Today, housing supply is the South Florida real estate market’s biggest news.
To drive the point home, here’s my weekly South Florida Real Estate Supply Update that I normally put at the end of this letter:
*** South Florida Real Estate Surging Supply ***
* This morning’s inventory is 54,019 *
* Last week’s supply was 53,030 *
* That’s a 989 increase in one week *
November inventory is up 2,047 units
When I look at data from some city’s in South Florida it looks the same. Take a look at what the year-over-year numbers say:
* Ft Lauderdale – Up 648 units or 30%
* Pompano – Up 371 units or 39%
* Deerfield – Up 307… or 61%
* Boca Raton – Up 330… or 17%
* Delray Beach – Up 445… or 34%
* Boynton Beach – Up 456… or 42%
* Lake Worth – Up 265… or 45%
* West Palm Beach – Up 479… or 31%
Longtime readers know I’ve been tracking this since before the pandemic began. For context, in November 2019 the average number of properties on the South Florida real estate market each month was about 54,000 units.
Then over a couple years, supply hit bottom on May 4, 2022 at 14,401 units. That’s about a 39,500 drop in available units for sale. Or, a 73% crash!
And now, 2.5 years later, supply is back above 54,000. That’s a 275% Increase in the last 30 months!
Its been a real estate action whipsaw the last 5 years. These swings were massive and relatively swift.
Now that supply is “back to normal”, most other metrics we watch should stablize over the next 12 months. And, I expect demand to be less than the pandemic days. This should stablize prices, or they could fall a bit more as we enter 2025.
To expand on this idea a bit more, it’s not that demand is down as Florida still has a huge migration of folks moving here. In fact, Florida is still seeing about 1,000 people moving here each week.
But when an area like the South Florida real estate area see’s a 275% rise in housing supply, people aren’t buying enough homes to change the direction of pricing. It’s micro economics playing itself out: higher supply and less demand equals softening prices.
So as we near the end of 2024, we can look back saying the main theme for the South Florida real estate market was supply. And as supply is now back to “normal” I expect the theme in 2025 will change to perhaps mortgage rates, or even continue and deepening falling prices.
If you’d like assistance on the sell or buy side of the market, please call me. My focus is on the data. Hyper local data. So whether you’re interested in Delray Beach, Pompano Beach, or Port St. Lucie… analyzing each market is at my finger tips. You don’t want to analyze South Florida real estate as a whole, but on a city-by-city or neighborhood basis.
I’m here for you every step in the process.
(Main Photo: I just love this N. Swinton Ave historic home – so important to our Village)
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*** Are you a Delray Beach resident who has room to plant tees in your yard? Check out Community Greening giving away 3 trees per Delray Beach resident household. Read that link for details, and earmark December 7th for this event
*** Back on August 24th I published this video that’s getting a lot of watch time, and shared this list of restaurants that are gearing up to open this winter season. Update: while walking along The Ave lately, I’m seeing a lot of progress. Get ready for a bunch of grand opening announcements and new fun in Delray.
