Real Estate Market Report; Florida Keys 2022
General Market Conditions
How the real estate market in the Florida Keys is viewed of course depends on who is viewing it. If you own property here, and want to sell it, you should be feeling pretty good about your prospects of getting a great price in a relative short amount of time, especially if you have an upscale property worth over a million dollars. If you have a property on the market and are not receiving offers near or above your asking price, you and your realtor may want to reconsider the asking price, perhaps having set your sights too high, even in this market.
If you are looking to buy a property in the Florida Keys, expect to pay historically high prices for it, and when you do find one that works for you, don’t take a lot of time making up your mind.
If you are in the business of helping people buy and sell real estate, you are probably feeling pretty good about your career choice, for even though the number of sales appear to be settling to pre-COVID levels, increasing residential real estate closing prices are creating skyrocketing dollar sales volume.
How long will this Seller’s Market last? According to Zillow, double digit home value growth with continue through 2022, peaking at 21.6% in May, before gradually slowing to 17.3% by January 2023. Realtor.com believes that buyer competition will remain fierce with buyer demand outmatching inventory recovery and predict a 2.9% median sales price appreciation in 2022. However, both caution that affordability due to increasing mortgage rates, and inflation could dampen these lofty forecasts. But all real estate markets are local by nature, and I don’t think these predictions of average national trends necessarily apply to the Florida Keys, although the principals certainly do.
If you are a chart person, you will find at the bottom of this page several PDF files displaying nearly three years of trends of the “number of sales”, “the median sales price,” “the number of days from listing to contract,” and “the number of properties for sale (inventory)”. I have kept single family homes separate from condominiums and the monthly data points are 6-month rolling averages, used in order to smooth out seasonal fluctuations and spikes created by outlying sales that can skew things in a relatively small market like the Keys. Mobil homes and vacant lots have been excluded from the data, but if you have an interest in this information, reach out to me on the contact page and I will gladly share that information with you.
The Florida Keys Real Estate Market – April 2022 Update
Number of Residential Sales Decrease and Stabilize
The number of residential single family and condo sales in the Florida Keys have decreased about 35% from early 2021 peaks (50% for condominiums) and appear to be stabilizing close to mid-2019 levels. Cash buyers accounted for approximately 36% of single-family home purchases and 44% of condo purchases in 2021.
Sale Price Increases Continue to Climb
The median sale price of residential Florida Keys properties does not appear to be slowing down. The median (six-month trailing rolling average) price for a single-family home in March 2022, was $994,971 a 28% increase from March 2021. The median condominium price was $599,792 a 24% increase from March 2021. If you owned a residential property in the Florida Keys at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2019, based on sold property data, you have probably realized a 50% to 75% increase in your property’s value.
Another strength of market indicator is the ratio of sold price to list price. With single-family homes the average 2021 ratio was 97.2% compared to 94.3% in 2020, with condos 97.5% compared to 94.5%. Many sellers are still receiving multiple offers, often with buyer concessions, often resulting in their home selling for above its listing price.
Inventories at 30% of 2019 Early COVID Levels
Single-family homes offered for sale in the Florida Keys Multiple Listing Services (MLS) at the end of March 2022 totaled 374 (rolling 6-month average), 30% of the 1,255 listed at the end of June 2019. As for condominiums, only 93 were for sale, just 23% of the 411 listed at the end of June 2019.
The shortage of inventory, upon closer examination, is not due to a lack of Sellers. The number of new listings for both single family homes and condos in the Florida Keys has only varied slightly over the last 6 years. However, the median time to contract, or the amount of time between a listing being on the market as “active” and the time a seller accepts an offer, is a third of what it was in early 2019. The supply has been constant, while the demand has significantly increased, the average single-family home going to contract in just 35 days in 2021, compared to 100 days just two years earlier, the average condo in just 38 days, compared to 110.
(Information for this report comes from Florida Realtors® with data provided by Florida’s multiple listing services compiled monthly from MLS feeds.)