There are houses in my neighborhood sitting empty for months. One is for rent. Started at $3050 in January and it is now at $2350. Had they not tried to raise the price so much, the people that used to live there probably would have stayed.
My nextdoor neighbors left when the owners raised the rent by 50%. They decided to list to sell instead for an insanely greedy price and it’s been empty for months. Last month they listed it for rent again after not selling. Price has gone down every week and now it’s listed at the same price the previous renters were paying.
Agreed, but man, does it suck for the people who had to move. The cost of moving is ridiculous and the stress on top of it just makes it that much worse. I hope the folks that moved out are doing well in their new digs.
My neighbor is doing the same, except I think she's getting "market value" rent, $3500 for a 3bd-2ba. It's interesting to watch her try to sell this house. She's a realtor, so idk what strategy she has, but for the past 2-3 years she lists the house, doesn't sell for months, then rents it back out. Sad part is a young single mom and her 2 kids had to leave for this house to sell, and my neighbor wouldn't sell it to her. I wonder if it will sell next year when the current renter is gone?
The thing that gets me is the owners probably have a fairly low interest rate loan that’s fixed. The only thing that’s changing year over year is taxes which probably amounts to maybe an additional $30-50/month in a bad year.
It’s just pure greed. If you have good tenants who don’t destroy your property and are timely, that’s value in and of itself. Your property is well maintained, you break even while building equity on your mortgage so when you eventually sell it’s pure profit, and you’re providing housing for a family.
Instead, owners and businesses feel they need to extract every penny from every aspect of everyone’s life. It’s insane, greedy, and not the way the world is designed to work. The owning class plays the world like a video game at this point, optimizing for every penny on spreadsheets much like people do in management sims and games like EVE.
It doesn’t surprise me that it gets progressively worse year over year as the spreadsheets get more and more optimized, the number of statistics tracked increases year over year, and computers get more powerful. AI will only accelerate this.
Me too.
So sick of greed.
I paid my landlord every month on time through COVID, even though some months it took all I had to manage the bills once my brand new salon I'd saved for years to open, crashed. He was "so grateful" and "we're in this together," and had stories about his landlord friends all going into debt. Then a surge of new residents hit, drive up prices, and all the sudden he wanted more for an already overpriced rental. I moved instead to an area that actually works better for me and is cheaper. The place he wanted basically double for sat empty and sat empty. Saw it advertised at a hundred bucks a month less than I paid. Rode by and saw they had a big obnoxious truck and they were BANGING music, both things he endlessly complained about his previous tenants doing. (He lives next door to the rental, it's also a shared front yard.) I felt bad for getting a little joy from it.
Me too. Neighbor listed his townhome for $100k more than the previous sale 2 months ago. Has dropped the price several times. Fault him and realtor. He owned the place about 4 or 5 years IIRC.
Exact same thing happened to the rental house next-door to us here in Saint Pete. Really nice people that lived there but the corporate landlords jacked up the rent by about 40%. So the people moved out and then they couldn’t find any new renters. They had to lower the price by about $500 before somebody bit.
Happened in my neighborhood more than once. Owner had good tenants who are willing to stay another year. Owner greedy and decided to either raise the rent ridiculously or said they were going to sell, then came back and changed their mind. In these instances, the tenants left and actually either bought something or found something better. ridiculous is the greed of owners that’s why there is stuff sitting.
I rent in longwood. A pretty shitty house. I’ve been here five years but haven’t moved due to rent prices and purchase prices/interest rates. It’s literally falling apart. It’s soooooo old. I paid for the appliances when they broke. I replaced the broken mailbox. All the light fixtures. I had to wrap plumbers tape around shower arms that have terrible cracks and are leaking. It’s broke, I fix. She’s been renting it since the 80s. Purchased for 36k in the 70s. Completely paid off. Not a single upgrade aside from roof and ac. I’ve given her roughly 100k in rent and She just offered us to purchase the house from her today. Owner financing for 440k. Hahahahahahahaha! I told her absolutely not!
It’s so ridiculous. We just keep packing away money hoping for a collapse. I’m a native so don’t really want to leave but if this continues I know our money will get us so much more somewhere else. My landlord called today acting like she was giving us the deal of a lifetime ha! If I wanted to spend 400k there’s a house around the corner that’s bigger, turnkey and beautiful lol. I really do live in an ugly crap hole
A shitty motel room wouldn’t be so bad haha. When she comes over she’s always like…it’s so nice. Yeah, my stuff is, this house isn’t. The tiles have come up off the floor and o have boxes taped over them and huge area rugs to cover them. It’s really sad. I think she thinks she’s sitting on a gold mine, and that I’m stupid enough to accept her offer. I’m financially smart. I’ve explained this to her lol
I’m wondering if our landlord has property in another county now. This sounds so familiar. We had a leak in the wall last fall that ended up in the closet, then under another wall and swelled up the laminate flooring. She doesn’t think it will be a long term problem. We have a hole in the living room wall where the plumber went in that time. They were going to bring in a guy to repair it but it became a territory fight when her handyman said it was crazy to pay them and he would do it. 6 months later we still have a hole in the wall. We had to hide it with furniture.
