- The number of homes for sale in Cape Coral, FL and North Port, FL surged roughly 50% from a year earlier in March—more than anywhere else in the country. And in McAllen, TX, supply jumped 25%.
- Housing supply is soaring because both states have been building a lot of homes, which is limiting home price growth. Buyer demand is also lackluster because many people are priced out. And in Florida, an insurance crisis is throwing a wrench into deals.
- Nationwide, new listings slowed in March as mortgage rates remained elevated. The Fed recently warned rates are likely to stay high longer than expected.
On the west coast of Florida, housing supply is surging, sellers are cutting their asking prices and the time it takes to sell a home is soaring—all at a faster rate than anywhere else in the U.S. The story is similar in parts of Texas.
Florida and Texas have been building more homes than anywhere else in the country, partly to accommodate the flood of newcomers that showed up during the pandemic homebuying boom. But the boom is over, in part because many people have been priced out. Now, homes are sitting on the market and price growth is stagnating.
Here’s how these trends showed up in U.S. housing-market data for March, which covers 85 major metropolitan areas:
- Supply: Of the 10 metro areas that posted the largest year-over-year increases in supply, six are in Florida and two are in Texas. Cape Coral, FL saw the biggest jump in homes for sale (51%), followed by North Port-Sarasota, FL (48%), Fort Lauderdale, FL (30%), Tampa, FL (29%), McAllen, TX (25%), Orlando, FL (23%), Knoxville, TN (23%), Dallas (20%), West Palm Beach, FL (20%) and Cincinnati (17%).
- Price drops: Of the 10 metro areas where sellers were most likely to cut their list prices, five are in Florida and two are in Texas. In North Port-Sarasota, 48% of listings had a price cut—the highest share in the country. Next came Tampa (44%), Indianapolis (43%), Cape Coral (41%), Denver (37%), Orlando (35%), Portland, OR (34%), Houston (33%), San Antonio (33%) and Jacksonville, FL (33%).
- Prices: Median sale prices fell from a year earlier in three metros, one of which is in Florida and one of which is in Texas: North Port-Sarasota (-4.6%), Oklahoma City (-1.5%) and San Antonio (-0.3%). Prices climbed least in Austin, TX (0%), El Paso, TX (0.5%), Memphis, TN (0.7%), Tampa (1.1%), Salt Lake City (1.1%), Omaha, NE (1.2%) and Charleston, SC (1.2%).
- Speed of sales: Of the 10 metros that saw the biggest upticks in median days on market, two are in Florida and two are in Texas: In Cape Coral, the typical home took 31 more days to sell than a year earlier—the largest jump in the nation. Next came North Port-Sarasota (20), McAllen (20), New Orleans (18), Tulsa, OK (13), Cincinnati (13), San Antonio (10), Greensboro, NC (8), Honolulu (7) and Knoxville (7).
“Out-of-town homebuyers no longer see Florida as a place to get amazing value. Now they’re moving to North Carolina or Tennessee to get a good deal. Many local blue-collar workers have been priced out of homeownership, too,” said Eric Auciello, a local Redfin sales manager. “Two years ago, the North Port metro was one of the most competitive housing markets in the country because it was affordable for remote workers and there was a shortage of homes for sale, but none of those things are true today. Sarasota, in particular, has been overvalued for decades, and the chickens have finally come to roost. The Tampa metro has been faring a bit better.”
Individual home sellers are having a tough time attracting buyers in part because builders are offering concessions that are hard for buyers to refuse. As a result, listings from regular sellers are sitting on the market. But homes are also sitting because many sellers are pricing their properties too high, and then being forced to cut later, Auciello said.
“The sharp ascent in Florida housing prices in recent years has driven a lot of homeowners to cash in on their equity, but some of them are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that it’s a buyer’s market,” Auciello said. “My advice to sellers is to price your home fairly; the comps from six months ago don’t exist now. And if you’re a buyer, know that the odds of getting an offer accepted below market value are pretty high.”
The insurance crisis in Florida is also throwing a wrench into home purchases and in some cases delaying deals. Nearly three-quarters of Florida homeowners say they or the area they live in has been affected by rising home insurance costs or changes in coverage, a recent Redfin survey found.
