Home Sales Plummeting in 5 Florida Markets! (Warning)

Florida is no longer the place to move for low cost housing. A starter home now costs more than $400,000. So that is not entirely true, but in this video I'm going to show you five areas of Florida where that is true, but I'm also going to show you some areas of Florida where starter homes are over $100,000 less than that. What's happening folks, my name is Brant, relocation specialist here in the state of Florida. I've lived here for over 40 years and I could not see myself living anywhere else. And while we do have a lot of issues here in the state of Florida, as do most states, there are still some amazing things about the state of Florida. And I'm here to help you navigate those difficult things. If you do have to move here, or if you are looking to relocate or purchase a property. So I want to start this video off by just seeing what are people saying about the state of Florida right now, this week. From rising homeowners insurance costs to HOA fees and multiple devastating hurricanes this year. Fewer people are buying homes in Florida. A South Florida mortgage broker says the cost of those available homes is another problem. So unfortunately this is accurate. Insurance here in the state of Florida is a problem. Home prices are high. You do have that risk of hurricanes. However, when you hear these news clippings about the state of Florida, you have to think geographically because if you were just to listen to the media, you would think the entire state of Florida is underwater. And that is just not the case. There are still a lot of great places to live here in the state of Florida. Unfortunately, positive news clips just don't get the views. Check this out right here. Well, pending home sales are falling in five Florida markets faster than any other across the nation. In South Florida, particularly pending home sales are down more than 15% in Fort Lauderdale, 14% in Miami and nearly 14% in West Palm Beach. So this is pretty important right here because nine out of 10 times, when you hear, listen to the news, they are discussing South Florida, Southwest Florida, Central Florida, and Southeast Florida. Okay. Those areas are insanely overpopulated right now. The traffic is horrible down there. Home prices are very expensive. Rarely ever do you hear them discussing the panhandle of Florida. Pending home sales are down more than 15% in Fort Lauderdale, 14% in Miami and nearly 14% in West Palm Beach. Now I want to explain this pending home sales stat and I want to give my opinion on why I think sales came to a screeching halt here in October. As you can see here in my area, sales dropped 12% compared to October of 2023. They also dropped 12% compared to September of 2024, but here's something to be mindful of. They did not just drop in one area. They dropped all over the state of Florida and all over the country. Folks, if you look up stats, pending home sales tanked everywhere in October. And I truly believe this is because of negative public perception about the entire country with the approaching election. Okay. So October, we were all in anticipation of that election. No matter which way you voted, everybody was on pins and needles. We thought we were about to go into the next civil war. The United States has entered very dangerous territory and that we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe. And so people were scared. There was a lot of fear. The media was pumping fear every single day. We are a divided country of second most divided era ever. The civil war is first. I was getting phone calls from buyers, everyday buyers that needed to buy in October. And they were like, Brent, we just can't do it. We just can't do it. I'm like, I get it. I understand. But here's what was funny is after the election, my phone started ringing off the hook with people that were like, Hey, I'm ready to buy. Hey, can you show me some houses? Hey, we're comfortable. Like, so I really believe that this major drop in home sales in October was due to the election. Now, certainly we do have a problem with insurance and hurricanes and stuff like that. I'm not minimizing that. I'm just saying it was like a little extra push that elect election gave it the extra push to like, push it over the edge and make it tank. Okay. Now let me show you this on price. The numbers speak for themselves. According to the Zillow home value index, 10 years ago, the average Florida home was valued at $144,464. Today, the median home price is $420,000. This is accurate when you're talking about the entire state. All right. Let's talk about that $420,000 number. Okay. But think about it like this. Okay. There are certain areas in the state that the median price point is around 600,000. And then there are certain areas where median price point is 275,000. And so it, the overall average is around 420 because of that reason. When you're thinking about the price of a house and how much you're going to have to pay, if you're moving to a certain area, you need to think geographically because not every place in Florida, are you going to get a $420,000 median price point house? Check out my area right here. Here's the median price point for, I'm in the panhandle. This is Pensacola, Florida. It's 310,000. And so it's over $100,000 less to get into a house here than it is, you know, in other parts of Florida. So what kind of home can you get for $420,000 in different communities in central Florida? Today, we're seeing a bunch of single family homes that are roughly that 2,000 square feet or under, three bedroom, two bath, but it needs some work if you want to be in those more built up communities. So if you listen to that, they're talking about central Florida and what is central Florida? It's basically Orlando and surrounding areas. Obviously that area is going to be ridiculously expensive because Orlando, uh, you know, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the entire state. Probably the biggest with all the theme parks and stuff like that. Of course, home prices in Orlando are going to be much more expensive. Now I want to show you what $420,000 gets you on the Panhandle. Cause we just heard that $420,000 in that central Florida area gets you a fixer upper folks. And that's not a lot of bang for your buck. All right, folks, we