South Florida Housing Market Update [March 2022]

Hey, it's Andy with the Mandel team at Remax, and I'm here to bring you your March, 2022 housing market update.

As always, for the purposes of this video, we're gonna be giving you the leading indicators, showing you where the real estate market is headed, not where it's been. So we're not gonna talk about lagging indicators like closed sales price, 'cause if something closed last month, it really went under contract 30, 60, maybe even 90 days ago. So that's really what the real estate market was doing a few months ago. I'm gonna show you what's going on right now so you know where the real estate market is headed in the future so you can make an informed decision for your family. Now in this video, we're gonna be talking about single-family homes only in Boca, Parkland, and Coral Springs. So no country clubs, no townhouses, no 55 and over communities. Let's get into it.

So the first stat we like to look at is the supply or the number of new listings that hit the market. Now between those three cities on average, that is up 17% compared to the same time last year. So we're seeing more homes hit the market in February year over year, which is great because we really desperately need the new homes hitting the market. There's just not a lot for sale, but at the same time, the demand is also up 16%. So we have 16% more homes going under contract this month, excuse me, last month in February of 2022, compared to February of 2021. So supply is up, but demand is up just about the same amount. So everything that's coming on the market as to be expected in this low inventory environment, it's all getting snapped up and going under contracts. The homes are flying off the market.

This brings us to our next stat, which is the number of days it took a property to sell. On average, across all three cities, that was only 10 days. Now that feels like an eternity. I know and if you've been looking for a home, I'm sure you've seen it too. In reality, if the home is priced well, it's really only on the market for, you know, one, two, maybe three days and it's probably because that agent didn't change the status to pending for a couple days when they're going through inspections. I really think that these homes are going under contract in just two or three days is really more like it, at least from my experience.

So the last stat we like to look at is the number of months supply of inventory. So what this stat shows us is that at the current pace of sales, how long would it take for all of the properties that are on the market to come off the market and sell? They say six months is a balanced market, anything less is a seller's market, anything more is a buyer's market. Currently on average, between all three cities, we're at 0.81 months of inventory. So less than one month of inventory is a super strong seller's market. Nothing has really changed here month over month. This is one of the lowest numbers we've seen in a very long time. If you're out there looking for homes, I'm sure you're seeing it. There's not a lot that's out there and because of that, with such high demand that's out there, the listings that do hit the market are selling very, very quickly. So because it's a strong seller's market, you need to be prepared if you're gonna be a buyer so let's talk about that.

If you're buying, you need to do everything you can to make your offer as competitive as possible. We're highly encouraging our buyers go all the way through underwriting with your lender and write your offer as cash, if you can. So that means you're not writing it with a financing contingency and most likely you're gonna be willing to offer a certain dollar amount over appraised value to get your offer accepted. That's really what's going on in this market is the buyers who are getting these offers, they are willing to pay a certain dollar amount. It depends on the price range, 10, 15, 20. I'm seeing people pay a lot more than that over appraised value or at least offering to pay that if the appraisal comes in lower. So you really gotta have a decent amount of cash right now to be a competitive buyer. What does this mean if you're a seller? If you're putting your home on the market, there's a very high likelihood that you're going to get more than what the property is worth 'cause buyers are saying in their offers, if the property appraises for $500,000, I'll give you $20,000 more than that. So we're able to sell your hundred dollar bill for $120. That's a really good deal if you're a seller. This is a great time to sell a property.

So if you own multiple properties, investment properties, if you're thinking about cashing in, now is the time. There's such high demand. Properties are selling for prices that I'm sure you couldn't even believe. This is the time to cash in on that. So if you're thinking about selling in this market, give us a call, shoot us a text, send us an email. We have buyers in just about every single price range for every kind of property, waiting. We can make this a really, really easy deal for you and give it to our buyers as an off-market opportunity and still get you a very, very good price. If you're a buyer, it's all about who you know in this market. We're able to do a lot of deals off-market or our offers are getting accepted because we have a great relationship with a lot of the good agents in this area. So we've been very successful with getting our buyers offers accepted when a lot of agents are not having success. So if you are not having the great experience that you want with another agent, feel free to give us a call. We'd love to show you what we can do to position you differently and try to get you that house. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you next month.