Fort Lauderdale Real Estate Market Update November 2023

How much doom and gloom are we going to pack into this month’s video, or is the housing market getting better in Fort Lauderdale? Is it a good time to buy a home in Fort Lauderadale? Is it a good time to sell a home in Fort Lauderdale? My name is Casey, I’m a realtor that works in and around the Fort Lauderdale area.  If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home here, call text or email me, you’ll be glad you did!

Let’s zoom out a bit and take a look at the national level first. Interest rates are still the prevailing force in the market, or hindrance in the market.  For Buyers this has meant a choice between jumping into the market now and hoping to negotiate a lower sales price, or waiting for rates to drop then potentially having to negotiate bidding wars due to pend up demand. For Sellers we’re still in a low inventory environment which has been more forgiving for you. That tailwind helps you out unless buyers exit the market altogether and sales plummet. 

I’m going to take next month off of videos, because like everyone else, holidays have me overwhelmed! So this will be the last analysis of the year. Let’s go over to the screen share.

Let’s begin with single family home sales data in Fort Lauderdale

This first slide I don’t pay a ton of attention to honestly. I think you guys are served better data in my sales bracket data than by the median value, but that being said, median values are up. From $550k to $700k year over year, that’s a big jump. Not a shocker, everyone and anyone knows houses are expensive right now.

Total sales last month, 119. Down from 142 in October of 2022. April of 2020 we hit the low with 200 total sales.  Looking at the chart and seasonality, watch my last video called “Timing is Everything” if you don’t understand seasonal trends in Fort Lauderdale, we look like we’re headed right into that low.

List to sales prices, again if the list to sale price is very low, like it was in February, it means that Sellers are overestimating the market and having to reduce price before sale, or are closing much lower than their asking price. As we’re up here close to 97% I think we can say that Buyers and Sellers are getting more realistic.  For Buyers this means they’re realizing we’re not in a distressed market where they can fire off low offers and get one accepted, for Sellers this means that unlike in February, Sellers are realizing they need to price competitively.

Median days to sale, how many days the property is on the market before it goes to pending, no including the time it takes to close, is rising. This can happen if Sellers price too high and take too long to reduce price, keeping their property in the market as active for an extended period of time. The average says if price correctly, you should be in contract in 37 days. Year over year we’re just about flat.

Median square foot pricing keeps rising, and that’s not shocking for two reasons. First because median prices are increasing, but also from what I see, it makes sense because Buyers don’t want the rehab home. If HGTV buy the house that’s a mess and renovate it was still what people wanted, you’d see this number down more in my opinion. In todays market Buyers are paying more for renovated homes, period. From what I see they’d rather overpay and not have to do any work.

Total dollar volume considers to be a really important metric to me. We’re up year over year from $142 million to $172 million, but I continue to caution, look at the trend and look at seasonality.

Months of inventory, so the tailwind for Sellers has been limited inventory right? That’s the narrative. So what happens if supply increases? The theory says more supply should lead to lower prices are Buyers have more choices. If we get up above 6 months of supply the narrative is going to change, quickly I would guess.  Really something we want to keep our eyes on.

Townhomes and Condos

Let’s glance at median pricing. Prices are up significantly year over year, from $391k up to $455k. So a notable increase there. The overall trend still looks to be up, but again, there are other factors at play here which I believe will either make us resolve higher, or head on down. Looking at you Jerome Powell.

So while prices are moving up, the number of sales continues to move down. Again, this has been happening largely because we don’t have enough properties for sale. Should inventory increase, I believe this picture would change, more on that in a bit. So we’re down year over year from 150 sales to 121 sales.  You have to go back to the beginning of this year, and all the way back to 2020 to find overall sales this low.

List to sales prices are heading down.  How does that translate? It means buyers and sellers are a bit apart with Sellers still believe the market is stronger than it appears to be.  Really something interesting and to keep an eye on as the last time we saw a spread like this we headed lower. Again just means Sellers need to really gauge the market and likely price on the lower end of the valuation spread in order to get their property sold in a timely manner.

Wow median days on the market. From 27 days in October of 2022 up to 48 days in October of 2023. 56% rise in days on market year over year. Incredibly significant. This shows Buyers aren’t in the feeding frenzy they were in the summer of 2022. It shows it taking longer to sell homes. Does this matter in certain price brackets more than others? Hell yeah it does. If you’re on the lower end of the sales price brackets you’re not going to feel like you’re in control as a Buyer. If you’re on the higher end of the sale prices brackets, you’re going to feel like you’ve got a lot of control as a Buyer.

Price per square foot looks to be trending down. Not going to spend much time here. Other than to note it’s interesting to see median pricing rising, while median price per square foot trending down.

Total dollar volume, I really like this stat. Year over year we’re actually up from $86 million to $94 million.  But, this chart doesn’t really look promising to me. I’d like to see us consistently above $100 million to think we’re setting a floor on pricing, but we shall see.

Months supply of inventory, long one of my most favorite metrics. To recap, six months of inventory is said to favor neither Buyers nor Sellers.  Less than 6 months of inventory favors Sellers, more than 6 months favors Buyers. We’re really at a line in the sand here. Since summer of 2022 we’ve been moving out of a Sellers market into neutral territory. If we keep climbing I do believe this is when Sellers really need to think about getting off the fence, of waiting some period of time to list until we move lower again.  This is what could be the sea change in the market.  If supply swells, this is good for buyers, bad for sellers.

I’m going to skip over the price brackets as I think updating them quarterly is appropriate.  I don’t think I need to do it monthly.  I doubt bracket pricing will change that quickly month over month, but I’ll monitor and if things really start to shift I’ll add those slides back in more often.  For now, you can go to Novembers video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Happy holidays to all. Should you have questions or are thinking about buying or selling a property in fort Lauderdale, always feel free to call, text or email me, see you after the new year.