The April Delray Beach real estate data is available and to say I’m shocked is an understatement.
Regular readers know I publish a brief monthly video showcasing the big ideas of our local real estate market. To catch you up, for the last 10 months trends went one way – in favor of homebuyers.
Every month since last July, each market category made buyers bullish:
* Days On Market – was rising
* Absorption Rate – was rising
* Number of Active Listings – were rising
* Listing Prices – were falling
* Sold-to-List ratio – was falling
As I’m getting my first glance at the April data, every Delray Beach real estate data point changed course. For example, look at the Number of Active Listings in the chart below…
Since last May it rose 10 straight months peaking at 1,157 units. It’s now down 5% since March to 1,099 units.
Now look at the Absorption Rate. It’s identical as the listings above…
If I had space I’d show you 3 other charts with identical chart formations. They all show a story how buyers were gaining traction in this real estate market. But as of April, it appears that trend is now broken and leans back in favor of sellers.
And that begs the question:
Are Home Sellers Gaining traction Again In The Delray Beach Real Estate Market?
Regular readers of my weekly eLetter know my top theme in 2022 was supply. Supply overtook demand back in late 2019. Since then inventory went on a free fall. From mid-2019 to February 2022, the number of properties for sale in South Florida crashed from 54,000 to 14,475. That was a loss of 39,515 properties available to buyers. Put another way, that’s a 73% destruction.
During that time we saw the epic surge in prices as buyers consumed what they could in a short period of time. In regards to Delray Beach real estate, we saw appreciation gains of 32%, 28% and 18% in a three year period.
But in 2022, inventory came racing back. Last year alone housing supply was up 120% to 32,000 units.
Then in December 2022, supply began a slow slide down. And in the last 5 months its dropped 12.5% to just over 28,000 units.
This has been a quiet slide in supply. No one has been reporting about this as our attention is on interest rates, inflation and the Federal Reserve plans to do. But in the Delray Beach real estate market we’re now seeing sellers standing firm with their pricing as this new data begins leaking out.
I’ll show all of this to you in my April “How’s the Delray Beach Real Estate Market” video I’ll publish next Monday. To make sure you see it when it’s published, check out my YouTube channel and subscribe.
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*** If you’re a homeowner thinking about selling and how a fresh home staging plan may be helpful, read this and grab my guide.
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*** Your Weekly Inventory Update ***
* 4 years ago there were over 54,000 properties available in S. Florida
* It bottomed in February 2022 at 14,485… a 73% drop
* Last week there were 28,249 available… a 102% rise in 14 months
* This morning’s Inventory is 27,996
*** Inventory is DOWN 15 weeks in a row ***