Something Crazy is Happening with Florida Housing Market!

The market here in Florida is changing and you're going to want to find out how. What's happening folks? My name is Brant, relocation specialist here in the state of Florida. I've lived here for 40 years and I couldn't see myself living anywhere else. You know, just like with any state, Florida is not without its problems. Right now we do have some issues here going on in the state and I'm just here to bring you the news. I want to talk about the good, the bad, and everything in between that's happening in the state of Florida. Now this is my last video before we get our first cold front of the year. It's about to be 30 degrees, but here's one of the good things about Florida. Right now it's almost 80 degrees and sunny and it's almost December. That is a plus when it comes to the state of Florida. Like I said, I could not, there's a reason that I still live here and you know we see all these videos out there, these fear-mongering videos talking about how awful the state of Florida is. You would think that it's just completely uninhabitable if you watch the news, watch the videos online, but that's just really not the case. Florida is still an amazing place, but like I said, it's not without its problems and if you do have to move here, I want to make sure you do it right. Right now we're in a time period where you really have to navigate the market and like do some things that maybe you wouldn't have had to have done you know five or six years ago. So post-pandemic, it's been wild, it's been crazy folks. So let's talk about what the market is actually doing. So the October data just came out and I want to go over that, but I want to explain it to you in detail because there's some things going on with it that just don't make sense. The current median home price here in Florida year over year hasn't changed at all. It's still high. All right, but which if you look at these other stats that I'm going to talk about here in a minute, that doesn't make sense, but it really does and let me explain to you what it means. All right, you see so many market crash videos out there, but there are only certain homes that the price is going down. So if you take the luxury market for example, the luxury market is still stable. All right, the luxury market hasn't changed much at all. That tells me that people with money are still buying houses, that people with money aren't as concerned about problems like insurance, the insurance crisis here in Florida or potential hurricanes and stuff like that. All right, so if you look at your everyday single family home that in that $275,000 to $450,000 range, those are the homes that have slowed down drastically. But because the luxury market is still selling and those homes aren't selling as much, it makes the median home price still look ridiculously high. Are homes still expensive? Yeah, I'm not saying they're not. The market is changing. It just may not be as visible to you at the moment when you look at these statistics. You're like, well, I hear all these videos talking about a crash, but I'm not seeing it. This next stat that I'm going to show you will make a little more sense. If you are a buyer and you've been sitting on the sidelines, this is actually starting to look interesting. All right, for the month of October, average days on the market is up 21% year over year. All right, that means that listings just aren't selling. It's within that $300,000 to $450,000 price range that these homes are sitting on the market. And remember back just a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago, those homes were selling within like 24 hours. And so people were making, we had multiple offer situations on all of those homes. Now we are seeing those homes sit on the market for 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 days. That's a drastic change from what we have seen here in the last couple of years. So what are sellers having to do? Well, sellers that have to sell, they're slashing their prices. They have no choice. The market is always going to talk to you. And if you really want to sell your house, you're going to have to listen to the market. And so right now we are seeing sellers slash their prices. And most of these homes, if you look at Zillow, a lot of these homes across the state of Florida right now, you'll see price cut when you hover over the Zillow link. That means the home has recently had a price reduction. And we're seeing this with lots of those homes in the 300 to $450,000 range, which that was unheard of two years ago. Now, if this continues and we continue to see this same trend that we're seeing now, sellers will have no choice but to continue slashing those prices lower and lower, because this is just your buy side, sell side supply and demand happening right now. But the problem is that there are a lot of stubborn sellers out there at the moment. And I understand why, but this is also propping that median price point up, is these sellers over the last three years, their homes, they've been seeing these homes sell within 24 hours or within two days, whatever it may be. They're kind of used to that. And now that they're seeing these homes sit on the market for a while, a lot of them think that their home is worth more than the market says that it's worth. And we're seeing a lot of that right now. So if you really want to sell your home, you need to listen to the market because that's the market talking to you. If you have a really nice single family home and anywhere close to that median price point, and it's not getting showings or it's not getting offers, it's overpriced nine times out of 10. That's your problem. What does this mean for you as a buyer? Because this does allow room for a buyer to now come in and make an offer that they're comfortable with and potentially get a house for cheaper than what they would have gotten it for over the last three years. And we are seeing a lot of that right now because the fact of the matter is there will always be people that have to move to Florida, and there will always be people that have to move out of Florida. That's never going to change. So you're kind of wasting your breath talking negative about the state because the fact is people move here for work all the time. People leave here for work all the time and other various reasons. And if you are a buyer, this is what I encourage all my buyers to do right now is to, hey, let's really do an in-depth analysis of the market, of the area that you're looking to buy, of the specific house that you like, and let's make an offer you're comfortable