Palm Beach County Market Update

[Frank Mongiello]

The sky is falling(chicken little voice): 

I get a lot of questions on what's going on in the South Florida market. Below I'll outline the data I'm looking at from my local MLS board on the state of the market in Palm Beach County. I'll use the last 4 months of data so you can get a feel for where the market has been trending. (November data get's released on the 21st)

Closed Sales: October 1944, September 2116, August 2330, July 2236

Active Inventory: October 7416, September 6837, August 6687, July 6620 

New Listings: October 2938, September 2769, August 3108, July 3513 

Medium Percent of Original List Price: October 95.7%, September 96.1%, August 97%, July 98.7% 

Medium Time to Contract: October 27 days, September 21days, August 17 days, July 13 days 

Months supply of Inventory: October 2.8 months, September 2.5 months, August 2.4 months, July 2.4 months 

What I'm seeing(my opinion) is with the rise in interest rates and uncertainty, demanded has softened. This has led to less closed sales and this trend will likely continue. That being said, we haven't seen a massive uptick in new listings which has kept active inventory from sky rocketing. In a traditional stable market, the rule of thumb is 6 months supply of inventory. We are still a little less than half of that. Sellers are still getting on average 95% of what they are asking and highly desirable properties are still selling fast. Where I see the opportunity is in the medium time to contract data. Sellers are used to properties selling in a week, and medium time to contract is the only stat i've seen that has had a major swing in the past 6 months. Contacting "stale" listings that have been sitting for about 30 days and negotiating price and terms is the best way I'm aware of to get great deals in this market. 

Let me know what you think and if other markets are acting similarly.