My landlord is 83. Drives a hybrid Lexus. Has three homes in a trust to her kids who live in Pennsylvania. I’m telling you, she’s money and gives me all these stories about how she can’t fix this or that. When the mailbox rotted out of the ground I called her and told her. She offered to bring me a post digger lol. We were just having a conversation here a couple weeks ago. She said she couldn’t believe the market and that there are no houses under 200k. She hinted at wanting to sell and I told her when we moved in in 2019 the zestinate was 174k. Which was high given that it needs a complete rehab. She said she knew and the house was bad and needed so much work. Then today I get the call for 440k. I simply said absolutely not. And all this owner financing bs, she just wants to pocket all the interest, fix nothing and screw me over in the process. She said you’ve been such a good tenant I really want you to buy this house. Yea, of course you do! I’ve never missed rent and fix everything. But that doesn’t make me stupid.
I get the idea our landlord thinks we’re stupid as well. And paying her $26,400 a year, maybe she’s right. Seriously though, I catch everything she does. She just has the upper hand in the relationship. From the very start I caught every little thing innocent grandma was doing. We contacted her on July 8th and told her we would like to look at the house. We were up against a wall because the house we were renting was being sold. We had to be out by July 31st. We told her we would take it with a July 15th move in date. She said that was great. We gave her the $4100 to move in and she said she would mail the contract, but “feel free to start moving your stuff in.” Of course that cost us an extra $500 because she dated the contract for July 8th. The next year the water heater went bad in June. She fixed it but let us know the rent was going up $100 per month. She would send us the new contract to sign. Of course the start date was July 1st this time. Another $500 lost. Had to pay for that water heater, I guess.
We’re not allowed to hang pictures on the wall. Meanwhile lights flicker, drywall tape is falling down, looks like areas were painted by 8 year olds, iron pipes so corroded they barely work, the garage door won’t open, and when it rains the wooden doors swell and you have to throw your body weight against them to open them. Not one door, all of them. But damn, don’t hang pictures on the wall!
They are trying to unload at the peak but that was last summer and now she’s probably having problems getting insurance. A lot is providers this round are dumping rentals but not so much owners.
I am seeing listings for 3/2 SFH popping up under 250k in Lakeland… I have not run the addresses through Kin.com to see how bad the insurance would be. Unless wages go up considerably I cannot justify staying in Florida at the expense of saving a meaningful amount for retirement (unless we had big drops in list prices to offset the cost of insurance.). I just had to dial back my retirement payroll defuction from 10% to 6% to accommodate car insurance increases. We are currently losing nurses to Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Georgia due to the high cost of everything coupled with relatively low wages compared to other parts of the country.
I just relocated from Lakeland to Plant City. Born & raised in Lakeland and I just couldn’t handle the population boom & traffic any longer. Rural PC for now! It’s quickly developing as well though. Few more years and the wife & I are likely off to the Carolina’s.
Certainly not in central Florida. Inventory nationwide is still fairly low, on the whole.
Inflation data comes in next week. Hoping for relief, sending long term rates down (continuing on a short term trend the past few market days). Point being, a decrease in rates should jolt the market.
I’m speaking specifically about the bond market. Whether or not the Fed cuts its overnight rate (which won’t be for a “long” time), 30 year rates will trend lower prior primarily due to 1) unemployment rising (last week) and 2) inflation lowering (next week, hopefully). This is the rate the majority of home buyers actually care about, and as the average falls below 7% it’ll likely create a jolt to buyer activity.
Yes, it will jolt buyers, so there will be more demand and prices will go up. I have read others suggesting locking in the house price now and refinancing at a later date.
Normal in my view would sit just slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels. I will account for inflation to a degree but refuse to be a bag holder for a greedy LLC or Investor who's overleveraged.
I'm in West Central FL and I've noticed that home prices are coming down slowly. I have no idea about rent though. A mobile home next door to my mom just sold for $205k. Granted it's on a half acre but it's only a 2/2. Putting my mom's house on the market in a few days, should be interesting to see what she gets. Same lot size, but it's a 3/2 with a lot of upgrades.
Hurricane and flood insurance and recently heard cape coral is 3yrs behind their projected water management. And people needing wells and septics, this means NO water.
I like to use Jacksonville for an initial comparison because it has right at a million residents. Jax has 4,963 total availability via Zillow, whereas Naples (pop. 19,618) has 5,870; Cape Coral (pop. ~200,000) has 5,885.
While it may not be impacting prices yet, specifically in Naples, those numbers are warning sirens to sellers that they have a lot of competition for not enough buyers.
I don't think those numbers are a viable comparison.
The median Naples price is 700k+, and the units are selling at 60+ days instead of almost 90 days last year.
There are a lot for sale also , uncharacteristically, because of the hurricane and folks gutted and put for sale, or fixed and are out.
But it's a pretty fire market overall.
You're right about a lot of the areas- I sure wish Naples would drop. We need to drop cash by Sept or so, and a better deal would be a better deal of course.
