With Christmas nearly here, the Northeast Florida housing market is acting more according to season as the year comes to an end.
“November’s month-end statistics for the Northeast Florida real estate market provide more evidence of a normalizing market,” said Mark Rosener, 2022 president of the Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS®. “Real estate is not only local but also seasonal. The spring and summer months tend to be more active, while November and December are more subdued with folks focused on the holidays. Things begin to pick up in January and February. What we are seeing now is much more in line with the traditional seasonality of the market.”
Single-family homes in the six-county region in November hovered at $376,385, a 2% decrease from October. Meanwhile, the number of days on the market soared 18.4% to 45 days for single-family homes as active inventory rose 1.5% to 5,503 houses and the home affordability index rose a mere 1.5% to 68. The Housing Affordability Index measures housing affordability for the region. In other words, it measures whether a typical family earns enough to qualify for a mortgage on a typical home, based on current interest rates, median income, and median home prices. A higher number means greater affordability.
Add in condos and townhouses with single-family homes and the median price in Northeast Florida continues to hover around $350,000 to $360,000 with the end of November’s median price arriving at $348,783, a 3.1% drop month over month and just 6.7% higher from a year ago. The median days on the market for single-family homes, condos, and townhouses rose 21.1% with a median of 46 days on the market.
“The median price activity reinforces the premise of a more stabilized market in Northeast Florida for now and also going into 2023,” Rosener said.
A 24% decline in closed sales for single-family homes, condos, and townhouses combined reflects the seasonality of the market and the impact of Hurricane Ian and Nicole, Rosener said, adding that the two vicious storms interrupted the writing of contracts that normally would have closed in November. “
The month-over-month 21.1% increase in median days on the market for single-family houses, condos, and townhomes as well as a 3.7-month supply is par for the course for the holiday season, he added. “These are also signs of a more “normalized” market with 46 days on the market and more than three months of supply being much closer to historical balanced market levels.
New listings of single-family homes, condos, and townhouses in the month of November also dropped 23.5% to 2,812.
NEFAR’s market reports are available at nefar.com.
