The number of homes for sale across Florida is “finally declining after two full years of consistently rising,” according to real estate analyst Mike Simonsen, founder and CEO of Altos Research.
For the expert, it signals that buyers might not find the same kind of seller they could have found earlier this year, desperate to offload their properties. Instead, the number of sellers removing their listings from the market is increasing.
How Many Homes Are For Sale In The Florida Market?
Inventory has risen all across the country in recent months, but in no other state has it soared as much as in Florida. The Sunshine State experienced a construction boom over the past five years, as developers tried to keep up with soaring demand during the pandemic homebuying frenzy.
But when much of this inventory landed on the market, the conditions that had led to that explosion in demand—historically low borrowing costs, the rise of remote work, a surge in domestic migration, and more affordable housing prices—no longer exist.
Mortgage rates spiked after the Federal Reserve started its aggressive rate-hiking campaign to combat inflation in 2022, employers started calling workers back to the office after the end of the pandemic, domestic migration slowed down, and home prices were then over 30 percent higher than in 2019.
As a result, many of these new homes have piled up on the market in recent months, together with existing homes for sale, as buyers in Florida are facing the same affordability challenges and growing economic uncertainty, which are dampening demand nationwide.
Simonsen said that the number of listings in the state climbed for 110 consecutive weeks—until now. While inventory is still growing year-over-year, “the fact that it’s down pretty dramatically since June is, I think, very notable,” Simonsen wrote on X.
According to data from Altos Research and Compass, there were 96,134 single-family homes listed for sale in the Sunshine State—down from the peaks of over 100,000 reached in the spring.
Considering all types of homes, Redfin reports that there are a total of over 214,500 homes for sale in the Florida market, up 5.4 percent year-over-year but down from this year’s April peak of over 241,000.
Why Is Inventory Now Declining In Florida?
This is not just a seasonal decline, which would be expected at the end of the busy spring and summer seasons, according to Simonsen. “I think it’s very notable that Florida didn’t have any seasonality whatsoever for two full years. 110 weeks where inventory just climbed,” he said. “So the fact that a ‘seasonal’ decline in inventory even happened this year is a change.”
Simonsen suspects that “we cleared out a lot of urgent sellers. Withdrawals are high which implies that if you don’t have to sell, you’re not,” he said on social media.