Brad O'Connor directly addresses camera:  Leading up to November, buyers all over the U.S. were facing some of the highest mortgage rates that we've seen in several years, including a typical 30-year fixed mortgage rate between 7.5 and 8% through all of October, based on Freddie Mac's weekly survey of lenders. As a result, the rate of closed sales was sluggish again in November here in Florida, according to the latest statistics from Florida Realtors.
That said, at this time one year ago, the typical 30-year fixed rate was above 6.5%, which at the time was a multi-year high, so sales were somewhat depressed back then as well. In fact, on a year-over-year basis, closed sales of single-family homes were up over 4% in Florida. Over in the townhouse and condo property type category, this year's rates had a similar impact, with closed sales by 3 tenths of 1%.
Lately, prospective buyers in Florida have seen an increasing number of choices in their home searches. The number of new listings was uncharacteristically low at this time last year, but over the last couple of months, we've seen the level of new listings move back into the range of recent norms. New listings of single-family homes in Florida were up by over 15% in November compared to a year ago. And over in the townhouse and condo category, new listings were up even more, rising by nearly 26%.
With these significant increases in new listings compared to a year ago outpacing the very modest increase in sales over the same time frame, inventory levels continued to rise in Florida. Compared to a year ago, the number of active single-family home listings statewide was up about 14% at the end of November, and the current trajectory of inventory growth is such that we may soon be back at pre-pandemic levels of single-family inventory as soon as the end of the year. At this time in 2019, mind you, we were still experiencing a single-family inventory shortage - just not nearly as severe as what we faced after the pandemic began.
As we just saw, though, new listings have been rising even faster over in the townhouse and condo category, so unsurprisingly, the inventory gains in this category have been significant, as well. As of the end of November, the statewide number of active listings of townhouses and condos was up by almost 50%. But even though this is a huge increase, it's notable that we are still below per-pandemic levels, and even below where we were at this time in late 2020.
Price growth usually slows down as inventory rises, but it doesn't happen immediately. There's certainly not any strong evidence as of yet that prices are reacting to the rise in inventory levels we've seen over the past three or four months, but we'll be keeping an eye on it, of course. As for November, the median price for closed sales of single-family homes in Florida was up 3.3% year-over-year, rising to $413,000. And over in the townhouse and condo category, the median sale price was up by 7.5%, rising to $330,000.
That's our update for this month. We'll take a more comprehensive look at the market next month as we close out 2023 with the December numbers. And in the meantime, be sure to check out your local statistics at sunstats.floridarealtors.org.