“As we close out 2022 and move into 2023 the Northeast Florida real estate statistics continue to point to a stabilization of the market,” said Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS® President Mark Rosener. “It certainly has been a year with two very different markets rolled into 12 short months. We started out the year with an extremely restricted inventory position, a flurry of very competitive multiple offers, and homes selling significantly over list in a very short time frame. As we moved into early summer 2022 with rising mortgage rates, we saw a turn to a very different market. The second half of 2022 more closely resembled the more “normal” market that we had experienced prior to the pandemic,” he said.
In December 2022 the median sales price for single-family homes over the six-county area was $370,000, a slight 1.7% reduction from the month before but a 5.7% increase from December 2021. And while December’s figures are typically down in closed sales due to seasonality, this year’s figure of 1,583 is 38.4% lower than last years, a striking reduction from December 2021. The same goes for pending sales, which for single-family homes registered at 1,324 in December 2021, a 31.9% decrease from December 2021. This may be a reflection of how unusual the market was last year, and evidence that the market is correcting itself a bit.
“The closed and pending unit sales in the combined single-family, condo and townhouse market in Northeast Florida has been relatively stable for the past 3-4 months with just slight movement month over month as we would expect in line with the seasonality of a “normal” real estate market,” said Rosener. “Days on market is now a median of 50 days which is more typical for a balanced market while only 3.2-month supply is still considered a “sellers’ market. New listings coming on the market is following the historic seasonality with fewer new listings during the holidays and an anticipation of an uptick in mid to late spring. The inventory has stabilized as well in the 6,200 to 7,000 listing level. This is good news for both sellers and buyers. Sellers can still expect a reasonable marketing timeframe to sell provided the age-old considerations of location, condition, and price are in line with available comparative home sales. Buyers have more inventory to choose from and, in most cases, are not caught in a highly competitive multiple-offer situation,” he said.
“In December, Northeast Florida’s median sales price was $350,000 in March 2022 for single family homes, condos and townhouses combined and this December it finished at $345,000,” Rosener continued. “While the median price peaked in July 2022 at $375,000, it settled back to virtually the same as March by years end. It is important to note that while it ended the year 8% below its peak, that does not equate to an 8% devaluation of property values,” Rosener said. “Median Price and appreciation/depreciation of property values are not the same thing. What it does say is that median price has stabilized in the $345,000 to $350,000 range. I would anticipate slight movement month over month throughout 2023, with some month’s up slightly, others down slightly. This is very much in line with month-over-month movement in the years before the pandemic.”
Rosener said the REALTOR® community remains concerned about the affordability of housing in the Northeast Florida region.
“We remain concerned about that the Home Affordability Index stands at 74 at the end of 2022. As we move into 2023, it is my hope that we will see more moderately priced homes hit the market and mortgage rates begin to retreat to the 5.5% range by the middle of the year,” he said. “The employment market in Northeast Florida remains excellent and should help raise median income in our area. These factors should have a positive impact on the Home Affordability Index and move Northeast Florida in the right direction toward the ideal of 100. We will not get there overnight, and we still need to explore creative answers to affordable housing. A collaboration of the public and private sectors is necessary to address this issue,” he said.
NEFAR’s market reports are available at nefar.com.
