The Lamacchia Realty South Florida Housing Report presents overall home sale statistics and highlights the average sale prices for single families, condominiums/townhomes in Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County for April 2021 compared to April 2020. It also looks at other metrics like New Listings and New Pending Sales as they are often the best indicators for predicting future trends in the market. This month’s report will be unlike years past due to the lingering effects of COVID and the massive amount of home sellers that didn’t list last year, and so 2019 will be discussed to compare this month to a market not impacted by a pandemic. In addition, we have to be aware of the fact that COVID-19 really got going and shutdowns were put in place in the middle of April last year, so it impacted homes listed, home pending and homes sold in April 2020. That is part of the reason that we go back to 2019 so that we can get a bigger comparison.
The dip in April 2020 sales, new listings, and pending sales reflected the log jam that the real estate industry experienced during the shutdown. Many March pending sales that would have normally closed in April were held up or cancelled as the pandemic spread. As well, many sellers paused on their plans to list in April as the stay-at-home mandate would have made it very difficult for buyers to tour the homes. Prices didn’t see any sort of decrease as the years progressed, but we did look at average prices and median prices this year. Median price is the price where half the number of homes sold for more and the other half sold for less. Average price is all the sale prices added up and divided by the number of sales, which could be thrown off by a few outlying very highly priced home sales.
These factors that caused the artificial reduction in activity last year apply to Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Broward County
Sales, average prices, the number of new listings, and the number of properties placed under agreement all increased in Broward County in April 2021 over the same timeframe in 2020.
Broward County closed sales increased by 81%, 797 sales year over year when comparing April 2020 to April of 2021. 2021 saw 1,782 sales over 985 last year. Condos/Townhomes increased by 127%, now at 2,224 sales over 980 last April.
Single family and condo/townhouse prices increased by 45% and 22% respectively. Single family prices are up to $689,592 from $475,849 – a $213,743 increase year over year. Condos/townhome prices increased to $287,920 over $235,911. Median prices for singles are up 21.5%, now at $464,000 from $382,000. Townhome median prices are up 20%, climbing to $220,000 from $183,500.
Broward county new listings increased by 51.6% for single families, rising to 1,983 from 1,308. Condos/townhome listings moved from 1,211 to 2,282, an 88.4% increase. When comparing April 2021 to April 2019, listings for 2021 are down for singles by 6% and are up by a slight 3.4% for condos/townhomes.
Like listings, pending sales are up a great deal over April 2020 due to last year’s reduction in real estate activity. The number of homes placed under agreement increased by 125% for single families and by 277% for condos/townhomes. There were 1,921 single families placed under agreement in 2021 over 853 in 2020. 2,562 condos/townhomes were placed under agreement over 680 in 2020. But if we compare 2021 to 2019, singles only increased by 2% and condos/townhomes increased by 36.3%- still high but not as astronomical as 277%.
Miami Dade County
Miami Dade increased in sales, average price, new listings and the number of pending sales when compared year over year.
Sales for single families increased by 83% now up to 1,584 from 865 in 2020. Condo/townhomes increased by 234% now at 2,376 from 711 in 2020. When comparing 2021 to 2019, single family sales increased by 25.2% and condo/townhomes increased by 74.2%. 2021 is seeing great progress in closed sales, even when comparing numbers to 2019.
Average prices increased by 89.3% for singles and by 67% for condos/townhomes. Single family prices averaged $1,112,985 over $587,921 last April and condo/townhomes averaged $697,114 over $417,602. Median prices saw much more lower increases which could likely mean that a handful of super luxury listings swayed average prices. Median prices for singles increased by 35% to $515,000 and are up by 31% for condos/townhomes, now up to $325,000.
The number of new listings increased by 61.6% for single families and by 103.6% for condos/townhomes. There were 1,773 single family listings added in April 2021 over 1,097 last April. There were 2,577 condo/townhome listings over 1,266 in April of 2020. News listings for singles are down by 7% and are up by 12% for condos/townhomes when compared to 2019.
Pending sales are up by 103.4% for single families now at 1,635 from 804 but are only up 5.4% when compared to 2019. For condo/townhomes, a 428% increase over 2020 brought sales to 2,698 from 511, but over 2019 there was a 66.3%, which shows condos are a hot commodity right now.
Palm Beach County
Sales, average prices, the number of new listings, and the number of properties placed under agreement all increased in Palm Beach County in April 2021 over the same timeframe in 2020.
Sales increased by 67% for single families and by 134.3% for condo/townhomes. There were 1,989 single family sales in April 2021 over 1,191 and 2,017 condo/townhome sales compared to 861 the year prior.
Average prices increased by 78.5% for single families and by 23% for condos/townhomes. Singles are now at $1,035,392 over $579,898 and condos/townhomes averaged $425,069 over $345,789. Median prices increased for singles by a much different level, 27.7% now at $466,000 and by 23.2% for condos/townhomes which landed at $240,250.
New active listings for single families increased by 78% year over year and by 89% for condos/townhomes. There were 2,248 listed versus 1,264 singles listed in 2020 and 1,752 condos/townhomes listed versus 926. If you compare 2021 numbers to 2019 however, the number of listings for both single families and condos/townhomes exhibited only slight changes; singles increased by 7.7% and condos/townhomes increased by 6.5%.
The number of pending sales increased by 71.5% for single families and by 215% for condos/townhomes. Single family pending sales reached 1,624 compared to 947 and 1,641 condos/townhomes went pending compared to 521 in April 2020. Pending sales for single families are down compared to April of 2020 by 22% and are up for condo/townhomes by 5.2%.
What’s Ahead?
As mentioned in last month’s report, the next few months will have very high performing numbers when compared to the same time last year. As you can remember, this time last year was when the shutdown threw a wrench in the real estate market. With domestic and international travel prohibited due to the pandemic, the market was thrown into a tailspin.
We are urging buyers to stay consistent, pre-approved, and ready to make an offer when the house is right. Sellers, be warned that over pricing the home is only going to make the home sit until you have to adjust it to attract the right buyers in your market.
Average prices are exhibiting intense year over year increases, partially due to inventory being so tight and demand being so high, but also due to a number of super luxury sales. This is largely due to international owners listing their luxury homes, which is why we discussed median prices this month as well.
*Data provided by Florida REALTORS® SunStats