Florida’s April housing market remains strong in the number of closed sales, median prices of homes, new pending sales, and increased pending inventory. However, these figures might be exacerbated by the pandemic’s effect last year, according to the Florida Realtors' latest housing data.
In April, closed sales of single-family homes statewide totaled 33,264, up 56% from the previous year. Meanwhile, the total of existing condo-townhouses sales is $17,330, up 130.9% over April of last year. On average, closed sales occur between 30 to 90 days after sales contracts are written.
Additionally, the median price for single-family existing homes is $336,525, up 22.4% from last year. However, last month’s statewide median price was $250,000 for condo-townhouse units, up 19.6% over last year, pre-pandemic. The median is the midpoint, meaning half of homes sold for more, and half sold for less.
The abnormal year-over-year growth figures stems from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused all home buying and selling to temporarily halt. However, according to Florida Realtors chief economist, Dr. Brad O'Connor, these growth figures should shrink significantly in June, because June of last year was the beginning of the recovery in sales.
Broker owners and 2021 Florida Realtors president Cheryl Lambert, said, "In our current market, a severe shortage of homes for sale coupled with intense buyer demand continues to push home prices higher. Hopefully, as we see more positive signs the pandemic is easing and our economy is improving, sellers who have been on the fence will be ready to list their homes for sale."
"One way we can get a better sense of the longer-term trend of sales growth is to instead compare this April's sales figure to April 2019, which was a relatively typical year for the housing market," added O'Connor. "If you calculate the percent change of sales from April 2019 to 2021, you'll find there was a two-year percentage increase of over 23%. That's a little below the two-year percent change in sales of over 31% that we saw in March of this year (compared to March 2019), so this suggests that the longer-term rate of sales growth actually slowed down a little bit in April."
"That's not really surprising, since most financed home sales that closed in April went under contract at a time when interest rates had risen compared to when March's closed sales were going under contract. So, this puts us on track for what most housing market forecasts indicate will be a long, gradual slowdown in the rate of sales."
Click here to see the full statewide housing activity reports.