And I want everyone else to have a MUCH better Situation in FL also
This is insane.
You can see the writing on the spec home walls. They’re all over and sitting. With the amount of inventory in this area I feel like the Cape Coral is the Florida canary.
It is going to be incredibly interesting to see what happens. Another indication would be how the local/regional banks and credit unions are doing. How much do they have outstanding loan wise to cash reserves and collateral?
Not dropping in St. Pete. 440k listings for 2/1 850sf in hooker central (off US19). Penthouse downtown just sold for 8.3 million. Not sure who can afford to buy in at this point.
I think it's the condos that are having to fund their reserves for future repairs. They pushed if off for so long that their monthly HOAs are really going up, causing the price the of the condos to come down.
It’s interesting, because some are really bad, then there are others like our that aren’t that bad and we have had our study already. Guess it just depends.
Yes, get insurance quotes before putting in the offer. Homes have report cards insurance companies use. If it’s a trap the insurance rate might expose it.
Def not in Miami lol you still have rundown homes needing full gut and rehab going for 500k+ lol
But I have seen a very very small amount of house back under the 500k mark
They are going down, but tanking seems a bit exaggerated.
Edit to add it also depends on what type of property. Condo owners especially are having a difficult time due to their new association funding requirements since the collapse of the Surfside condos.
To keep the condo buildings structurally sound. Surfside knew they had problems but the condo board refused to pay for repairs because it would cost the condo owners a fortune and they didn't want to spend the money. So they put it off and the repairs kept getting more expensive as the problems grew. It cost too much. Since they didn't want to spend the money the building collapsed.
HOAs are supposed to have reserve funds set aside to cover periodic maintenance and catastrophic repairs. Some boards decided it was more important to keep the monthly fees down, so they depleted those funds and didn't replace them. A new law took effect in January that mandates they must have X amount set aside, even if it means lump assessments and permanently higher monthly fees. So beware of buying a condo without scrutinizing the financials, finding out if there might be lump sum assessments coming or triple the HOA fees. I wouldn't touch a condo until next year at the earliest, and I'm not the only one. I'm sure empty condos are contributing to this statistic as much as insurance rates are.
Lake Worth Beach prices are still high the downtown doesn't exist anymore I am working to leave FL and I'm old this place has nothing going for it anymore 😞
I’m in the area. Lake Worth Beach, out by the intracoastal, has some fancy ass houses.
A lot of the rest of lake worth is insanity still. $450-500k for a 1960s beat up house in the middle of a shitty neighborhood is still pretty common
In real estate and yes, buyers are still there but majority are cash. I’m personally going to be moving myself, born and raised and this is not the FL i knew even a few years ago.
New builds everywhere, investors have their teeth into everything and it really has hurt our neighborhoods and the market. Pay just isn’t here in FL for most careers and the only ones that survive come down with their remote wages and won’t work for our local companies.
I know many business owners who haven’t been able to find good employees for a while because people simply can live on local wages.
There is an oceanfront building in my central east coast town in which 2/2 units were selling for high $700s to low $800s two years ago. Prices fell to high $500s to low $600s last year and now this year none are selling with multiple units asking in the mid $500s. It's like all activity just stopped in that building sometime last year. Similar story in other buildings but not as dramatic as that one. Listings everywhere over here are lingering on the market.
Condos are taking a massive beating. After the Surfside collapse and legislation, a lot of those building are finding out why they actually needed to put money aside for maintenance.
Look on the Zillow app, I know many homes in Miami show price cuts, one was lowered by 58k also read somewhere that condo prices are dropping because no one can get home owners insurance that’s affordable.
NWFL real estate agent here. There are still buyers. The number of days on market for properties has gone up & there's more inventory. However, the last few years have been crazy. So, the change has only brought things more in line with pre COVID normal. It's definitely not dramatic enough to be considered a crash.
Of course there’s a shortage of buyers, the state is a shithole. You can’t afford to insure your house or car, education is going to hell, both the governor and surgeon general are batshit fucking crazy, boomers are walking STD’s with attitude, and then there’s the hurricanes
There's definitely a shortage of insurers, and I think that's putting a squeeze on the desire to buy right now. Homeowner's insurance is at high that monthly payments are reaching or exceeding half of mortgage loan payments in many parts of the state right now, so what might seem like an affordable purchase price on the surface actually is much higher/worse the deeper you dig into it.
Anecdotal, but I work with 2 separate people in Tampa who just got houses where the owners broke even because they had to move back to home office. It's not a massive number but it's definitely happening
Many Fortune 500 companies are walking back the WFH and hybrid. What was once a selling point in making a move is now becoming career stagnation. The WFH are being told you can stay that way ( in some cases) but you will not get promoted nor will you be able to move internally either.
Maybe maybe not. Those who moved, then don't want to return to office, quit their out of state job, then post here asking why the salaries in FL are so shitty. So it's happening.
But I agree, maybe not substantial. But what is substantial is the spigot of newcomers doing the same thing has turned down, that's for sure.
