Brad O'Connor directly addresses camera:  Florida home prices, as well as the number of closed home sales so far through 2024, look a lot like they did at this point a year ago in early 2023, based on the latest statistics from Florida Realtors. 
In February, the median sale price for closed single-family home sales in the Sunshine State was $415,000, up just a bit over 5% from a year ago. The number of single-family home sales, meanwhile, was up only a little over 2% compared to last February. So, as was the case in January, not much of a change relative to last year, which is not entirely surprising given that mortgage rates have remained stubbornly high so far in 2024.
Over in the townhouse and condo category, the median sale price only increased by a little over 3% year over year, rising to $325,000, while closed sales actually *fell* by 2.5% compared to a year ago. 
Still, some local markets have actually seen significantly more condo sales so far this year relative to last year, as this map shows. The size of the circle displayed over each county represents the number of closed sales of townhouses & condos in the first two months of this year, while the percentage and the color of the circle reflect the change in sales from January and February of last year. While the largest townhouse and condo markets are generally seeing fewer sales than a year ago, there are bright spots in the more affordable suburban fringe and exurban counties surrounding them.
If we look at the same map for single-family homes, there is variation across counties as well, but perhaps not as striking as what we see with townhouses and condos.
While the demand side of the equation is little changed from last year, however, on the supply side, we are seeing significantly more new listings than a year ago. As I highlighted in last month's video, the monthly number of new listings in Florida dropped below normal levels beginning in Fall of 2022, when the mortgage rate lock-in effect really started to take hold, and they remained there for about a full year. But in the latter part of the third quarter of 2023, they returned to normal levels for the remainder of the year.
So far this year, while you could still characterize new listings of single-family homes as being in their normal pre-pandemic range, they *were* at the high end of that range in February. In fact, there were more single-family homes listed for sale in Florida this February than in any February dating back to 2008, when we started tracking new listings. Not by a lot, mind you - there were nearly this many new listings in both February of 2016 and 2018 - but still, this has been a remarkable turnaround compared to where we were last year at this time, when we had the *lowest* number of February new listings since 2013.
With townhouses and condos, on the other hand, there is no debate that so far in 2024, we are above what might be considered the normal range of new listings for this property type category. The recent escalation in insurance rates and condo fees are likely responsible for a lot of this increase, but the geographic distribution of Florida's townhouses and condos is also very different than its distribution of single-family homes, so local market dynamics also likely play a role. Let's take a look at our map again, which this time shows year-to-date new listings instead of closed sales, as well as their year-over-year percent change. As you can see, there are no townhouse and condo markets of any significant size that have not seen a seismic increase in new listings this year relative to last year. And interestingly, some of the markets with the largest increases are those suburban and exurban counties that also saw significant rises in sales, year over year.
Switching now to single-family homes, the areas where we're seeing the biggest growth in new listings are mostly along the west coast of the peninsula, but clearly this is a statewide trend, as well.
Despite the rapid rise in inventory levels that has resulted from the recent resurgence in new listings, inventory levels at the end of February in both property type categories were still well within the ballpark of the pre-pandemic norm that was established roughly from 2013 onward. It will take a lot more inventory to put a significant dent in home prices - look to the left side of the chart if you want to know how much - but at current levels, inventory is now high enough that it should continue to slow home price growth and present buyers with a lot more options than they had two or three years ago.
That's our report for this month - but Florida Realtors members, remember that we also track several other metrics that we didn't have time to get to this week, like days on market, cash sales, and months of supply. So don't be afraid to log in to your free member benefit, SunStats, to check out all the numbers for the state as well as your local area. Just visit sunstats.floridarealtors.org to get started. We'll see you next month!