A lackluster supply of available homes is slowing sales across South Florida — but the shortage of listings also keeps pushing prices higher as buyers have little choice but to pay more for what they want.
Sales of existing, single-family homes declined in August from a year earlier in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to figures released Wednesday by local Realtor boards.
It was the second consecutive annual decline in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties and the fifth in a row in Broward.
Across the three counties, buyers are finding fewer single-family listings in lower price ranges. In Broward, for instance, available homes priced from $200,000 to $249,999 dropped 14% in August from a year ago. Palm Beach County saw a 16% decline in that price range.
"What's ailing the housing market and continues to weigh on overall sales is the inadequate levels of available inventory and the upward pressure it’s putting on prices in several parts of the country," Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement. "Sales have been unable to break out because there are simply not enough homes for sale."
The median price in Broward last month was $350,000, up 8% from a year ago, according to the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale. Palm Beach County's median price also rose 8%, to $340,000.
Miami-Dade's median was $337,500 as sellers enjoyed a 13% bump, according to the Miami Association of Realtors, although the board added that collection of the August data was affected by Hurricane Irma preparations and extended power outages.
Median prices have been on the rise in the tri-county region since 2012.
Douglas Rill, a broker with Century 21 America's Choice in West Palm Beach, said he tells clients looking for homes that they have to be prepared to make offers at any moment.
"Buyers need to focus on ready, aim, fire," Rill said. "They need to be on the starting line, already pre-qualified, ready to go every day."
Rill said the market is stacked against buyers, so they need to find whatever edge they can.
He encouraged clients to make offers in the days before Irma hit because he figured other buyers would put their house-hunting on hold to deal with storm preparations.
"And it worked," Rill said, pointing out that one of his buyers made an offer that was accepted on a single-family home in a 55-and-over community in Palm Beach Gardens.
Statewide, single-family sales inched up 1%, while the median price rose 7% to $240,000, according to the Florida Realtors trade group.
As for South Florida's condominium market, which includes townhomes, sales declined in Broward and Miami-Dade counties but increased 5% from a year earlier in Palm Beach County.
Median condo prices rose in all three counties, hitting $156,000 in Broward, $175,000 in Palm Beach County and $225,000 in Miami-Dade.
The median means half the properties sold for more and half for less.
Jeffrey Levine, first vice president of the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale, said some buyers are setting their sights on townhomes as single-family affordability diminishes.
"That's a price range that people can afford," he said. "And we have a lot of new-construction townhomes coming on the market, which is helping."
Levine said many condo mortgages require down payments of 20% to 25%, but townhome buyers typically can get 3% down financing from the Federal Housing Administration or 5% down from a conventional loan.
The Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale is a merger of the Realtor boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
The merger, approved by the National Association of Realtors on Aug. 30, creates the third-largest trade group in the country, after the Miami Association of Realtors and the Houston Association of Realtors.
