For months, Palm Beach County's tepid housing market seemed unaffected by the combination of a booming job market and rock-bottom mortgage rates.
That changed in May. The median price of houses sold by Realtors jumped to $364,900, a post-crash high. And the number of houses sold rose to 1,871, up 8.7% from May 2018.
Meanwhile, the total sum of home sales reached $1.1 billion in May, a 15% jump from May 2018.
From November through March, Palm Beach County's housing market had seen declines in home sales from a year ago. Buyers' tepid activity ran counter to two other economic trends that normally encourage consumers to buy homes.
First, the labor market has been strong. Palm Beach County's unemployment rate fell to a record 2.9% in April.
Second, mortgage rates have stayed unusually low. As of Thursday, the average rate for a
