Scott Reynolds, our team leader, is taking you through a deep dive of the market report for August for the Vero Beach Barrier Island Real Estate market. What Scott does in our newest market update is take a close look at a monthly snapshot of current inventory, analyzing the number of homes that are listed and that go under contract to see how the buyer demand and supply of inventory are affecting one another.
Ever since the interest rates have ticked up, the market has been shifting into what is a normal market (resembling the 2018-2019 pre-pandemic market- which has always had anywhere from 5-7 months of inventory at any given point). During the last year, and even the year before, we got down to about 2 months of inventory. Right now, on the barrier island of all single-family homes, including all home prices, we are now at 6.8 months of inventory based on pending sales. So, what does that mean?
We are officially starting to enter what is called a buyer’s market, any inventory with six months and more qualifies as a buyers’ market. What we’re seeing is the homes that are priced right are going off the market fast with multiple offers. Demand is still there, it’s just that buyers are being more intentional with their offer and are making sure all their boxes are checked.
From the entire Barrier Island zip code 32963, we currently have 89 homes available and about 13 are selling a month- and this is just for the month of August. The inventory has been increasing, just three months ago we had 57 homes available. We have almost doubled inventory- but it’s not fair to look at the whole island when analyzing the market. So, what we’re going to do is take a deep dive into each price point.
Homes under $1 Million are a very active price point. On the barrier island there were 16 homes available, 4 went under contract, and 3 sold. The $1-1.5 million is active as well with 16 homes available, 6 went under contract and 6 sold. Once you get to about $1.5-2 million that’s where the market really starts softening up. You’ll see that there were 18 homes available and 2 went under contract and 1 sold (graphs shown in video).
There is a big difference once you get to $1.5-2 million, and the market gets even softer when you reach the $2.2-3 million price point. From the $3-5 million price point, 0 homes went under contract but there are 11 available homes. When you get to the $5-7 million you will see there are 6 homes available and 0 have gone under contract. The same applies to homes $7.5 Million and more, 6 homes are available and 0 have gone under contract. The top of the market has really softened, but everything under $2 million has stayed active on the barrier island. It’s not terribly abnormal to see less buyer enthusiasm with the higher priced homes. We usually see more activity than what we did in August, but we’re starting to shift to a more normal market. We’re going to need more time to find out what’s the cause of the slow in the market, but we wanted to do a quick deep dive on the numbers that show we are tiptoeing into a buyers’ market. What this means is if you’re a buyer looking to buy on the barrier island, you are going to see less competition and more options. We are also seeing sellers become more reasonable when pricing their home to sell. If you’re looking to sell your home, make sure you stay up to date on the market adjustments to have the right strategy to sell your home fast and for top dollar. We do know the interest rates look like they’re probably going to go up a little bit more, we will have to see how that all shakes out. It’s hard to tell but all indications still show that interest rates are going to rise which has an indirect effect on the real estate market.
It’s a really good time to look at your needs and your wants and interview the right real estate agent. Now that the market is normalizing, you are going to want an agent that has the best marketing tools, current market knowledge, and support team to get your home sold. Our team is trending a lot higher than the market, we have already closed around 245 homes and have 71 homes under contract so far this year- which is more than what we closed all last year. We also have a fun appointment setting contest going on and the agents have collectively set over 100 appointments with buyers and sellers in the past 2 1/2 weeks. So, we are still seeing a lot of activity with our agents and clients. If you’re looking at buying and selling, this data is extremely important, and we wanted to make sure you understood what the graphs are saying.
If you have any other questions, or are looking to buy and/or sell, you can reach us at 772.492.7777.