Stock performance shows Naples is hot

Most publicly traded homebuilders don't break out their results by metro area, so it's hard to tell how well certain areas of the Gulf Coast are faring.

But Naples-based Stock Development's recent disclosure of its sales numbers for 2012 reveals that the market recovery is for real, at least in Naples.

Privately held Stock reported that it sold 400 homes in 2012, a 32% increase over 2011. Sales reached $189 million in 2012, a 51% increase over 2011.

Because of the demand for new homes, Stock says it pushed its average sales price up nearly 14%.

Stock builds in communities in Naples such as Lely Resort, Treviso Bay, Quail West, Fiddler's Creek, Mediterra, Secoya Reserve and Black Bear Ridge. In Fort Myers, the company builds homes at a development called Paseo.

Last year, about 10,000 visitors came through Stock's sales centers. Floridians represented nearly one-third of the homebuyers and Canadians came in second with 10% of the buyers. The balance of buyers came from the Midwest and Northeast U.S.

Stock aggressively pulled back from the market early in the residential decline, but it was among the first to aggressively acquire land and build new homes at the start of the recovery.