South Florida Housing Market Update [October 2022]

Hey, it's Andy with the Mandel Team at Remax and I'm here to bring you your October 2022 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. Those are the areas where our team does the predominant amount of our business. And we’re gonna be giving you the leading indicators showing you what’s going on in the real estate market right now not where it's been. So let’s get into it.

The first stat we’d like to look at is the number of new listings hitting the market. And despite what you may be hearing on the news, new listings in our area in September compared to September of 2021 were actually down 25%. At the same time, the number of pending sales on the market is down 23%. So fewer homes hitting the market, but definitely fewer homes selling because there are less buyers who are looking these days.

As you can imagine with pending sales down, the days on market is going up. And on average, it’s taking 29 days to sell a house which is up from 10 days this same time last year. That’s a 184% increase in the amount of time it takes to sell a home. So if you’re a seller, don’t get freaked out when it’s taking you 30, 45 days to sell your home. It no longer takes 3 or 4 seconds and you're getting 17 offers. That's just not the market that we're in anymore. The close price to original list price is the next stat that we wanna look at. So what this factors in is the price reductions, and credits, and anything like that, that sellers are giving to buyers to make deals happen. And right now, thus close price to the original list price is 93.7%. That's down 5.8% from this time last year. So this is showing that sellers are now being forced to be much more flexible on pricing and credits for inspections.

The last stat we’d like to look at is the Months Supply of Inventory. I think this is one of the most important stats. This tells us if we’re in a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. Anything less than 6 months of inventory is a seller’s market, anything more is a buyer’s market.

Right now, we’re at 2.83 months of inventory. This time last year was just over one month of inventory, give or take. So we’re almost triple the amount of inventory from this time last year. Part of that is because there’s more homes on the market, a little bit, a lot of it’s just because homes aren’t selling so quickly, they’re sitting longer. So at any point in time, there’s more to choose from, which is why buyers, it’s a good time for you if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines and you wanna get into the market.

There’s a lot more to choose from now than there’s been in anytime over the last two years. And you don’t have to do all the crazy things that buyers were doing in the last two years to get a home. Right now, sellers are giving closing cost credits, they’re paying for 2-1 interest rate buydowns, they’re negotiating. It’s just a much better time to be a buyer. You can take your time, you don’t have to be the first one in the home the second it hits the market and bid, you know, $30,000 above the asking price or anything crazy that you’ve heard over the last couple of years. It’s a much better time now to be a buyer.

Now, if you’re a seller, let’s talk about what this means. Well you gotta be pin-point accurate with your pricing. What I’ve really seen from, in our experience, since about May, is that if homes were, you know, overpriced even by a small amount of money, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, they’re sitting on the market for a very long time. They’re negotiating down, and you’re having to do price reductions versus if you price the home competitively to begin with. It’s just a different market than it was two years ago, last year so you can’t have the same pricing expectations that people last year had doesn’t mean you’re home can’t sell it just means you gotta be in line with current market trends.

So, instead of being the highest home in the neighborhood, look at where the comps are, be right there, maybe slightly below it to factor in the slowing market, and you’ll still be able to sell as long as you priced accordingly. If you try to, well, let’s start high we can always come down and have price reductions later. That’s exactly what’s gonna happen. It’s gonna sit on the market for a while, you’re going to have a price reduction, and then buyers smell blood in the water, they’re coming at you with low-ball offers, or worse, it just doesn’t sell because buyers are wondering what’s wrong with it because you’ve been on the market for 30, 45 days. It’s just not the right strategy in this market. You’re much better off pricing the home competitively to begin with.

So if you have any questions about how these market stats affect you, what’s going on in your hyperlocal neighborhood, either where you live or where you’re looking to buy, give us a call, shoot us a text, or send us an email. We got your back when moving in South Florida!