Monthly real estate report

The Florida Realtors agents’ association released its September 2024 market report, showing that statewide, the median single-family home sale price in Florida dropped to $410,000, a 0.2% year over year decrease. Townhouses and condo median sales price increased to $314,000, a 3.4% decrease from September 2023.

The Ocala/Marion County’s September median sale price reported for single-family homes was $290,000, reduced 1% from last year. Ocala/Marion County reported 682 closings of single-family home in September, a decrease of 8.7% from September 2023.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton may have affected total sales, said Brad O’Connor, senior economist for the Florida Realtors, a statewide agents’ reporting and professional trade association.

“If you look at the calendar and take into account weekends as well as the Labor Day holiday, there were only 20 business days during the month. Helene arrived late in the month, making landfall late on the night of the 26th as a powerful category four storm … So, despite the center of the storm making landfall in the Big Bend area, the most sparsely populated part of the state, there was still a significant impact all the way down through the Tampa Bay region, at least near the water. So definitely some disruptions during those last three business days of the month.”

With significant storm prep impacts throughout the state, O’Connor said there were fewer normal business days for transactions as people were prepping, making plans and evacuating.

“We can look back to 2018, 2019 and 2022 to see that it’s common for sales to drop off a good amount from August to September. But that didn’t happen last year. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that housing demand in Florida and across much of the US has remained relatively weak for much of 2024, and that’s the main reason we once again saw a drop in sales this past month,” O’Connor said.

Single-Family Market Sector

O’Connor also said the Fed’s rate decrease affected activity and sales prices.

“Of course, good news came late last month in the form of the Federal Reserve finally announcing its first rate cut. The market actually started pricing in this shift in fed policy a few weeks in advance. So the average national 30-year fixed mortgage rate spent much of September at its lowest point since the beginning of 2023, just above the 6% mark. That stimulated some demand, particularly in the single-family segment of the housing market,” he noted.

Statewide, single family home sales in September were down 12.3% compared to a year ago, with 18,721 total sales reported. The active listing inventory for single-family homes is at 95,943 an increase of 39.6% over last September.

The association reported the supply of single-family existing homes statewide increased to a 4.6-months’ supply, a 43.8% increase from last September.

“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 20.8% with a total of 4,956 throughout Florida. These accounted for 26.5% 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 $230,000, an increase of 4.2% from September 2023. A total of 50 closed sales were reported.

Statewide, townhouses and condos median price was $314,000, a decrease of 3.4% from last September. The active inventory is 60,132, a 65.3% increase from September 2023. Overall, this segment of the real estate market is moving toward more activity.

“Over in the townhouse and condo property type category,” said O’Connor, “new listings were down a more modest 2%. But the same analysis applies here, too. It’s reasonable to expect new listings to keep performing in this manner at the statewide level, at least until we move into next year’s spring buying season. Active inventory levels continue to exceed last year’s levels by a sizable margin, but the margin today is still significantly lower than earlier in the year.”

Existing townhouse and condo properties statewide were at a 7.4-months’ supply, an increase of 80.5% over September of 2023. For townhomes and condos, the number of cash sales statewide was 3,078 a decrease of 28.1% from September 2023. Those sales represented just over 46.3% of the market.