“One of our agents is representing a buyer who thought he’d be able to get insurance for $2,000 per year—the rate the existing homeowner has. But he found out at the eleventh hour that his insurance will be $4,000 because the house has had water damage. We’re seeing sellers offer a lot of concessions to hold deals together,” said Auciello, whose own home insurance is now $14,000 a year all in, up from around $8,000 two years ago. “We’re at an inflection point. A hefty insurance bill isn’t always a big deal for a luxury buyer, but it can be a really big issue for someone buying a waterfront home on a smaller budget.”
Connie Durnal, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Dallas, said her market has also been sluggish.
“Last year was by far the slowest market I’ve seen in my 20 years as a real estate agent,” Durnal said. “Move-up buyers are almost nonexistent. Even though a lot of homeowners have built up a ton of equity, many don’t want to sell because their monthly payment would double or triple due to high mortgage rates.”
Nationwide, New Listings Slowed in March and Prices Rose From a Year Earlier
New listings dropped 6% month over month in March—the largest decline on a seasonally adjusted basis since January 2022. They rose 6% from a year earlier, but that marks a deceleration from the 14% annual gain in February.
New listings may have slowed because mortgage rates are staying higher longer than expected, which is exacerbating the lock-in effect. The average 30-year-fixed mortgage rate in March was 6.82%—the highest since December—and the Federal Reserve has warned that elevated inflation will probably delay the interest-rate cuts they had been planning this year.
Active listings, or the total number of homes for sale, rose 1% from February—the smallest seasonally adjusted increase since August—though their 4% increase from a year earlier was the biggest annual gain in 12 months.
Prices continued to rise, in part because there’s still a shortage of homes for sale. The median U.S. home sale price rose 5% year over year in March to $420,357, just 3% below the record high of $432,496 set in May 2022.
Home sales were roughly flat compared with a month earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis, and were down 3% from a year earlier.
March 2024 Highlights: United States
| March 2024 | Month-Over-Month Change | Year-Over-Year Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median sale price | $420,357 | 2.1% | 4.8% |
| Homes sold, seasonally adjusted | 423,273 | -0.2% | -2.6% |
| New listings, seasonally adjusted | 509,405 | -6.3% | 6.1% |
| All homes for sale, seasonally adjusted (active listings) | 1,600,310 | 0.6% | 4.3% |
| Months of supply | 2.4 | -0.5 | 0.3 |
| Median days on market | 40 | -8 | -4 |
| Share of for-sale homes with a price drop | 16.3% | 1.1 ppts | 2.8 ppts |
| Share of homes sold above final list price | 30.0% | 3.8 ppts | 1.6 ppts |
| Average sale-to-final-list-price ratio | 99.2% | 0.5 ppts | 0.4 ppts |
| 6.82% | 0.04 ppts |
0.28 ppts |
Note: Data is subject to revision
Metro-Level Highlights: March 2024
Data in the bullets below came from a list of 85 U.S. metro areas with populations of at least 750,000. Select metros may be excluded from time to time to ensure data accuracy. A full metro-level data table can be found in the “download” tab of the dashboard in the monthly section of the Redfin Data Center. Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of metrics used in this report. Metro-level data is not seasonally adjusted. All changes below represent year-over-year changes.
- New listings: New listings rose most from a year earlier in Sacramento, CA (20%), San Jose, CA (18%) and Las Vegas (15%). They fell most in Boston (-18%), Rochester, NY (-16%) and Atlanta (-14%).
- Closed home sales: Closed sales rose most in San Jose (3%), Milwaukee (2%) and Tulsa (2%). They fell most in Tacoma, WA (-24%), West Palm Beach (-24%) and Grand Rapids, MI (-22%).
- Sold above list price: In San Jose, 72% of homes sold above their final list price, the highest share among the metros Redfin analyzed. Next came Rochester (69%) and Oakland, CA (66%). The shares were lowest in North Port (7%) West Palm Beach (8%) and Cape Coral (8%).
- Off market in two weeks: In Rochester, 82% of homes that went under contract did so within two weeks—the highest share among the metros Redfin analyzed. Next came Seattle (77%) and Grand Rapids (75%). The lowest shares were in Honolulu (10%), Tucson, AZ (18%) and McAllen (20%).
United States
Canada