Florida real estate market perked up at year’s end

Ocala/Marion County reported 695 closings of single-family homes in December, a 7.41% increase from December 2024.


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Posted February 3, 2025 | Staff report

The Florida Realtors agents’ association December 2024 market report shows that, statewide, the median single-family home sale price in Florida rose to $415,000, a 1.2% year over year increase. The townhouses and condo median sales price was $315,000, a decrease of 4.5% from last December.

The Ocala/Marion County’s December median sale price reported for single-family homes was $289,500, a.2% increase from 2024. Ocala/Marion County reported 695 closings of single-family homes in December, a 7.41% increase from December 2024.

In general, activity from listings and pending sales is up, said Brad O’Connor, senior economist for the association.

“Closed sales of single-family homes were up nearly 13% year over year, easily the largest year-over-year increase in single-family closed sales that we saw for any month in 2024. That strong performance put us at nearly 253,000 statewide single-family closed sales for the year overall, which is just less than 2% below 2023’s total of nearly 258,000 sales, but also the fewest annual sales we’ve seen since 2014. There was little variation across the state in 2024, as most counties only saw small year-over-year declines,” O’Connor said.

“In the single-family category, the number of new listings in December was up for the second straight month on a year-over-year basis, this time rising by over 13.5%. In all, we saw over 360,000 single-family homes come onto the market in 2024, which is a 9.5% increase relative to 2023. But 2023 was characterized by abnormally low levels of new listings relative to recent years. The number of single-family new listings in 2024 was much more comparable to the numbers we saw from 2018 to 2022,” he added.

O’Connor went on to say: “With new listings growing and sales declining, inventory levels for both the single-family category and the condo and townhouse category ended the year slightly above the typical levels we saw during the pre-pandemic period of 2014 to 2019. We’re still far below the levels we observed during the Great Recession, however. That said, inventory is still largely moving along an upward trajectory so we should continue to watch it as we move into the spring buying season.”

Single-family market sector
Statewide, single family home sales in December were up 12.8% compared to a year ago, with 20,784 total sales reported. The active listing inventory for single-family homes is at 98,429, an increase of 27% over last December.
The association reported the supply of single-family existing homes statewide increased to a 4.7-months’ supply, a 30.6% increase from last December.

“Months’ supply inventory is a useful indicator of market conditions,” the report stated. “The benchmark for a balanced market (favoring neither buyer nor seller) is 5.5 months of inventory. Anything higher is traditionally a buyers’ market, and anything lower is a sellers’ market.”

Statewide, the number of cash sales for single-family homes increased by 7.1% with a total of 5,853 throughout Florida. These accounted for 28.1% of all sales, just over one-quarter of the overall market, which has been typical throughout the 2024 year.

“Cash sales can be a useful indicator,” the report stated, “of the extent to which investors are participating in the market. Investors are far more likely to have the funds to purchase a home available up front, whereas the typical homebuyer requires a mortgage or some other form of financing.”

Townhomes/condos market sector
Locally, the market area of Ocala/Marion County townhouses and condos median sales prices came in at $226,990, an increase of 29.8% from December 2024. A total of 57 closed sales were reported.

Statewide, townhouses and condos median price was $315,000, a decrease of 4.5% from last December. The active inventory is 64,283, a 42.8% increase from December 2024. Overall, this segment of the real estate market is moving toward less activity.

“In the condo and townhouse category, monthly closed sales failed to rise year over year in December for what would only have been the second time this year. Still, it’s clear this property type category underperformed compared to single-family homes in terms of sales throughout 2024. Annual closed sales in the condo and townhouse category came in at more than 94,000 for 2024, a 10.5% decline compared to the prior year,” O’Connor said.

“Multiple factors were responsible for the underperformance of this category throughout the year, including concerns about insurance coverage and reserve requirement compliance giving some prospective buyers cold feet. The result was the lowest number of condo and townhouse sales we’ve seen for any year in Florida since 2010. Declines were most prominent in coastal counties along both the Atlantic and the Gulf. The lone bright spot was in the I-4 Corridor in the exurban areas between Tampa and Orlando, and further north into The Villages and Ocala. These areas actually saw condo and townhouse sales grow in 2024 compared to 2023,” he added.

Existing townhouse and condo properties statewide were at 8.2-months’ supply, an increase of 60.8% over December of 2024. For townhomes and condos, the number of cash sales statewide was 3,505, a decrease of 8.6% from December 2024. Those sales represented just over 48% of the total market.

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