are on, here is the, here's Zillow and I'm in my local area. Now this is a suburb right here, just north of Pensacola called Pace. Uh, let's just take a look and see what's on the market. Here is a really nice brick home, 4'2", almost 2200 square foot for $418,000. Um, and let's just scroll through some of these photos real quick. I mean, this is going to be a home that you're not going to really need to just at first glance, you're not going to really need to do much to this home. I mean, but here's what's really cool. All right, so you've got a home gym and you've got a screened in pool. Check that out folks. And so it's a, I mean, you're getting a, I know where this is. It's a really nice neighborhood. So you're getting a nice home in a nice neighborhood with a screened in pool that does not have a lot of problems. And, uh, you know, so, so it is a lot different and there's, there's just a aerial view of the neighborhood. So it's a lot different than what you would be able to get like that home right there in central or South Florida, that'd be a 600, $650,000 home. And there's, there's a lot of these on the market. If you can, as you can see, I'm scrolling. Um, there's just a lot of these in that 400 to $435,000 range that are very, very similar to that. Now let's see what 300,000 gets you in the area, because that is the median price point at price point and a lot of areas right here along the panhandle. Let's look at that, uh, $300,000 range. Okay. And just see what's on the market. Um, I haven't looked lately to see, but as you can see, I'm, I'm just kind of scrolling on the right-hand side of the screen here. And there are a lot of options and these options actually look really, really nice. And I have not, um, here's one for $299 right here, folks. And this is, let me see when this was built. This was built in 2020. Um, and I mean, that's, that's a basically almost a brand new home, 299,000 right here, folks, three bedroom, two bath, nice neighborhood. And there's a lot of homes near that that are very similar. So that's, that's what I'm talking about, folks is, you know, and I'm scrolling over here. You can see there's lots of homes that are very similar to that in that 295 range. Again, I'm just North of Pensacola in the suburbs, but that's what you've got to do. You've got to just, uh, not all of Florida is the same is now is Florida expensive. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not, I'm trying to make it less expensive for you. I know that it's expensive, but I'm trying to make it to where you don't, you know, if you don't want to, if you have the money, it's no problem, but let's say that you want to move to Florida on a little more of a budget. I'm trying to help you out. So, so as you see, folks, there are a lot of options. Okay. And I just want you to, to not be afraid of what you're seeing, uh, in the news and on YouTube. Unfortunately, every video that you make talking negative about the state of Florida gets insane views. And what happens when these companies get insane views, they make insane money. All right. So even the YouTube channels that talk negatively about Florida, trust me, I have made Florida videos where I put a negative spin on it because there were some bad things going on back when I was making these videos and those videos made way more money than my positive videos. And it's crazy how that works. Okay. But it's unfortunate. And this is not just with the state of Florida. This is with anything folks. When you watch the news, they're going to try to put a negative spin on everything. It's why when you look up a, a, a murder case on YouTube, it has 15 million views. All right. But if you were to look up, uh, you know, something positive, like a beautiful day on the beach, it may only have a thousand views. People are drawn to that, to, to that negative story. Okay. And I don't want that negative story to scare you away because there are a lot of ways to navigate the state of Florida. Now, uh, again, I'm going to go back. I travel all the time for work to South Florida. Would I live in South Florida? Absolutely not. And the reason I wouldn't is not actually because of hurricanes or insurance. It's more so because of, uh, home price and, uh, traffic, but traffic being the biggest one, right? It is a headache to drive down there and it would stress me out every day going to work and, and just going to the grocery store. And so no, I would not live in South Florida. All right. Would I live on the panhandle? I do live on the panhandle and I love the panhandle. It's super laid back. I can sometimes drive around town and only see a couple other cars and I live in a city. Okay. So there are options, especially, I think suburbs too. If you want even less crowded areas, think of the suburbs of these cities, like Pensacola has quite a few suburbs, like Pace, Milton, Novar, Gulf Breeze, Perdido Key. All of those areas are very laid back areas to live. If you go East of where I'm at now, you've got Destin. Destin has a lot of traffic, but then if you get into the suburbs of Destin, all right, you've got Niceville and places like that, Crestview, uh, those areas aren't nearly as crowded. There are nice neighborhood homes that while you're still close to the coast, you've still got 20 to 30 minutes from the coast, but you're not in that coastal traffic and you don't have to worry as much about hurricanes, which is another thing I want to discuss real quick before I close this video out. Cause I get a lot of questions about hurricanes. When you get inland, you know, 30 and 40 miles, your chances of having a lot of major hurricane damage dramatically decrease. Okay. I grew up in Milton, Florida, which is just North of Pensacola, Florida. And you know, I, we survived Ivan, uh, you know, Sally, all of the, uh, the major hurricanes that hit the coast. Milton didn't have a ton of problems. You may have some roof damage. You may, uh, most of the time you won't have flooding to pay, you know, unless you live right on a river or something like that. So, which is again, you want to be smart where you're moving. So folks, if you enjoyed that video, shoot me a thumbs up. If you have any questions about the state of Florida, feel free to hit me up. All my information is a link in the description below. We'll catch you next time.