Active Listings versus 2019: Tampa +40%, Orlando +42%, Jacksonville +25%, Cape Coral-Fort Myers +36%, North Port-Sarasota +36%, Lakeland +80%. Miami a little behind: +5%.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Active listings of existing homes for sale in Florida soared by 32% year-over-year in May to 181,822 listings, up by 26% from May 2019, and up by 34% from May 2018, after a surge that started in late 2022 from very low levels. Since then, inventory for sale has quadrupled.
The inventory levels in April and May were by far the highest in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016. There was a housing shortage in 2021 and 2022. And now there’s a flood of housing on the market.
The pile-up of unsold inventory isn’t due to suddenly surging new listings – they’re not doing that – but due to demand: sales have plunged, and what comes on the market sits longer and then gets pulled off the market to get relisted again later.
Why have sales plunged? Prices spiked so far so fast in a historic price explosion during the free-money pandemic that those too-high prices have triggered demand destruction, one of the most fundamental economic dynamics.
Active listings are homes for sale that do not have a pending sale. They’re the “unsold” inventory. Total inventory, on the other hand, includes active listings (unsold inventory) plus inventory with a pending sale (sold inventory).
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro: Active listings jumped by 39% year-over-year in May, to 51,901 homes, the highest May in the data by realtor.com going back to 2016.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was 5% higher. Compared to May 2018, it was 10% higher.
In that respect – compared to 2019 or 2018 – the inventory in the Miami metro has not ballooned as far as in other Florida metros, where inventories compared to those years are up by 30%, 40%, 50% or even by 80%, such as in the Lakeland-Winter Haven metro. More on those in a moment.
In markets with some distinct seasonality during the pre-covid years, we’re using these stacked charts that allow us to look beyond the seasonality. In markets with no distinct seasonality during the pre-covid year, we’ll use a classic line chart.
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro: Active listings jumped by 31% year-over-year in May, to 20,033 homes, the highest in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was 40% higher. Compared to May 2018, inventory was 50% higher.
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro: Active listings spiked by 39% year-over-year in May, to 13,994 homes, by far the highest in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was up by 42%. Compared to May 2018, it was up by 54%.
Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro: Active listings spiked by 36% year-over-year in May, to 13,757 homes, the highest May in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was 36% higher. Compared to May 2018, it was 52% higher.
North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro: Active listings spiked by 31% year-over-year in May, to 10,870 homes, the highest May in the data from realtor.com.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was 36% higher, compared to May 2018, it was 41% higher.
Jacksonville metro: Active listings spiked by 31% year-over-year in May, to 9,893 homes, the highest in the data from realtor.com.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was up by 25%. Compared to May 2018, it was up by 35%.
Lakeland-Winter Haven metro: Unsold inventory jumped by 25% year-over-year in May, to 5,161 homes, the highest May in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016.
Compared to May 2019, inventory was 80% higher, compared to May 2018, it was 63% higher.
There’s no problem here that prices cannot solve.
Prices exploded, and now they’re way too high. For example, the price of mid-tier condos in the Tampa metro spiked by 65% in two years from mid-2020 to the peak in mid-2022, which was totally nuts. Over the 10 years between 2012 and 2022, prices soared by 240%. At some point, demand destruction sets in, one of the most fundamental economic dynamics. And what solves that problem and creates sales activity are lower prices.
Some of that has started to happen. In Tampa, the price of mid-tier condos has dropped by 11% through April from the peak in mid-2022, according to data from the Zillow Home Value Index:
The depts of this demand destruction is quite something. In the South, pending sales of existing homes have plunged, and in April were down by 31% from April 2019, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. But there is no demand issue that a market cannot fix with pricing, that’s what markets are for:
And in case you missed it: Inventory of Homes for Sale in Biggest California Markets Suddenly Piles Up to Highest in Years: Demand Has Collapsed. Active listings YoY: San Diego +66%, Los Angeles +47%, Orange County +79%, Riverside-San Bernadino +51%, San Jose & Silicon Valley +56%; San Francisco metro +40%, Sacramento +55%, Fresno +42%.