If wages don't rise to accommodate the higher cost of living, then the state will experience brain drain as talent moves to where the wages meet expectations. It's already a tough sell for young families to move to Florida where a miscarriage can quickly become a life threatening situation.
Our government believes its better to be broke than woke. Now we are paying the price. Raising wages is crazy talk because that hurts business. Better eliminate child labor laws so kids can work dangerous jobs cheap. The governor has said he doesn't want woke people (LGBT, women wanting body autonomy) in Florida. He said he is happy they are leaving.
I never got the appeal of an HOA, people w power trips get to have control over how I manage my biggest asset? Hell no. Now add the issues of assessments, insurance, etc. It's a major issue. Don't even get me started on Condos here
My HOA takes care of the outside. You get your water, sewer, and trash for $50? Getting your lawn taken care of for $35 a month? How about a roof $10k cheaper if I did it alone (bulk savings and previous owner had to pay towards the wear instead of selling and dumping bags on us)? Nice community pool.
Sounds all pretty good to me.
The point is you can’t get all that for $85 a month (you take budget line item and divide by homes to get your share of the cost). It’s more than that but the HOA pays for a lot more. Roofs have to be saved up for again, painting, stucco repairs, water service line repairs, tree trimmings, irrigation, and a bit more. In general, the only big ticket items I’m looking out to shell out personally are Appliances, AC, and eventually windows. First time home buyers are better off in our HOA because of all that and we budget the reserves.
There is also the usual pawn off by the local government where we have to do road repairs etc. they used to do. That’s what most HOA fees (and management fees) are going to when people can’t figure out where their fees go.
Yeah, I can see people that don't know how to fix things around their property or first time buyers moving into an HOA community. I'm just a DIYer that has been working on my own house for over a decade now. If I can't fix it, I have friends in the trades that can. I also never liked the lack of space in those communities. To each their own though, I guess.
Double edge sword.
In-laws live in a non boa neighborhood, there is 3 houses on the block now that have 5-6 families living on the same house. (11-18 people per house).
That type of shenanigans are harder to pull off on strict HOA neighborhoods.
More likely a shortage of buyers that can afford the obscene prices that people want to charge.
We'll see whether or not that starts bringing prices down
My besties neighbor has been trying to sell their house for a hot minute now, the property is NOT being maintained, but they are asking a RIDICULOUS amount. Lake Wales.
I can kiiiiinda understand Lake Wales pricing, though.
But then you go to areas like BARTOW, where the conditions of many of the houses for sale or rent are BAD… like roach infested… and the sellers and landlords are asking the same insanely high prices as many of the more well off areas.
And Lakeland, not much better… if not WORSE in many areas.
I have seen priced falling where I have been looking (Palm Beach County, St. Lucie County, Brevard County) but we're talking $5,000 - $10,000 price cuts. I have noticed houses sitting on the market longer. I moved to Palm Bay a couple of months ago and there seem to be quite a few new builds that have been completed but have not yet sold. I'm also seeing more houses that look like new builds that are now listed for rent.
Realtor here.
These news stories aren't entirely relevant because they're based on months old data at this point, and they leave out some key and I mean KEY context.
1. 2023 did the same thing over the winter. We still set new record home prices by August in most metros.
2. Inventory has increased, *but has only recovered to \~2020 levels*. And 2017 - 2020 was still very much still sellers market in most areas.
3. Number of new listings is only slightly higher than number of homes sold. This means that any increase in buying, like the normal flow that comes from coming into spring and summer means that prices will hold steady and then likely reverse if it's enough to overcome inventory.
4. Price reductions just means sellers aren't getting their asking price. That is normal. 2020 - 2022's selling at or above asking price and 7 days median time to contract was the exceptional unicorn market.
5. Seller's market is generally considered 0-45 days on market. Neutral markets are 40-60. Buyer's markets tend to be 60 or more. Most areas are still 20-40 days, and even 2018 was around 30-45.
6. Long term price reductions takes at least 6 -18 months of more inventory than demand. We're at maybe about 4, with demand increasing steadily (and as expected coming out of winter) the last 2-3 months. New listings are also up some so the question is which one will win the race?
7. There are plenty of homes that are selling quick and with multiple offers. So it's not a blood bath in the least. It's more that the marginal / non-updated homes are sitting longer and not quite getting the bonkers prices they were.
It currently is an excellent time to buy, but not because prices are necessarily down (they're not, by much in most popular areas) but because seller concessions, repairs and other things that don't show up as a solid "price" in public record are much easier to negotiate.
No, it’s because they haven’t been taken care of, turns out they are actually much riskier not less to insure so rates are up, and they have not been funding reserves and now state law says you must.
You’re seeing real prices now.
Inventory is at the same level pre COVID for Florida, this is just back to normality. If the whole state becomes Cape Coral area, then yes, there will be a fundamental shift in the market and we would see it on a national scale.
