South Florida counties take a hit for October single-family home sales

Image via Drew Dixon.

Home sales for South Florida in October took a hit in all three coastal counties, showing falling closings both month-to-month and year-to-year.

The “Elliman Report” analyzes home sales from Palm Beach County south through Miami-Dade County. The latest report was not encouraging, with Palm Beach County having the worst results in terms of home sales.

According to the report, there were 223 newly signed contracts for single-family homes in Palm Beach County for October. That’s a 15.2% decline in sales compared to October 2023 and a 14.8% drop from the previous month. September’s report showed 262 closings.

Elliman analysts said the downward trend of home sales in Palm Beach County has been the norm this year as more houses are being placed on the market.

“Newly signed contracts have been sliding year over year since February as new listings have been expanding over the past year,” the Elliman report said of Palm Beach County.

Broward County saw a less dramatic dip in closing contracts on housing sales in October, but they went down nonetheless. Broward endured a 4.8% decline in closed sales last month, falling from 357 a year ago to 340 in October. But Broward’s month-to-month decline was more significant, falling from September’s figure of 388 homes sold, or an 11.3% drop.

Miami-Dade County had the smallest decrease in home sales in October in the year-over-year comparison, dropping from 708 a year ago to 682 last month for a 3.7% decline in sales. But Miami-Dade was the only South Florida county to see a month-to-month sales bump, increasing from the September figure of 661, or a 4% jump.

While single-family home sales in South Florida declined a bit, that’s nowhere near the damage done to the condo market in the three counties. Condo sales fell between 28.4% in Palm Beach County and 10% in Broward County compared to October 2023. Miami-Dade recorded a 14.9% drop in condo sales in October compared to the same month a year ago.