The Lamacchia Realty South Florida Housing Report presents overall home sale statistics and highlights the average sale prices for single families, condominiums/townhomes in Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County for October 2021 compared to October 2020. It also looks at other metrics like New Listings and New Pending Sales as they are often the best indicators for predicting future trends in the market. 2019 will be examined in some areas to highlight the lingering impact of COVID in real estate.
COVID-19 shutdowns were put in place in late spring last year, which subsequently negatively impacted closed sales in mid-summer of 2020 which in turn caused a delayed increase in demand in fall of 2020. That is part of the reason that we go back to 2019 so that we can get a better comparison.
The inventory crisis last year caused demand to spike higher than ever by fall into winter, which in turn caused prices to continue to increase significantly. This rise has continued to present day without reason to expect they’ll decrease any time soon, though the hope is that the rate of increase will slow down.
Broward County
Broward County prices increased, but every other category declined year over year for single families. Average price and pending sales increased year over year for condos/townhomes, but average price and pending sales have increased.
Miami-Dade & Palm Beach Counties
In October of 2021, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County single families performed the same with newly listed, pending properties and sales down, but prices are up. Miami Dade condos/townhomes increased in every category, while Palm-Beach County condos/townhomes decreased in sales, newly listed properties and pending sales, but did see an increase in average price.
What’s Ahead?
As predicted, this has been the best time to buy in two years as competition has lessened to give buyers a much needed break and slight advantage in the market. The continued decline in pending sales has helped give buyers more selection as some homes are lingering a bit longer on the market. Prices are still steadily increasing at an impressive rate and mortgage rates are now on the rise, which means that its better to secure financing as soon as possible to keep home buying costs from increasing.
As COVID-19 travel restrictions continue to lessen, the South Florida market will have to prepare for increased competition from international buyers, specifically from South America and even more from Canada, both are very popular transplant locations for those relocating full time or those looking for second homes such as the snowbirds coming in from Canada seeking the warm weather. With inventory levels already squeezed, any current buyers considering making an offer would be well advised to move fast to avoid this influx of new buyers into the market and the resurgence of aggressive competition and bidding wars which will pick back up again after the holidays.
The cold weather has officially set in and seasoned snowbirds are ready to return in full force after having to brave the winter last year due to pandemic-related travel restrictions. Local buyers are going to have to be prepared to compete with yet another group of buyers re-entering the market.
*Data provided by Florida Realtors® SunStats