After Two Years Of A Torrid Market, Is South Florida’s Real Estate Too Hot For Its Own Good?
A scorching 2021 housing market bumped median prices of single-family homes in Palm Beach County to $475,000 — a 22% rise — and the average price to near seven figures. Bidding wars broke out that recalled the boom years of the early 2000s.
Zoning laws, a limited stock, inflation, and high demand have caused a housing shortage, as cryptocurrency investors and remote workers relocated for lower taxes and lifestyle. But, are the good times about to pop?
None of this was a surprise to local agents.
“Palm Beach, where I focus most of my attention, has not shown any signs of cooling down, but it’s hard to say because everybody’s on vacation right now for the summer,” says Todd Peter of Sotheby’s. “We’ll see what happens when people come back to town in the fall.”
John Cregan, Peter’s colleague at Sotheby’s, concurs. “It’s summertime, but we still have way more buyers than sellers. And by all reports it still gets cold up there in the winter, and New York and Illinois don’t seem to have any intention of lowering taxes. So, we continue to have a demand driven market. The higher prices are kind of accelerating, because of things like people’s desire to downsize or move closer to grandkids.”
Other people want to give it some time. “People think the market is so slow. It’s supposed to be slow this time of year! Two years ago, pre-pandemic in June, there were six single family homes sold [in Palm Beach] in the month of June, which is normal. Last year there were 27,” points out Gary Pohrer at Douglas Elliman. “We’ve just become accustomed to this mad craze over the last couple of years where people stay here and didn’t go anywhere during the summer. This year, though, people are traveling to Europe, even more than in past years. I don’t think we’ll really know how this market is going to be until January.”