Florida reported a year-over-year increase in single-family home sales for the first time since January – a rise of 2.8 percent in June.
This is a change in tone from the recent downward trend in the state’s struggling housing market, according to the latest data by Florida Realtors.
Falling prices might have helped: in June, the median sale price of a single-family home in the Sunshine State was $412,000, down 3.5 percent from a year earlier though still up a staggering 46 percent from 2020.
While it is too early to call this a market shift, experts believe this small increase could indicate that buyers are coming around to the current challenges facing them, including rising costs and historically elevated mortgage rates.
Florida experienced a housing boom during the pandemic, when the rise of remote work allowed hundreds of thousands of people to relocate to the state. The explosion in demand resulted in house prices booming to unprecedented highs.
Over the past couple of years, Florida built more new homes than any other state in the country in an attempt to meet demand. But in the meantime, as mortgage rates suddenly shot to 6-7 percent and employers started issuing return-to-office orders, demand cooled down.
The Sunshine State—especially its most overheated markets—has found itself with more homes for sale than buyers are willing to purchase under the current situation. Facing dwindling interest and falling sales, sellers in Florida have increasingly slashed their asking prices in recent months, while some markets—like Tampa—are reporting double-digit+ price drops.
