It’s the week to report the April sales statistics for Manatee County; it’s also the week where the Florida Legislature may be going into a special session to address the out-of-control property insurance market.
These two topics are completely opposite of each other on the likeability scale – we all love higher sale rates, and we all hate higher insurance rates.
Let’s get the insurance update out of the way so we can enjoy the real estate market part. Gov. Ron DeSantis must be getting a lot of phone calls in Tallahassee because he decided to call another special session of the Legislature when they couldn’t come up with any suggestions that would work to resolve the property insurance problems.
The special session is mandated to bring some stability into the property insurance market, which is experiencing companies leaving the state, dropping policies and/or increasing premiums by double digits. Before they ended their regular session earlier this year, the House and Senate in our state were at odds about how to address the insurance problems. A large part of the problem is higher litigation in Florida relative to other states and with the hurricane season starting June 1, it would take a minor miracle to get anything resolved that quickly.
Before we go over the April numbers, the Emerging Housing Market Index, which measures homebuyers looking for an appreciating housing market and lifestyle amenities, is illuminating for the first quarter of the year. It confirms what most of the real estate economists predicted – that buyers will eventually be priced out of the coastal big city markets and turn to smaller, less dense communities. This, of course, is an opportunity for those who can work remotely and are migrating because of affordability and increasing mortgage interest rates.
The top five emerging housing markets are: Rapid City, South Dakota, Santa Cruz, California, North Port, Florida, Santa Rosa, California, and Naples, Florida. North Port and Naples, Florida were the top two markets in the fourth quarter of 2021. Let’s hope our wonderful Florida west coast doesn’t get discovered too quickly.
Now finally, these are the April sales statistics as reported by the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee:
Single-family homes closed 18.3% fewer properties. The median sale price was $515,000, up 27.2% from last year, and the average sale price was $729,375, up 26.2% from last year. New listings are up 1.1% and a month’s supply of inventory is up 33.3%, which is still very low at 0.8 month’s supply. The median time to contract is five days.
Condos closed 26.7% fewer properties. The median sale price was $350,000, up 48.9%, and the average sale price was $400,371, up 32.1%. New listings are up 7.7% and a month’s supply of inventory is up 14.3%, still very low at 0.8 month’s supply. The median time to contract is also five days.
The president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee states, “As we’ve been anticipating, it appears that the rising interest rates and inflation are beginning to put pressure on our local real estate market.”
Yes, I agree there is a slight dip in the market with fewer sales, but I still think it will take a long time for the selling prices to experience the same dip – too many buyers and too few properties.
Florida continues to be nothing if not interesting. Don’t expect it to change anytime soon. Besides as lovely as it may be, who would really want to live in South Dakota after you’ve seen Anna Maria?