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Signs have popped up considerably in my north Florida neighborhood over the past 6 months…if you look for those things…
Everybody has housing wrong. It’s not an investment, it’s shelter. If your house goes up in value it does not make you Richer, it makes you poorer. If you sell that house, you still need a place to live, so what have you achieved? Nothing you have to buy a new house. The only thing that has been created is you have fed the Pig! The government gets to collect higher taxes, and insurers get to raise their rates. Hence you are now poorer because your expenses have risen. But how much has your earnings risen in comparison? The only people getting Rich are the already Rich who can afford multiple properties for investments! A house is made to live in, it is not a wall street casino.
Thirty year mortgages have been sub-5-percent since about 2011, and spent a good amount of time in the 3’s, with prices significantly lower than they are today. Today prices are significantly higher as well as mortgage rates, which explains a lot about the market.
Funny how fast are pivoting to absolutely bonker we can never build enough houses forever shortage narrative to now all the backroom stock are coming out.
Couldn’t there be hopes this bubble will burst faster and move “bigly” that last time? Crossing my fingers 🤞
If it Flys, Floats or is in Florida?
Rent it!
You forgot one F.
Omitted in consideration of discretion. ;-)
Lots of my Boomer generation friends are dying early as a result of their “party hearty” lifestyles.
Another huge swath of them are also unprepared for the increased costs of inflation in retirement and are having to sell their Florida dream homes and condos due to taxes, HOA fees and massive increases in insurance. Simply priced out of their properties…
Don’t forget the Charley Foxtrot in Legacy condos (30+y/o):in Florida. Big tsunami inbound.
When the drop in prices begins to mirror the drop in demand, e.g,, 25-40%, then we will have an active market again.
But as long as sellers are going to hold on to their fever dreams, buyers will remain on strike.
Multiple years before the bottom. Potential buyers need to remain patient. History says patience will be rewarded.
Very perceptive; it WILL be years before prices stop falling.
Florida went from 2.8 months of inventory in 2021 to 5.6 months of inventory now. Getting that number over 6 means we are a full on buyers market.
Total cost of ownership has also gone out of control in Florida. Price of the home for sure, but add in interest rates on mortgage and then insane insurance costs and it just seems untenable.
If I needed to unload RE sometime over the several years, I’d be worried about downside risk here. It’s plausible that asset prices could drop hard and stay down for decades. If economic growth weakens, the Fed might not come running with QE like it did in the past. Bondholders might not allow it, given recent inflationary pressure.
Absent QE, the era of elevated asset prices could come to an abrupt end.
Great take, couldn’t agree more. The whole real estate and stock markets are pricing in the QE swooping and acting irresponsibly again….if they do, still not convinced things don’t majorly correct, if they don’t then will be the crash of the century
Yes. It’s understandable that they would think this from past 20 years, but I think things have changed enough that they will be disappointed.
I don’t think one can ever discount Player 3 (Fed + government). I’m not sure what they can do now with hot inflation but most senior decision makers have a lot of wealth tied up in housing. Bernanke used to talk like a big free market advocate, and is an acolyte of Friedman, but when the storm came, all that went out the window, it seems to me. Also, the FIRE sector is extremely influential in government at all levels, which has only increased after Citizens United.
The dollar is worth so little now. If prices came down to 2019 levels, as some people expect, it would be like houses were next to free. How can we expect building materials to be cheap and builder labor to be even cheaper? Nothing adds up.
This man gets it!
The number of low rate mortgages out there is ridiculous.
The number of paid off mortgages out there is ridiculous.
The number of would be homebuyers waiting for this tsunami of inventory to appear is ridiculous.
There is still so much money floating around from the Covid era, businesses still flush with cash from the PPP loans that were forgiven (free money).
Then why the prices are going down even in past hot markets like Austin and sfo ?
Maybe it has something to do with people who bought during the last few years are content just staying in their home at this point? Just bringing more houses on the market doesn’t increase the demand.
We bought our house a little over a year ago… Just get on with life like Wolf says. Regardless, there is a house across the street we were interested in… Got sold for almost 100k less than we bought (learned after the fact). Over the next year, we watched as this place was completely gutted… Everything removed down to the studs, new roof as well. They easily put 100k of materials alone into it… Not to mention whatever labor costs.
The ‘owners’ appear to be some little company that just flips housing. To their credit, this was well beyond a typical flip job. It’s been listed for the last 6-months at 100k more than we bought ours (roughly both are same size, age, etc.)… Even has the ‘Agent Inside!’ flag thingy out front. Crickets. Absolute crickets. In six months, maybe a total of 4 people have looked at it. It doesn’t even appear to get drive-by ‘s. Not even Lawrence Yun could sell this thing.