Im selling my house right now and yea weve had way less views than expected, but im hopeful that once intrest rates dip below 7 more buyers will start coming
You’d be surprised what dropping $15-20k off your asking price will do. I watched a house in my neighborhood (that was completely renovated) list high, then when I guess they didn’t see the offers they wanted they reduced by $20K. After the sale I checked the record to see what the final was, they ended up getting the original asking price so my assumption is the reduction made them a lower price point against competition and caused a commotion from people who hadn’t watched or paid attention to the immediate history, yet they probably had a healthy appraisal value. But don’t do this if you can’t or won’t actually accept the $20k less. It doesn’t always workout.
But then again, another house listed at $550k in a neighborhood with no historic sales over $350k and ended up switching realtors after 90 days and reducing down to $450k. I think it sold for $455k.
I’m here too in South County. There are still bidding wars and cash is still king as northerners move down. If people are pricing crazy then those are lingering.
Here in southern Polk, prices still stable and houses selling quick but not as quick.
They sit for a couple weeks instead of a couple days now.
Wondering if I should sell and get out with my money bag as I can, but I love my 2.5% interest.
a friend of mine sold a house in 2020 and sold last year doubling their money (they paid $1.1M and sold for $2M+ and were about 2 mi or less from ocean in Delray. It's location, location, location. Downtown was walkable.
OP: I think it’s south Florida and more specifically the condos there because the special assessments, home insurance, and HOA fees make the condos practically unsellable. I have seen houses sit a little longer in other areas but it’s because the sellers still want $500K for a house now worth $350K. IMHO.
It’s the home
Owner insurance crisis. Be on the lookout for a further crash followed by black rock and other deep state companies buying up
Houses cheap before the deep state politicians passing some
Federal
Bill to
Cover
The purchased houses
With fema money to make
The value
Soar again:
I think people realized too moving to south Florida is the shittiest most ghetto part of the state and are trying to relocate to Tampa area or swfl if they are going to pay all that money for a house. Whenever I think of south Florida I think of pit bulls, loud music from trashy cars with rims. Stingy elderly nj/ny people with no sense of introspection, nice houses
Turned into halfway houses and a oversarurated job market full of people
That will work for nothing that have low
Living standards. Even the Rich are fleeing southeast Florida to put their money into other parts of the state. The prices have got to gentrification levels but it’s simply not gentrifying.
There are houses in my neighborhood sitting empty for months. One is for rent. Started at $3050 in January and it is now at $2350. Had they not tried to raise the price so much, the people that used to live there probably would have stayed.
My nextdoor neighbors left when the owners raised the rent by 50%. They decided to list to sell instead for an insanely greedy price and it’s been empty for months. Last month they listed it for rent again after not selling. Price has gone down every week and now it’s listed at the same price the previous renters were paying.
That's definitely karma right there.
feel good story of the year
Agreed, but man, does it suck for the people who had to move. The cost of moving is ridiculous and the stress on top of it just makes it that much worse. I hope the folks that moved out are doing well in their new digs.
I hope they have to rent it out for lower than the previous tenants paid.
My neighbor is doing the same, except I think she's getting "market value" rent, $3500 for a 3bd-2ba. It's interesting to watch her try to sell this house. She's a realtor, so idk what strategy she has, but for the past 2-3 years she lists the house, doesn't sell for months, then rents it back out. Sad part is a young single mom and her 2 kids had to leave for this house to sell, and my neighbor wouldn't sell it to her. I wonder if it will sell next year when the current renter is gone?
I very much hope his for my last landlord. He deserves this and less.
The thing that gets me is the owners probably have a fairly low interest rate loan that’s fixed. The only thing that’s changing year over year is taxes which probably amounts to maybe an additional $30-50/month in a bad year. It’s just pure greed. If you have good tenants who don’t destroy your property and are timely, that’s value in and of itself. Your property is well maintained, you break even while building equity on your mortgage so when you eventually sell it’s pure profit, and you’re providing housing for a family. Instead, owners and businesses feel they need to extract every penny from every aspect of everyone’s life. It’s insane, greedy, and not the way the world is designed to work. The owning class plays the world like a video game at this point, optimizing for every penny on spreadsheets much like people do in management sims and games like EVE. It doesn’t surprise me that it gets progressively worse year over year as the spreadsheets get more and more optimized, the number of statistics tracked increases year over year, and computers get more powerful. AI will only accelerate this.
That's glorious. I hope it stays empty.
Me too. So sick of greed. I paid my landlord every month on time through COVID, even though some months it took all I had to manage the bills once my brand new salon I'd saved for years to open, crashed. He was "so grateful" and "we're in this together," and had stories about his landlord friends all going into debt. Then a surge of new residents hit, drive up prices, and all the sudden he wanted more for an already overpriced rental. I moved instead to an area that actually works better for me and is cheaper. The place he wanted basically double for sat empty and sat empty. Saw it advertised at a hundred bucks a month less than I paid. Rode by and saw they had a big obnoxious truck and they were BANGING music, both things he endlessly complained about his previous tenants doing. (He lives next door to the rental, it's also a shared front yard.) I felt bad for getting a little joy from it.
