The season for growth kicked off with solid sales at Neal Communities, one of southwest Florida’s premier, private homebuilders, with 96 home sales in March and 306 total sales for its first quarter. Last month, Trulia reported that national housing inventory hit its lowest level on record in the first three months of the year – down 5.1 percent from this time last year. Forty-four of the builder’s 96 home sales last month were move-in ready inventory homes. Overall, 45 percent of total sales in 2016 were inventory homes. Grand Palm, the builder’s master-planned community in Venice, Fla. continued its leading sales position for the builder with 16 new homes sales in March. Another popular community for the builder is the 1,000-acre gated community of Boca Royale Golf & Country Club in Englewood. With five new models unveiled last month, Boca Royale welcomed seven new home buyers. The Estuary, Neal Communities’ newest neighborhood in West Bradenton, began offering presales to its VIP list last month, which resulted in eight new home sales, and will officially open with a new model in May. Neal South, the company’s division covering Lee and Collier Counties, experienced a noticeable uptick in March with 31 sales, a more than 50 percent increase for the region compared to February. In 2016, Neal Communities broke all of the company’s previous sales records, ending the year with 1,109 sales and 1,129 closings totaling over $430 million in communities from Hillsborough to Collier counties, representing a 13 percent increase in closings compared to 2015.

Neal Communities