with. Just because a listing is priced at a certain price, that doesn't mean that it's going to sell for that same price that it's listed for. We're seeing a lot of homes that are selling right now for actually quite a bit under the list price. And so that's a pleasant change from what we've had over the last few years. I'm really happy to see that. So I encourage all my home buyers right now to ask the question, will this enrich your life? Because that is super important. Too many real estate agents out there try to convince home buyers that, oh, this is going to be a great monetary investment for you or a great financial investment for you. You need to buy a house. You hear that all the time. But the fact is real estate can be a pain. Home ownership can be a headache. And that's something that a lot of real estate agents don't talk about is home ownership is not cheap anymore. The cost to keep up a home is really expensive. And over the years, that can really eat into your profit when you go to sell that home. You've already spent all your profit fixing up the house over the last 10 years. And so and because things like just everyday maintenance, even yard maintenance and the insurance crisis, paying way more for insurance now and having to replace things on your house because the insurance company is forcing you to. All of this stuff has gotten home ownership has gotten a lot more expensive. It's gotten more stressful. And so you really need to ask yourself, will this enrich your life? And for a lot of people, the answer is yes. Some people, the answer is no. And if it's no, you're better off renting right now. Don't purchase a home just because you think you need to do it financially. I own four different businesses and I can assure you that your biggest wealth builder is your income. Certainly you can make smart investments with the earned income and do even better. Don't think that you have to purchase a home because it's some reason going to, you know, make you wealthy or make you financially secure. You're going to do that through making money. I actually owned a bunch of rental properties in my 30s and I don't own them anymore. And the reason I don't own them anymore is because they were actually more of a headache than what it was worth. And people don't tell you that about buying real estate. People won't tell you about the calls that you're going to get at midnight at night, talking about your AC going out midnight at night. Even with a property management company, it's difficult. And I had a property management company and I still sold the homes because I was like, yeah, it's not worth it. You know, I make money from my businesses and I put that money into pretty secure stuff and leave it there. And so that I can focus on making more money with my businesses and not worry about whether I'm going to have a tenant die on my kitchen floor. I had that happen one time. Uh, it was a really awful situation and, uh, they didn't find him for three weeks, three weeks. And that's more of investment home ownership, but even home ownership that you live in folks is, uh, can be difficult. All right. It really can be, whew, man. It is a beautiful day though. You know, check it out. It's a beautiful evening here in Pensacola, Florida. We own a home here in Pensacola and we own a home, which is within close to that median price point, uh, me and my wife do. And we just got the insurance letter not too long ago, which is making me, uh, push closer to self-insuring. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to self-insure, but we got an insurance letter the other day that told us that we need to replace our roof, uh, if we want to, uh, or they're going to drop us. So we're in the process right now of making decisions, but there's a lot of that going on. And we only have a 14 year old roof folks, believe it or not. So there's a lot of that going on, which brings me to the topic of the biggest issue here in Florida, which is homeowner's insurance. And let me tell you this story that is happening right now. All right. I trying to sell roofs because they just had a major hurricane. He can not sell a roof. And I'm like, how can you not sell a roof in Southwest Florida right now? Everybody needs a roof. And he said that, uh, it's because the insurance adjusters aren't getting back with the people and the people don't have the money for the roof. So these people that have been paying on their premium for the however many years they've been paying the insurance company are now needing the insurance company that they've been paying for this hurricane. And the insurance company is nowhere to be found. And so some of these people have contacted the insurance company and they're going weeks and weeks without hearing from an adjuster. Imagine just getting hit with a major hurricane and you need your roof repaired, but you can't get in touch with your insurance company to get your roof repaired. And that's happening right now. There's something going on right here. Let me see what this is. Hold up. Oh, we got a plane taking off. I was wondering what that was. So it is not all puppy dogs and pancakes right now in the market, folks. But if you do have to buy or if you do have to sell, there are ways to do it. I don't want to sit here and be one of these doom and gloom people, because like I said, I live in Florida and I love Florida and I wouldn't live anywhere else. But I know there's issues in the state right now. And so what I'm here to do is just try to help you navigate those issues. I sold a house recently where we ended up getting a pretty reasonable insurance quote for a client on a really nice $350,000 home. And everything went smoothly. And so we are seeing some of those deals right now. One house that I would be leery of purchasing right now is an investment property. I would be fine with purchasing a single family home to live in, but a rental property, that's tough. Unless you find a great deal right now, I would probably still steer clear of that. Let's see what happens at first quarter of 2025, because the investment market is rough right now. There's one market that I would probably sit on the sidelines and wait for a little while unless you find a killer deal. So folks, if you enjoyed that video, shoot me a thumbs up. Everything I'm involved with, linked in my description below. Like I said, I'm a licensed real estate agent with Adore Real Estate here in Pensacola, Florida. So if you do need to purchase a home or sell a home, hit me up. All my information is linked below. Email me, shoot me a text message, give me a call. Doesn't matter. We'll catch you next time.