As suspected, Hurricane Irma delayed a lot of sales, which affected the market statistics for the South Florida Housing Market in October.
Here are the market stats for you to look at in more detail: Market Statistics
Hurricane Irma hit South Florida in the second week of September 2017. Businesses shut down and real estate stopped.
The median sales price (Broward County) for single family homes went from $357,600 in September, to $335,000 in October. The Median Time to Contract went from 36 days to 58 days since it took some time to get real estate running again after the storm. People were without power and water for quite some time. Lenders had to have the houses reinspected.
Yet the townhouse/condo market didn’t have such a big difference in numbers from before and after the hurricane. Why? Because condos and townhouses usually take longer to sell, and longer to close. So, losing a week or two, isn’t a big difference. The median sales prices in Broward County for townhouses and condos, went from $156,000 down to $155,000 in a month.
The months supply of inventory for housing in Broward County was still at 3.8 months for October. One would think that means sellers could name their price, but that is far from the truth. Buyers are waiting longer since they don’t see anything they really like. That is why the number of houses closing, is still low. Buyer are more and more educated on the South Florida Housing Market. Which means that they won’t overpay. If a property is sitting on the market, that means that buyers don’t perceive it’s worth the asking price. As soon as your property hits the right value range, you will have buyers calling to see your property immediately.
We will see if the usual holiday slowdown affects the real estate market, or if we still see some good sales, since there is low inventory.