Real estate sales in the Puerto Vallarta/Riviera Nayarit for the first quarter of 2019 are so far been reporting down about 30% compared to the first quarter of 2018. Overall volume is down 22%, showing that prices are up, but overall numbers of sales is down.
The reasoning for this could very well be because of the economic downturn experienced in December of last year. Realtors reports that many prospective purchasers were holding off moving forward with purchasing until the saw what the markets were going to do. That may have been enough to delay sales in the first quarter, moving them up into the 2nd quarter of this year. We’ll have to wait and see for that, however realtors have reports that activity did increase in January as the markets returned back up to previous highs.
A second reason could be the lag in reporting - sales that may have been taking place at the end of the month may still not have been reported into the system. To be most accurate, it is best to review the statistics again a month later, or at the end of April, as the numbers will most likely increase.
And a third reason is that the first quarter of 2018 was an exceptional year, probably one of the best the regions has ever seen. It may be that it is difficult for the market to keep up those types of numbers and the market is returning to more normalized conditions.
Brock Squire of Coldwell Banker La Costa seems to agree. “There was definitely a lag effect from the beginning of November that was attributable to the mid-terms in the U.S., which was further exasperated with the uncertainty surrounding the Fed, and finally the government shut-down. Since mid/end of January, however, sales and volume have definitely rebounded, which will be seen in the numbers over the next 60 days or so."
