TODAY'S TOP STORY: THE MARCH STATS ARE IN, AND IT'S NOT PRETTY

Hi everybody, Joe Hillner with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty, where we guarantee the sale of your home or I'll buy it!

Every week, I share market data to keep you informed about the local real estate market.

Here is this week’s Boca Market Watch.

Single Family Homes

This past week, 60 new listings, not bad, and ranging in price from $475K to $29.5M, nice! 17 homes back on the market, while 45 homes listed took a price decrease, and 5 sellers raised their asking price. And a lackluster week, with 46 different properties under contract, and 27 going pending. 19 homes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired outright. And a decent week with 53 homes sold, ranging from $360K to $4.25M!

Condos and Townhomes

73 new listings, like last week, ranging from $130 Grand to $3.8 Million! 16 units came back on the market, 77 properties with a price decrease, and 12 sellers with an increase. And a better week with 58 different properties under contract, and 44 going pending! Just 13 condos or townhomes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired. 80 closed sales this week, up from last week, and ranging in price from $102K to $2.5M.

Here's what's making news right now.

The monthly stats for March are in, and it's a mixed bag at best. Single-family home sales were down 20% vs a year ago; and y-t-d, we're down 25% from an already low number! The median sales price, half higher and half lower, was down 11% vs 2022. And the avg sales price, showed the smallest increase in years, just 2.1% vs February. The days on the market to contract have tripled in the last year, from 21 days to 61! And the number of new listings is down by 19%, and we were already short on inventory.

We've been expecting this to turn around but it just hasn't happened. Potential sellers are rate locked. That means they would like to sell, but don't see anything out there that they like, for the price, and their current mortgage interest rate is around 3%, less than half of what they would get if they buy today. So they just sit tight. Our overall months of supply have increased from 6 weeks to 3.5 months, but that's primarily due to houses sitting on the market for so long.

Pending sales, which are a leading indicator, are also down - we are down 12% year over year, and down 2% in just the last month, which means the rate of decline is accelerating! That's not good. It certainly appears that we are on the verge of a market shift. We'll have to continue to monitor the market very closely to stay on top of this

Impact Of Biden's Surcharge

If you're about to lock in your interest rate for a home purchase, you need to move fast! Beginning May 1st, responsible buyers with a 740 or higher credit score and a 20% down payment, in other words, A+ buyers, will get a 1% surcharge added to their rate. Yep, you heard that right. In their inestimable wisdom, the Biden administration has imposed this surcharge and in turn is giving buyers with mediocre credit and minimal down payment, a credit of nearly 2%! They're trying to address affordability and inequities in minority homeownership, but that doesn't seem likely to effectively correct the problem. What will those knuckleheads think of next?