Talk about timing the market wrong. This is one of two in just our little area like this not to mention all the others for sale. Yet they sit there, with no price drops. Interesting dynamics at work to say the least.
Yes. Similar things happening all across country. Consistent with the ongoing concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few connected corporations. Are we a capitalist society of a socialist society, for the top 1%, it’s clearly socialist, for everyone else, eat your cake. The real issue is whether or not these companies will actual be allowed to go bankrupt and have their assets sold off or will the taxpayers be forced to bail them out again. Look at what is just starting to happen in commercial real estate. God forbid we allow any deflation…
Complete bullshit if you ask me.
For a lot of these sellers who refuse to drop their price, their philosophy is “We just need one sucker to come along with more money than brains.”
Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year?
I posted in another thread that I’ve seen this here in South Florida. 20 houses are for sale in a neighborhood, and 2-3 sell at peak 2022 pricing, or close to it. Usually these are ones with full renovations or other things that sets them apart, but the buyers are still overpaying in my opinion.
The problem is that these sales give the other 18 hope that their gravy train will come in. The rest of the market is frozen.
Odds say many of the watchers will eat six months of tax, insurance, and maintenance, then sell at a larger loss in the Fall. Meanwhile, more potential buyers will rent these fresh new apartments that have popped up all over and find out renting isn’t a bad option.
And what is wrong with that?
Funny you see a lot of what you described in the Long Beach area near Cal State Long Beach. Most of the sellers forget it’s not Newport Beach there with their asking price. You also see a lot of old homes with some renovation with insane price tag.
I argue even with 30 to 40% price crash which I am not holding any hopes for, these houses are still overpriced. Hard to see any scenario this will eventually get to fundamental values, perhaps we have gone to the point of no return…
Great news! Most of us have seen the cost of owning property more than double over the last ten years. In a truly free market, trends in housing should follow trends in income. That hasn’t been the case since 1971. Well guess what, RISK is being repriced regardless of the actions of the wizards behind the curtains at central banks…
F’em. It’s about damn time housing reset and these municipalities learn to better manage the resources they have.
“It’s just a little gully” – The Big Short
“They’re not confessing, they’re bragging.”
“I thought we were better than this.”
I would venture many of these listing are less than serious! I have some lakefront land I just wanted to know its real value!
Priced not to sell and last week it about did. Had to be an asswipe to kill the deal. The best locations will continue to go up, there are plenty of people who can afford what they want. RE crooks do the same thing by relisting the same dump every few weeks.
Signs may not be a good indicater. I sold my share and never allowed RE signs. Way too many snoopers and thieves to advertise it may be vacant.
I would really like to downsize and even found something I like and can pay cash for, but after all transaction costs i would just be trading more for less. Better to just redo the ac and close off part of my house.
The point is there are many factors deyond money that effect real estate.
Florida deMANd
Re: Over the 10 years between 2012 and 2022, prices soared by 240%.
Ai says: inflation grew by approximately 12.72% between 2012 and 2020, based on the change in the annual average CPI-U
I think the pandemic in conjunction with technology took a moment of global panic, and mutated that experience into a herding event, where massive groups of conspiracy nuts went one direction (off a cliff of stupidity) — while the other tribe watched in disbelief, as prices disconnected from baseline reality.
And here we are, with both tribes frozen in chaos. While it’s true the market will eventually sort this out, stuffing the toothpaste back in the tube, isn’t going to happen without a recession or macro event that triggers real price reductions.
I don’t see how this just gradually comes back into equilibrium in a few years, seems like a catalyst will have to nudge sellers into accepting far lower prices. Buyers are obviously going to wait for reality.
Duh — used wrong ending year, oops!
Therefore, inflation grew by approximately 27.57% between 2012 and 2022, based on the change in the annual average CPI-U.
I’m shocked I wasn’t lambasted for that — but, the point is, the housing price disconnect from baseline reality is still shockingly absurd, and destructive.
CPI is affected by productivity gains in manufacturing, food production, etc. Not so much in residential construction as you are not usually mass producing the same item.
