Drew Dixon
The slide in housing sales brought yet another month of declines for most of Florida’s largest counties and fastest growing areas in March.
“The Elliman Report” detailed decreasing closed, signed contracts on homes last month, which showed a continued slide in housing sales. It’s a trend that has been on the downward slide for nearly a half year. Only Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast, along with Southwest Florida counties, showed an uptick on home sales in March, and it was nominal at that.
Duval County had the most profound drop in closing contracts on homes in March. Newly signed home sale contracts plummeted by 31.4% in March 2024 compared to March 2023 in the county that is home to Jacksonville. That’s a drop from 767 signed closings a year ago to 526 last month. It is an improvement from February’s figure of 461 home sales, however.
But even February saw a year-over-year drop in home sales in Duval County, when signed closing contracts on homes dropped by 37.1%.
“For the past four months, the number of newly signed contracts for single family and condos has fallen year over year,” the report concluded.
Duval County’s sizable drop in home sales outdistanced any other large county in Florida by a substantial margin. St. Johns County, immediately to the south of Duval and one of the fastest growing areas in the United States, had a 9.6% decline in home sales in March compared to the same time in 2023. That’s a decrease from 332 signed closing contracts a year ago to 300 last month.
Sarasota County, another booming county in the Sunshine State, also witnessed a drop in home closings dropping by 8.2%, a fall from 773 in March 2023 to 710 last month.
Other counties that saw modest declines in home closings included Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough.
Lee County had an increase in home sale closing contracts. The county, home to Fort Myers, saw home sales jump by 7.3% from 1,303 in March 2023 to 1,398 last month.
Just to the south of Lee, Collier County witnessed a 2.8% increase in home sale contracts, going from 464 in March 2023 to 477 a month ago.
Pinellas County showed a 1.2% increase. Pinellas had 868 home sales in March, up by just 10 closing contracts compared to March 2023.
6 comments
Dont Say FLA
April 4, 2024 at 11:46 am
Yet another G0P run state that’s “good for business” but people have come to realize that “good for business” means everything’s on your back as a resident and yet government protections, like services, are for the businesses, not for you.
Nobody (but CEOs) wants to live in a G0P run state when they know what that really means for them. That’s why the G0P’s have become con artists, still trying to trick some folks into buying their false wares.
Speaking of wares, where’s the trickle down? Has it started yet? There’s plenty of money at the top. That trickle down gotta start ANY DAY NOW. Right? Right? Riiiight?
Rick Whitaker
April 4, 2024 at 2:17 pm
don’t say fla, i thought florida was supposed to be growing. here in tennessee home sales are way up. i guess we are getting a lot of people moving out of desantistan. we got a real bad governor too, so shit is still bad here.
Irving Schwartz
April 5, 2024 at 10:14 am
Your optic nerve has obviously fused with your small intestine, resulting your crappy outlook. Please see a proctologist before posting anymore of your surly comments.
Rick Whitaker
April 5, 2024 at 9:33 pm
IRVING, making an observation or stating an opinion is a surly comment to you? i had a real estate related business for over 30 years. i developed opinions about politicians that affected my business. i moved from florida to tennessee, so i have a little comparison to refer to. why are you so thin skinned about my comment? are you trying to sell your house and can’t, so you are mad at the world? i would say that desantis and his crowd, are the surly ones.
Jeff Morse
April 4, 2024 at 3:56 pm
What is driving much of that drop year over year is condo sales. Single family home sales are still healthy and the state is still growing, just at a slightly slower pace that the covid years. Inventory is still below 2019 levels too. Of course there are those with an ax to grind against the current politics of the state, but they really don’t have much effect on the housing market anywhere in the country. The Fed and federal government do. Anecdotally all I see are new homes being built all over my community with no signs of slowing down.
Confused
April 6, 2024 at 8:04 pm
I love computer literacy like the next guy. You make a lot of cash,you have a broader scope of the world.
I understand loads of sales,.but my word do you think 40 million homes a month is enough?
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