Real estate: Palm Beach County home sales continue decline but buyers awash in choices
Sales of Palm Beach County single-family homes stumbled in January with 33% fewer deals closing than the same time last year while buyers had more choices and an increasing advantage in bargaining muscle.
A report released Tuesday by the Broward, Palm Beach and St. Lucie Realtors Group found just 794 existing homes sold last month, at a median price of $582,500. That’s a 10.6% increase in price from January 2022 but down from a pandemic-buoyed high of $620,000 in June.
The average sale price, which is more easily skewed than the median, was $1.08 million, a 32% increase from last year. Average sale prices on single-family homes in Palm Beach County topped $1 million four times in 2022; in February, April, May, and June.
A dip in sales volume last month allowed the inventory of available homes to buy to grow to a 3.4 months' supply. That's a whopping 209% increase compared to the same time in 2022.
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A balanced housing market, where sellers and buyers do not appear to have a clear advantage, is considered as having 5.5 months' supply of inventory.
Despite what the numbers say, real estate agents disagreed Tuesday on who has the upper hand in today's post-COVID milieu.
Realtor Steve Simpson believes Palm Beach County has flipped to a buyer's market.
“There’s no question about it,” said Simpson, a Realtor with William Raveis Realty. “There are a lot of buyers out there, but they are sitting on their hands. They’re waiting for the dust to settle.”
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Simpson said he’s seen high-end asking prices regularly reduced in recent months, including on his own listings. A home he listed near North Palm Beach that started at $1.5 million, went to $1.2 million and finally to $945,000.
“At that price, it went under contract immediately, and there was another person who wanted it right after that,” Simpson said. “If you get to the right price, you find the vein, and it sells.”
But Brian Gleason, a broker associate with Corcoran, believes coastal Palm Beach County is still a seller’s market with deep-pocketed buyers coming from the Northeast and locals looking for second homes to rent out.
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Gleason, who deals primarily in Lake Worth Beach east of Dixie Highway, said he sold a home recently in the historic College Park neighborhood for $16,000 above asking price.
“In three days, we had 27 showings and seven offers in the first week,” Gleason said. “And it’s a cash deal.”
In West Palm Beach, 10.5% of single-family homes sold above their asking price in December, according to national real estate brokerage firm Redfin. That was down from 41% in April last year.
About 8% of Jupiter homes sold above their list price in December, down from 49% in April.
And in Boca Raton, 5.3% of single-family homes sold for more than the asking price in December, down from 44% in April.
Florida home sales down 32.5% in January compared to same time in 2022
Statewide home sales were down 32.5% in January compared to the same time in 2022, echoing Palm Beach County's results. The median sale price statewide was up 4% in January from last year, to $389,990. The average sale price was $558,253, which was a 5% increase from the same time in 2022.
Sales of Palm Beach County condominiums and townhomes were down 38% in January compared to the same time in 2022. The median sale price was $299,000, a 13% increase from last year. The average sale price was $467,129, which was up 10% from the previous January.
While nearly 50% of single-family home sales last month were cash deals that sidestepped steeper mortgage interest rates, Simpson said no one can completely avoid the impact that higher rates are having on the economy. Potential sellers may also be dissuaded from listing their home if they are faced with taking out a new mortgage at a higher rate to buy another home.
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The 30-year fixed-rate-mortgage stood at 6.32% as of Feb. 16, according to the government-sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac. That’s lower than the 7% rate in November but more than twice as much as Feb. 2021.
“We are seeing some sellers giving more concessions than we’ve seen in the recent past and there’s more willingness to negotiate,” said Douglas Elliman Executive Director of Luxury Sales Bonnie Heatzig, who believes it’s still a seller’s market. “Our market does appear to be changing but the pendulum has not swung all the way yet.”
But homes are taking longer to sell overall. In January, homes sat for a median of 41 days before getting a contract. That’s up 173% from the 15 days it took to get a contract in January 2022.
“We have cooled from where you can ask stupid prices and sell in a few hours,” Gleason said. “A lot of sellers are still starting on the aggressive side.”
Kimberly Miller is a veteran journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Real estate: Florida homebuyers have choices amid high interest rates,
