Market Update  October, 2021
With Erica Plemmons
TRT: 3 minutes 31 seconds
Video Transcription

Erica Plemmons Directly addresses camera:  Hi, all my name is Erica Plemmons, and I'm an economist and the director of housing statistics at Florida Realtors, Dr. O'Connor can't be with us this month. So I'm here to share the latest and greatest news about the state's housing market.
But first, let's go back to last year. In 2020, Florida's housing market had perhaps the best second half of any year in recent memory. Part of this was due to the shifting spring buying season. The onset of the COVID 19 pandemic pushed a lot of sales that would have occurred in the spring back into the late summer and fall. But other factors were at play as well, including record low mortgages, changes in consumers housing preferences and the demand pressure from continued movement of millennials into their prime home buying years here in the second half of 2021.
We still have many of these demand drivers in place. It's no surprise, then, that the latest housing market statistics from Florida Realtors show that sales remain strong in October, but closed sales of single-family homes were down almost 7% compared to a year ago.
So how exactly where they strong? If we compare this October's home sales to two years ago before the pandemic. They were up over 18%. Similarly, condo and townhouse sales, while down 5.6% year over year, we're still up 23% compared to October 2019.
Low inventory levels continue to hold back the housing market, though at the end of October, single-family inventory was almost 30% lower than it was a year ago. While condo and townhouse inventory was down 54% year over year, this continued lack of supply in the face of strong demand, unsurprisingly meant that prices continue to rise significantly on a year over year basis. The median sale price for single family homes closing in October, was $358,950, which is almost 18% higher than last October's median of $305,000 in the townhouse and condo category. The median price was up by nearly 18% as well, rising to $260,000.
But wait, there's more. We encourage you to look beyond the statewide statistics to uncover trends for your market. Check out Florida Realtors dot org slash research to find the numbers for your area to help your buyers and sellers understand what's going on locally.
And of course, don't forget to check out our interactive market data tool, Sun Stats, which is exclusively for use by Florida Realtors members. You can access Sun Stats directly at Sun Stats Dot Florida Realtors dot org. Thanks for watching!