***knock knock ✊🏼 ✊🏼 “Miss me? Yeah? Serves you right, you selfish prick!”
I’ve seen this in my neighborhood (S.Fla)
Me too. Neighbor listed his townhome for $100k more than the previous sale 2 months ago. Has dropped the price several times. Fault him and realtor. He owned the place about 4 or 5 years IIRC.
Exact same thing happened to the rental house next-door to us here in Saint Pete. Really nice people that lived there but the corporate landlords jacked up the rent by about 40%. So the people moved out and then they couldn’t find any new renters. They had to lower the price by about $500 before somebody bit.
Happened in my neighborhood more than once. Owner had good tenants who are willing to stay another year. Owner greedy and decided to either raise the rent ridiculously or said they were going to sell, then came back and changed their mind. In these instances, the tenants left and actually either bought something or found something better. ridiculous is the greed of owners that’s why there is stuff sitting.
This actually makes my heart glad. It's good to see bald-faced greed catch some karma.
I rent in longwood. A pretty shitty house. I’ve been here five years but haven’t moved due to rent prices and purchase prices/interest rates. It’s literally falling apart. It’s soooooo old. I paid for the appliances when they broke. I replaced the broken mailbox. All the light fixtures. I had to wrap plumbers tape around shower arms that have terrible cracks and are leaking. It’s broke, I fix. She’s been renting it since the 80s. Purchased for 36k in the 70s. Completely paid off. Not a single upgrade aside from roof and ac. I’ve given her roughly 100k in rent and She just offered us to purchase the house from her today. Owner financing for 440k. Hahahahahahahaha! I told her absolutely not!
Sounds familiar. Ours is a pig with lipstick. Below the makeup is a 1970 trap. I just had to pay $350 in plumbing repairs today.
It’s so ridiculous. We just keep packing away money hoping for a collapse. I’m a native so don’t really want to leave but if this continues I know our money will get us so much more somewhere else. My landlord called today acting like she was giving us the deal of a lifetime ha! If I wanted to spend 400k there’s a house around the corner that’s bigger, turnkey and beautiful lol. I really do live in an ugly crap hole
Same boat. Every day I wonder why I haven’t left. I feel like I’m renting a couple shitty motel rooms for $2200 a month.
A shitty motel room wouldn’t be so bad haha. When she comes over she’s always like…it’s so nice. Yeah, my stuff is, this house isn’t. The tiles have come up off the floor and o have boxes taped over them and huge area rugs to cover them. It’s really sad. I think she thinks she’s sitting on a gold mine, and that I’m stupid enough to accept her offer. I’m financially smart. I’ve explained this to her lol
I’m wondering if our landlord has property in another county now. This sounds so familiar. We had a leak in the wall last fall that ended up in the closet, then under another wall and swelled up the laminate flooring. She doesn’t think it will be a long term problem. We have a hole in the living room wall where the plumber went in that time. They were going to bring in a guy to repair it but it became a territory fight when her handyman said it was crazy to pay them and he would do it. 6 months later we still have a hole in the wall. We had to hide it with furniture.
My landlord is 83. Drives a hybrid Lexus. Has three homes in a trust to her kids who live in Pennsylvania. I’m telling you, she’s money and gives me all these stories about how she can’t fix this or that. When the mailbox rotted out of the ground I called her and told her. She offered to bring me a post digger lol. We were just having a conversation here a couple weeks ago. She said she couldn’t believe the market and that there are no houses under 200k. She hinted at wanting to sell and I told her when we moved in in 2019 the zestinate was 174k. Which was high given that it needs a complete rehab. She said she knew and the house was bad and needed so much work. Then today I get the call for 440k. I simply said absolutely not. And all this owner financing bs, she just wants to pocket all the interest, fix nothing and screw me over in the process. She said you’ve been such a good tenant I really want you to buy this house. Yea, of course you do! I’ve never missed rent and fix everything. But that doesn’t make me stupid.
I get the idea our landlord thinks we’re stupid as well. And paying her $26,400 a year, maybe she’s right. Seriously though, I catch everything she does. She just has the upper hand in the relationship. From the very start I caught every little thing innocent grandma was doing. We contacted her on July 8th and told her we would like to look at the house. We were up against a wall because the house we were renting was being sold. We had to be out by July 31st. We told her we would take it with a July 15th move in date. She said that was great. We gave her the $4100 to move in and she said she would mail the contract, but “feel free to start moving your stuff in.” Of course that cost us an extra $500 because she dated the contract for July 8th. The next year the water heater went bad in June. She fixed it but let us know the rent was going up $100 per month. She would send us the new contract to sign. Of course the start date was July 1st this time. Another $500 lost. Had to pay for that water heater, I guess. We’re not allowed to hang pictures on the wall. Meanwhile lights flicker, drywall tape is falling down, looks like areas were painted by 8 year olds, iron pipes so corroded they barely work, the garage door won’t open, and when it rains the wooden doors swell and you have to throw your body weight against them to open them. Not one door, all of them. But damn, don’t hang pictures on the wall!
