Jumps in listings and sales for Florida real estate

The Florida Realtors agents’ association released its November 2024 market report, which shows that statewide the median single-family home sale price in Florida dropped to $410,000, a .6% year over year decrease. Townhouses and condo median sales price decreased to $311,000, a 5.8% decrease from November 2023.

The Ocala/Marion County’s November median sale price reported for single-family homes was $300,000, a 4.9% increase from 2023. Ocala/Marion County reported 618 closings of single-family homes in November, a decrease of 3.1% from November 2023.

In general, activity from listings and pending sales is up, said Brad O’Connor, senior economist for the Florida Realtors, a statewide agents’ reporting and professional trade association.

“New listings of single-family homes in November were up over 7% compared to a year ago, their largest year-over-year increase in percentage terms since July,” O’Connor said. “Meanwhile, new listings of condos and townhouses saw their largest year-over-year increase since July, as well, rising by roughly 5.5%.”

Regarding pending sales, “which is the count of how many listings that went under contract during the month—were up big on the single-family home side in November, rising by more than 12.5% year over year. That’s the first double-digit percentage increase we’ve seen in single-family new pending sales since April of 2021,” he said.

Additionally, the decrease in mortgage interest rates offers reasons for optimism.

“These statistics give us some reason to be optimistic about the housing market in Florida. Mortgage rates hit their recent lows in late September, but predominantly increased throughout October and remained relatively high throughout November—and yet we saw a renewed level of listing and sales activity. Many markets elsewhere in the country have been showing signs of bottoming out on sales—is Florida next?” O’Connor offered.

O’Connor said some of the market activity from November was the effect from the hurricanes in October.

“It’s certainly possible, but there’s one thing we shouldn’t overlook here, which is that housing market activity in Florida was slowed down throughout much of the state in October due to Hurricane Milton and the aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” he said. “In fact, the local markets that experienced the most disruption from the two hurricanes were largely also among those that saw the strongest year-over-year increases in new pending sales and new listings in November. This suggests that our increase in market activity in November was largely a result of unrealized activity from October getting pushed into November by the hurricanes.”

Single-Family Market Sector
Statewide, single family home sales in November were down 3.5% compared to a year ago, with 17,095 total sales reported. The active listing inventory for single-family homes is at 100,788, an increase of 26.9% over last November.
The association reported the supply of single-family existing homes statewide increased to a 4.8-months’ supply, a 29.7% increase from last November.

“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 decreased by 16.2% with a total of 4,696 throughout Florida. These accounted for 27.4% of all sales, just over one-quarter of the overall market.

“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 $200,000, an increase of 24.8% from November 2023. A total of 49 closed sales were reported.

Statewide, townhouses and condos median price was $311,000, a decrease of 5.8% from last November. The active inventory is 64,477, a 46.1% increase from November 2023. Overall, this segment of the real estate market is moving toward less activity.

“Over in the condo and townhouse category,” O’Connor said, “where demand has been weaker relative to single-family homes over the last couple of years, new pending sales were down by almost 5% compared to a year ago. That said, this was the smallest year-over-year decline in new pending sales for condos and townhouses since April. From May through October, they had been down by double-digit percentages each month compared to the year prior.”

Existing townhouse and condo properties statewide were at 8.2-months’ supply, an increase of 364% over November of 2023.
For townhomes and condos, the number of cash sales statewide was 2,881, a decrease of 25.9% from November 2023. Those sales represented just over 48% of the total market.