Residential Construction:
Residential costs saw higher inflation than CPI, especially post-2020, with 13.4% in 2021 and 14.6% in 2022. A 2024 report noted residential construction costs were ~31% higher than pre-pandemic levels, with significant increases in 2020–2022. Using similar compounding, residential costs likely increased by ~85–90% from 2012 to 2025 due to higher spikes in lumber and labor costs.
There we go, guess we’re all being too doomer on this stuff…nothing to see here…according to MSM, get on board now before the FOMO buying rocket ship launch again…Watch out, Lawarence might be ontop something…
From CNBC
“Mortgage demand rises to the highest level in over a month, after holiday adjustment
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances, $806,500 or less, increased to 6.93% from 6.92%
Applications to refinance rose 16% for the week and were 28% higher than the same week one year ago.
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home climbed 10% for the week and were 20% higher than the same week one year ago. “
I don’t know exact numbers but recall demand for mortgages has been nearly nonexistent the last year, so ten or twenty percent up from a small number, what does that mean? But I hear you sounds like a trend upwards
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Buy!!!!!
“…highest level in over a MONTH????” in super-volatile week-to-week data???? Hahahahaha So they are LOWER than five weeks ago.
Why are you even wasting your time with this BS. Look at a long-term chart.
haha…Wolf, thought you know me better than this by now :) Perhaps I should make sure to include the /S in my post. Simply mocking the absurdity of MSM narrative…guess next article will be highlest level compare to just a week ago….anything to drum up that FOMO
Also, prices are dropping, slowly but surely. Maybe the new mortgages are at lower prices.
Using Wolf’s Tampa city graph, in Housing Bubble One, prices were halved from peak to trough. Apply that to the current peak, prices should be about $125,000 at bottom. If the timing is the same, the bottom will be in 2028. Sure, it’s based on history, but that is all we have, unless you have a time machine that will take you into the future.
It’s getting interesting. I’ve been watching a neighborhood where inventory is piling up. Sellers have kept price/ft at a high level, but yesterday a house listed and sold same day at a price/ft that is 20-30% lower. The house was nicer than typical homes in the neighborhood.
I Don’t know about anyone else, but I like to buy near the lowest comp when prices are moving to avoid rapid price decline. Comps in this neighborhood might be adjusted heavily downward in a couple months when this sale closes.
Motivated sellers are appearing.
Wonder if at some point if this is happening more, they, meaning the RE industry and agents might want to change the rule and throw out comp or come up with some BS weighted average to comp so the surrounding houses to get reprice if a house sold for 30-40% less…if you can’t beat the game, change the rule instead.
It’s already not uncommon to hear bunch of neighbors get upside in entitled neighborhood like Ladera Ranch when one house sold for quite a bit less than their mental price and then proceed to unload their frustration in person to the seller
I’ve been joking that that is happening in Florida. You have a whole neighborhood of people trying to sell a house for $2 million that were only worth $1 million in 2018. It only takes one person to sell for $1.5 million today to reset comps…
Redfin had to revise its estimate down for this home in pending status, so it says it’s estimate now includes a comp from 2010.
This highlights a flaw. If Redfin determines market price based on recent comps, it will always overshoot price in a declining market.
If sellers rely on it, they risk following the market down.
Insightful and thorough review thank you🇺🇸🍀✔️
Looking at a ton of homes history on Zillow for FL in Tampa, Sourh Florida, Jacksonville, etc., areas, one could see a lot of these homes literally experienced 100%+ gains due to the COVID demand+work from home+no state income taxes phenomenon in just 2-3 years. That bubble has burst now as return to work policies come into effect and people move back to the NE to get into their offices, Canadians sell off due to FX and immigration concerns, insurance premiums skyrocketed due to a series of hurricanes, property taxes increased due to the higher property values and higher interest rates limit how many new primary resident buyers with stagnant wages being eroded by ongoing years of climbing inflation can afford to step in and absorb the supply glut. With ~7k boomers dieing everyday and increasing to 11k/day by 2031 and a lot of these people holding property in FL these prices will continue to drop until they normalize back to the long term appreciation rate for FL. Prices could drop 40-50% from current levels in many of these previous high-demand areas and they still may be overvalued by owners clutching at paper gains or wishing they could avoid actual losses. The smartest sellers will be the first to take a 10-15% haircut and lock that in now.