Florida Housing Market Update – December 2019 Statistics Are “Eye-Popping”
Florida ends the year with “eye-popping” real estate sales numbers, with single-family-home sales up 24% and condo/townhouse sales up almost 18%, year over year.
Watch this short video (or you can read the summary of it below) for December 2019 Statistics vs one year ago –
Total Sales had a 24% increase in single family homes and almost 18% in condo/ townhomes!
Median single family home sales prices rose almost 6% and for condos/ townhomes rose 8.1%.
Adequate Inventory is still a problem though with single family homes at 3.4 months of supply and condo/townhomes at 5.2 months. Both types of homes dropped around 10% from December 2018 to December 2019.
This post will be updated more to include South Florida and Treasure Coast figures, but they will run proportionately similar to the state percentages.
Check back!
In December last year, Florida was experiencing weak home sales growth and rising inventory levels driven in part by higher interest rates, a troubled stock market and uneasiness generated by a impending shutdown of the Federal Government.
Well what a difference a year makes – the newly released December 2019 statistics by the Florida Realtors Association shows that the market for existing homes in the Sunshine State ended the decade with a bang, experiencing significant year over year increases in sales and home prices in December.
Closed Sales for Single Family and Condos/townhomes
Closed sales of existing single family home sales were up by 23.8% compared to December 2018, while closings in the existing condos and townhomes were up 17.7%. These are eye-popping numbers I know – so why such a big jump?
Well part of it is that sales were unusually week at the end in December 2018, driven in part by the sharp increase in the average 30 year mortgage interest rate. Most years we see a pop in sales each December as folks try to close by the end of the year. But last year there was no pop to speak of. In fact, single family home closings in December 2018 were down about 10% from the previous year and about 11.4% in the condo – townhouse category.
Sales Figures for 2017 were higher than 2018, but 2019 sales were still higher than 2017 – about 11% for single family and condos/townhomes about 5%
Single Family:
Dec 2017 – 22,890
Dec 2018 – 20,641
Dec 2019 – 25,557
Condo / Townhomes
Dec 2017 – 9206
Dec 2018 – 8161
Dec 2019 – 9605
So part of what drove the huge year over year closings for December 2019 is simply because we are comparing it to a weak month for sales 1 year ago. But this technicality doesn’t explain the entire increase in sales.
Low Mortgage Interest Rates throughout 2019
The average 30 year mortgage rate spent the entire second half of the year in the range of 3.5 – 3.8%, flirting with historical lows, and in the months since the mid-year yield curve scare that spooked the financial markets, the Fed has lowered the rate 3 times, restoring calm to the national economy . Here in Florida we saw new pending sales in both property types begin surging in October and now with the December figures we see a significant share of those deals successfully closed by year end.
Home and Condo Inventory Levels
Now, the news isn’t all good though as inventory levels continues to trend downward in December. Active listings on the single family home side of the market fell by about 11% (11.4) over the course of the year while condo / townhouse inventory fell by almost 10% (9.7).
Single Family –
Dec 2018 – 93,277
Dec 2019 – 82,681
Condo / Townhouse
Dec 2018 – 55,923
Dec 2019 – 50,475
The inventory shortage seems more severe on the single family side of the market where we have 3.4 months supply. vs 5.2 months supply for condos and townhomes.
Statewide Median Home Price Increases
With this lack of supply we continue to see home prices rise. The statewide median sale price for single family in December was $270,000, up by 5.9% since Dec 2018 when it was $255,000.
In the condo / Townhouse category the median sales price was up even more, rising by 8.1% from $185,000 to $200,000.
Local South Florida Market Statistics for December 2019
View our Market Trends section for local City and County market Statistics. They will run similarly to the state percentages in most cases.
While many of the trends I’ve discussed hear are statewide in nature, there are also many interesting trends to explore at the local level. So as always I urge you to check out the statistics for your local market, many of which you can find at floridarealtor.org.
