The Mandel Team Real Estate Blog

What's going on in the South Florida real estate market?

Hey, it's Andy with the Mandel Team at Remax, and I'm here to bring you your March, 2023 Housing Market Update.

As always, for the purposes of these videos, we're gonna be talking about single family homes only in Boca, Parkland, and Coral Springs. That's where our team does the predominant amount of our business. And when we talk about these homes, we're talking about single family homes only. No condos, no townhouses, all ages, and no country clubs.

Now, when we're giving you these stats, we're trying to give you the leading indicators of what's happening in the market now, so you know what's going to happen in the very near future, not the lagging indicators that you sometimes hear from the media.

When the media talks about closed sales price, they're really talking about something that happened sometimes 30, 60, even 90 days ago. Because if a property closed in February of 2023, it likely went under contract in January or December of 2022. And the market right now is very different than December of 2022.

Not only that, in the media, when you hear these stats of what's going on, they're talking about national stats most likely.

I'm giving you what's going on right here in South Florida.

If you're buying a home in South Florida, you want to know what the stats are here because every market's gonna be different. And South Florida is very different than a lot of other areas across the country. So let's get into it.

The first stat we like to look at is the number of new listings hitting the market.

Now, this is varying city by city in Boca, we are down 22% compared to this time last year, Parkland we're down 62% from this time last year, and Coral Springs is down 51% year over year in the number of new listings hitting the market.

That's the supply.

And when you think about it, almost everyone who had a mortgage refinanced to a very, very low rate when rates were really low. So most of the homeowners have rates in the two to 3% range.

It's gonna take a lot to get someone who has a 2.9% mortgage. To wanna sell their home and, you know, upgrade to something and pay today's current rates. So it's asked to be expected.

I would think that the number of new homes hitting the market is down. Supply is down. At the same time demand is down, but not at the same pace of supply.

So the number of pending sales going off the market, that is down 8.5% in Boca, 43.1% in Parkland, and down 27% in Coral Springs. So we're definitely seeing fewer homes selling, but supply is down more than demand. Meaning demand is higher than supply.

When you see demand higher than supply, it's the similar scenario to what we saw all through covid that typically lends its way to higher prices, bidding wars, and we're really starting to see that, and we are seeing it on our team a lot. The homes that are priced correctly are still getting multiple offers.

It's crazy how wildly different the market actually is from what people think it is and what they hear in the media.

Multiple offer situations and bidding wars, that's back for well-priced houses. Again, well-priced.

They have to be adjusted to today's market price, not last summer's market price. But if it's updated and if it's priced correctly, we're still seeing it sell very, very quickly.

So that takes us to the next stat we like to talk about, which is the days on market.

Now, the average days on market is 54 days. Last year. This time it was 10 days, so that's up 344%.

Now, right now, I think this is a very skewed stat because there's a lot of sellers who are still trying to get last summer's prices. And if you're way overpriced, the homes are gonna sit on the market a lot longer.

We just put a townhouse listing in Coral Springs under contract one day. It was the first buyer who came through. They wrote an offer above the asking price, and it was basically too good to be true. They gave my sellers everything they were looking for.

So days on market really depends on how the property is marketed, you know?

How did the realtor take professional pictures and video? Did they do all that kind of stuff? And was it priced correctly? But on average right now, it's taking a lot longer to sell a house than it did last year.

Now, the next stat we'd like to look at is the close price to the original list price.

So this factors in price reductions and things like that. So the close price to original list price ratio right now on average across the three cities is 93.2%.

Last year it was a hundred percent.

So again, a lot of sellers are still priced higher than where they should be, and they're having price reductions and they're negotiating.

So buyers, if you see a home, there is a strong likelihood that you're gonna be able to negotiate. Depending on how it's priced, will determine how much negotiating room you really have. But on average, 93.2% was the close price to the original list price last month in February of 2023.

Now, the last stat we like to look at is the number of months supply of inventory.

This tells us if we're in a buyer's market or a seller's market. Anything less than six months of inventory is considered a seller's market. Anything with six months or more is considered a buyer's market.

Now, right now in Boca, we are at 3.67 months of inventory. During Covid, just about everything was around one month of inventory.

So there's wildly more inventory available in Boca, compared to what we were seeing in Covid Parkland is just 0.22 months. So that is about as strong of a seller's market as you can get.

There's just not a lot of people listing their home for sale in Parkland, so there's really low inventory making it a seller's market.

Coral Springs is 1.71 months of inventory.

Again in Coral Springs, we were seeing about half a month to, you know, three quarters of a month. Three weeks worth of inventory. During Covid, we're still under two months, so that's still, even in Boca, that's still a seller's market for just about all three cities, and it is a seller's market for all three cities.

But it feels more like a buyer's market if the property needs a lot of work, and if it's not marketed correctly and not priced correctly. So again, I hate to beat a dead horse, but it really just depends on how these homes are priced.

The sellers who are realistic, they know they're not getting last summer's pricing, and they adjust down to where today's current market is, and it's not terribly lower than where it was, you know, five to 8% depending on the city.

If you're below where it was last summer by you know, 8%, you're still selling your home really, really quickly. So the market is good for motivated real sellers who understand that the pricing today is different than it was for buyers.

It's a good opportunity to be looking at homes that have been on the market 60 days, 90 days, a hundred days. If you want to deal, look at these properties that have been sitting on the market for a very long time.

Those sellers, either they're not motivated and they're never gonna sell, or they just don't wanna reduce the price. But maybe if they get an offer, you know, they'll negotiate then.

There's gonna be a lot more wiggle room in these homes that have been sitting on the market for a very, very long time then there will be for some of these new listings.

So if you're a buyer looking for a deal in today's market, That's what I would be doing.

I would be only looking at homes that have been for sale for at least three months or more.

So that's the market update for March of 2023.

If you have any questions on how this affects you, your home buying process, or if you're thinking about selling a home, remember we got your back when moving in South Florida.