South Florida homes have been sitting on the market for longer than nearly anywhere else in the country, even as closures on sales have climbed.
According to a recent Redfin report analyzing MLS data from December 2025, the Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area tied with the San Antonio metro area for the second-slowest housing market in the country that month, with the Miami and West Palm Beach metro areas taking the next two spots in the top five.
Austin, Texas, topped the list.
Real estate experts say that the report’s findings, which showed overall year-over-year housing market slowdowns across the country’s top 50 metro areas, reflect the ongoing transition from a pandemic-era market to a stable one.
“The market’s turned,” said Mike Pappas, CEO of the Keyes Company. “We’re moving from an extreme market of low inventory and fast pace to a normal, balanced market.”
In December, homes in the Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and West Palm Beach metro areas remained on the market for an average of 99, 92, and 87 days, respectively.
They were listed for an average of 83, 82, and 81 days in December 2024.
The slower rate of sales in December 2025 didn’t correlate to a year-over-year drop in closures on homes overall: Florida Realtors’ reports showed that in Broward County, year-over-year sales for single-family homes rose 10.6% compared to December 2024; in Palm Beach County, they rose 23%; and in Miami-Dade County, they rose 3.7%.
Now that housing inventory has risen and prices have stabilized, buyers may be choosier while selling remains profitable.
Jonathan Dolphus, president of the Broward, Palm Beaches, and St. Lucie Realtors, said that even with higher inventory, there is still no shortage of people looking to buy homes in South Florida, calling the state of the market a “win-win” for everyone.
“Buyers are in a good spot of being able to negotiate a little bit,” Dolphus said. “And they’re still going to profit pretty big numbers, so the sellers are more apt to say, ‘OK, maybe we’ll give some closing costs back. Maybe we’ll do this repair, or that repair.’”
Pappas noted that home prices in South Florida tend to outpace inflation at the national level due to higher levels of population growth and land constraints, with affordability remaining an issue for many buyers.
Nonetheless, he said realtors have already seen a year-over-year rise in written contracts for homes in January 2026 as the seasonal second quarter peak approaches.