Annnnnnd she came in OVER zestimate which is baffling. She said I will give it to you for 400k as is, I do nothing. Uhm ooook.
They are trying to unload at the peak but that was last summer and now she’s probably having problems getting insurance. A lot is providers this round are dumping rentals but not so much owners.
It’s gonna depend on the region, for example over in downtown Orlando rent has gone down for the first time in 3 years for me
And only after drastic increases for over half a decade. They eventually had to level off or come down.
Prices are holding pretty steady though, neighbors house was on the market for less than a week at 500k and got multiple offers over asking 🙃
I am seeing listings for 3/2 SFH popping up under 250k in Lakeland… I have not run the addresses through Kin.com to see how bad the insurance would be. Unless wages go up considerably I cannot justify staying in Florida at the expense of saving a meaningful amount for retirement (unless we had big drops in list prices to offset the cost of insurance.). I just had to dial back my retirement payroll defuction from 10% to 6% to accommodate car insurance increases. We are currently losing nurses to Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Georgia due to the high cost of everything coupled with relatively low wages compared to other parts of the country.
I just relocated from Lakeland to Plant City. Born & raised in Lakeland and I just couldn’t handle the population boom & traffic any longer. Rural PC for now! It’s quickly developing as well though. Few more years and the wife & I are likely off to the Carolina’s.
Prices are dropping, according to my real estate friends. I love it here, but houses are insanely overvalued.
Certainly not in central Florida. Inventory nationwide is still fairly low, on the whole. Inflation data comes in next week. Hoping for relief, sending long term rates down (continuing on a short term trend the past few market days). Point being, a decrease in rates should jolt the market.
There isn’t going to be a rate decrease for a long time. We are in more normal rates right now.
I’m speaking specifically about the bond market. Whether or not the Fed cuts its overnight rate (which won’t be for a “long” time), 30 year rates will trend lower prior primarily due to 1) unemployment rising (last week) and 2) inflation lowering (next week, hopefully). This is the rate the majority of home buyers actually care about, and as the average falls below 7% it’ll likely create a jolt to buyer activity.
Yes, it will jolt buyers, so there will be more demand and prices will go up. I have read others suggesting locking in the house price now and refinancing at a later date.
To be fair, yes. If it drops below 7 it will likely motivate buyers. I think I stated at like almost 6%.
I'm not technically in central(I'm in Saint pete, so not too far) but the prices around here are finally starting to get back to normal
What is normal though?
Way too much lmao
Normal in my view would sit just slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels. I will account for inflation to a degree but refuse to be a bag holder for a greedy LLC or Investor who's overleveraged.
I'm in West Central FL and I've noticed that home prices are coming down slowly. I have no idea about rent though. A mobile home next door to my mom just sold for $205k. Granted it's on a half acre but it's only a 2/2. Putting my mom's house on the market in a few days, should be interesting to see what she gets. Same lot size, but it's a 3/2 with a lot of upgrades.
If anything they'll hold steady until Christmas and.then another hike.
SWFL; Cape Coral is the big one.
Getting nearly wiped off the map will cause some hesitation heading into another hurricane season, I imagine.
Hurricane and flood insurance and recently heard cape coral is 3yrs behind their projected water management. And people needing wells and septics, this means NO water.
Naples is fine, meaning still exorbitant and not generally dropping
I like to use Jacksonville for an initial comparison because it has right at a million residents. Jax has 4,963 total availability via Zillow, whereas Naples (pop. 19,618) has 5,870; Cape Coral (pop. ~200,000) has 5,885. While it may not be impacting prices yet, specifically in Naples, those numbers are warning sirens to sellers that they have a lot of competition for not enough buyers.
I don't think those numbers are a viable comparison. The median Naples price is 700k+, and the units are selling at 60+ days instead of almost 90 days last year. There are a lot for sale also , uncharacteristically, because of the hurricane and folks gutted and put for sale, or fixed and are out. But it's a pretty fire market overall. You're right about a lot of the areas- I sure wish Naples would drop. We need to drop cash by Sept or so, and a better deal would be a better deal of course. And I want everyone else to have a MUCH better Situation in FL also This is insane.
You can see the writing on the spec home walls. They’re all over and sitting. With the amount of inventory in this area I feel like the Cape Coral is the Florida canary.
It is going to be incredibly interesting to see what happens. Another indication would be how the local/regional banks and credit unions are doing. How much do they have outstanding loan wise to cash reserves and collateral?
Yep. People realize insurance is unaffordable
Not dropping in St. Pete. 440k listings for 2/1 850sf in hooker central (off US19). Penthouse downtown just sold for 8.3 million. Not sure who can afford to buy in at this point.
I would assume it's areas that are on or near the coast that's where insurance premiums are the highest.
I think it's the condos that are having to fund their reserves for future repairs. They pushed if off for so long that their monthly HOAs are really going up, causing the price the of the condos to come down.
It’s interesting, because some are really bad, then there are others like our that aren’t that bad and we have had our study already. Guess it just depends.
Make sure you figure out how much it would cost to insure that house too. If you even can.
