Hello Everyone and thank you for watching. This is Gia with Palm Beach Premier Real Estate here in Boca Raton Florida with your 2-minutelocal market report for OCTOBER 2018.

So here’s a quick take on the numbers that came out from the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches

The message from your team here at Palm Beach Premier Real Estate this month is:

Palm Beach County mirroring national trends as markets wait on interest rates

So let’s take a closer look at the internal real estate market numbers…. What we’re seeing is the following:

  1. The median sales price of a single family home in Palm Beach Countywas $347,250 …..down slightly from the higher prices of earlier this year.
  2. The number of housing units soldwasup from Septembermonthly sales, and significantly higher than the same month last year due to the effects of Hurricane Irma impacting South Florida sales one year ago.
  3. The inventory of homes for sale in Palm Beach County , albeit increasing month over month remains low, with a 4.8-month supply of houses on the market. So you know, 6 months is considered to be a balanced market. There were 7,108 houses for sale in October, a slight increase overthe same periodone year ago.
  4. Homes are sitting on the market longer and sellers are having to make price improvements in order to get a contract
  5. Trends were a little different in the condo and townhouse market. The typical Palm Beach County condo that sold in October fetched $185,000, up significantly from a year ago.
  6. Luxury homes are continuing to take significantly longer to sell.
  7. Rising interest rates (we have had 3 rate increase already this year) are beginning to bite into the first time homebuyer segment of the market as well as move-up buyers. Another increase to rate is anticipated in December with perhaps 3 more in 2019.

So …as we continue to look for clear trends and market changes….our summary takeaways remain the same

  • A continued shortage of single family home inventory continues to create headwinds for the housing markets
  • Still behind on new construction which is not keeping up with demand adding further pressure, coupled with significantly higher costs to build (specifically…..land, wages, materials and interest costs). …..Homebuilders are therefore constructing higher priced units in order to respond to both increased demand and building cost concerns.
  • Increasing Interest Rate environment with 30-year mortgage rates reaching 5% recently(up from 3.88% a year ago) with predictions taking us above 5% in 2019 – representing the highest levels in 10 years … another headwind for the market to absorb.

Going forward we will definitely be keeping a continued close watch on prices, interest rates, inventory levels and the number of closed sales.

If you’ve been considering taking advantage of the strength in the marketplace – now is agreat time to sellJ …

Please give us a call for a confidential consultation at 561.395.8418 or email us at Info@PBPrealestate.com - we’re here to help!

As always we look forward to speaking with you. Thank you for watching. We’ll see you next time…. J