December was a busy month in Tampa Bay real estate as the number of single-family home sales jumped more than 25% in Hillsborough and Pasco counties compared with the same month in 2018.
A spike in the number of cash sales also suggests investors were more active in the housing market than they had been for much of 2019, according to Florida Realtors reports. Meanwhile, the inventory of houses actively listed for sale dropped throughout Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.
December ended with one of the biggest sales of the year when a couple who are both retired Las Vegas pharmacists paid $4.7 million for a five-bedroom, four-bath home on Redington Beach. As a measure of how much prices have risen, that sale would have been the third most expensive sale in the region in 2015. Last year, it was the 20th.
In Hillsborough County, the number of single-family home sales rose 26% year over year, while rising prices drove the total amount paid up nearly 33% to $582 million for the month. The median price — the midpoint in the range and an indicator that's less likely to be skewed by a small number of very big sales — rose 4% to $259,990. The median time to sale was unchanged at 77 days, while the inventory of homes listed for sale dropped 14.5%.
While the number of cash sales — a sign of how much investors are buying — had trended lower for much of 2019, it rose more than 32% in December, when buyers paid cash for nearly one in five homes sold in Hillsborough.
Hillsborough's total sales of townhouses and condos rose about 5%, with a median price of $178,390, an increase of nearly 8% compared with December 2018. Active listings were down nearly 18% year over year.
In Pinellas, the number of houses sold rose 19%, while the total dollar volume of sales rose 30% to $442 million. The median sales price was $271,000, up more than 8%, and the median time to sale was 66 days, three days more than same month the year before. Active listings were 23% lower than during the previous December.
Cash sales rose 26% and accounted for about three out of 10 sales that closed. The number of cash sales for condos and townhomes actually dropped along with overall number of sales closed. The median condominium and townhome price was $188,500, an increase of just under 2%. Active listings for condos dropped 19%.
In Pasco, the number of sales of single-family homes rose 27% year over year, with a total of $251 million changing hands, an increase of nearly 38%. The median sales price was $240,000, up 9% from December 2018, and the median time to sale was 70 days, four days fewer than the same month in 2018. Cash sales accounted for more than a quarter of all closed sales, an increase of 35%.
Active listings in Pasco dropped 14% for single-family homes and 18% for condominiums and townhomes. The total number of Pasco condo sales was down slightly, but the median price of $162,000 was an increase of nearly 14% from 12 months before.
Hernando County saw a 2% increase in the number of houses sold and 4% increases in both the total dollar volume of sales ($69 million) and the median sales price ($182,000). Median time to sale was 76 days, more than a week longer than in December 2018. Cash sales rose 20% and accounted for more than a quarter of houses sold. The inventory of single-family homes shrunk by less than 1%.
Hernando's median condo sales price was $139,900, up nearly 12%. While the number of sales dropped compared to the year before, the number of transactions in both years was 20 or fewer. The same goes for active listings, which were down but can be counted in the dozens.
