which would give us a 54 month supply. The hottest price range is the $250,000 - $500,000 range which has only an 8.8 month supply.

2/3 of the contracts were for new construction, in the Sage, right in the hottest price range. Of the resales, Bayfront Tower again topped the group, with 75% of the resale contracts, again all in that hottest price range of $250,000 - $500,000. The remaining one was in the Vinoy, in the $1-2 Million range.  It's obvious that the upper end luxury buyers weren't spoending August here in the heat!

There were 3 closed sales in August, and none of them were new construction: one in The Beacon, one in Parkshore Plaza, and one in Vinoy Place.

The Grand Bohemian showed up in Withdrawn condo listings, as the Kessler Group decided to eliminate the condominiums they were going to build on top of the Grand Bohemian Hotel. Their timing was just wrong and they lacked enough presales to go forward with that portion. Kessler did get an extension of the Start Construction Time from the City of St. Petersburg, and Kessler does plan to continue with construction of the hotel. We should know more by April of 2009.

The downtown condos that were completed in 2007 still haven't completely sold out, and that's across price points. Due to a declining market, difficult economic times, and increasing financing scrutiny, many buyers have walked away from their deposits, leaving the developers with unsold condominium units.