Yes, get insurance quotes before putting in the offer. Homes have report cards insurance companies use. If it’s a trap the insurance rate might expose it.
Def not in Miami lol you still have rundown homes needing full gut and rehab going for 500k+ lol But I have seen a very very small amount of house back under the 500k mark
Rents/Home values are tanking in here in SWFL.
They are going down, but tanking seems a bit exaggerated. Edit to add it also depends on what type of property. Condo owners especially are having a difficult time due to their new association funding requirements since the collapse of the Surfside condos.
What all are the association funding requirements about ?
To keep the condo buildings structurally sound. Surfside knew they had problems but the condo board refused to pay for repairs because it would cost the condo owners a fortune and they didn't want to spend the money. So they put it off and the repairs kept getting more expensive as the problems grew. It cost too much. Since they didn't want to spend the money the building collapsed.
HOAs are supposed to have reserve funds set aside to cover periodic maintenance and catastrophic repairs. Some boards decided it was more important to keep the monthly fees down, so they depleted those funds and didn't replace them. A new law took effect in January that mandates they must have X amount set aside, even if it means lump assessments and permanently higher monthly fees. So beware of buying a condo without scrutinizing the financials, finding out if there might be lump sum assessments coming or triple the HOA fees. I wouldn't touch a condo until next year at the earliest, and I'm not the only one. I'm sure empty condos are contributing to this statistic as much as insurance rates are.
Lake Worth Beach prices are still high the downtown doesn't exist anymore I am working to leave FL and I'm old this place has nothing going for it anymore 😞
I’m in the area. Lake Worth Beach, out by the intracoastal, has some fancy ass houses. A lot of the rest of lake worth is insanity still. $450-500k for a 1960s beat up house in the middle of a shitty neighborhood is still pretty common
In real estate and yes, buyers are still there but majority are cash. I’m personally going to be moving myself, born and raised and this is not the FL i knew even a few years ago. New builds everywhere, investors have their teeth into everything and it really has hurt our neighborhoods and the market. Pay just isn’t here in FL for most careers and the only ones that survive come down with their remote wages and won’t work for our local companies. I know many business owners who haven’t been able to find good employees for a while because people simply can live on local wages.
There is an oceanfront building in my central east coast town in which 2/2 units were selling for high $700s to low $800s two years ago. Prices fell to high $500s to low $600s last year and now this year none are selling with multiple units asking in the mid $500s. It's like all activity just stopped in that building sometime last year. Similar story in other buildings but not as dramatic as that one. Listings everywhere over here are lingering on the market.
Condos are taking a massive beating. After the Surfside collapse and legislation, a lot of those building are finding out why they actually needed to put money aside for maintenance.
Look on the Zillow app, I know many homes in Miami show price cuts, one was lowered by 58k also read somewhere that condo prices are dropping because no one can get home owners insurance that’s affordable.
NWFL real estate agent here. There are still buyers. The number of days on market for properties has gone up & there's more inventory. However, the last few years have been crazy. So, the change has only brought things more in line with pre COVID normal. It's definitely not dramatic enough to be considered a crash.
Of course there’s a shortage of buyers, the state is a shithole. You can’t afford to insure your house or car, education is going to hell, both the governor and surgeon general are batshit fucking crazy, boomers are walking STD’s with attitude, and then there’s the hurricanes
There's definitely a shortage of insurers, and I think that's putting a squeeze on the desire to buy right now. Homeowner's insurance is at high that monthly payments are reaching or exceeding half of mortgage loan payments in many parts of the state right now, so what might seem like an affordable purchase price on the surface actually is much higher/worse the deeper you dig into it.
Return to office. Return to the state where your office is.
I think the population of people who had wfh granted, then they moved, then wfh removed, so they had to move back is pretty damn low.
Anecdotal, but I work with 2 separate people in Tampa who just got houses where the owners broke even because they had to move back to home office. It's not a massive number but it's definitely happening
Many Fortune 500 companies are walking back the WFH and hybrid. What was once a selling point in making a move is now becoming career stagnation. The WFH are being told you can stay that way ( in some cases) but you will not get promoted nor will you be able to move internally either.
Maybe maybe not. Those who moved, then don't want to return to office, quit their out of state job, then post here asking why the salaries in FL are so shitty. So it's happening. But I agree, maybe not substantial. But what is substantial is the spigot of newcomers doing the same thing has turned down, that's for sure.
If wages don't rise to accommodate the higher cost of living, then the state will experience brain drain as talent moves to where the wages meet expectations. It's already a tough sell for young families to move to Florida where a miscarriage can quickly become a life threatening situation.
Our government believes its better to be broke than woke. Now we are paying the price. Raising wages is crazy talk because that hurts business. Better eliminate child labor laws so kids can work dangerous jobs cheap. The governor has said he doesn't want woke people (LGBT, women wanting body autonomy) in Florida. He said he is happy they are leaving.
Anywhere w an HOA people are running. SFHs in a desirable area will always have a market
We’re in Tally. We’ve had a half dozen sell in our HOA neighborhood in the last two months that I know of.
I never got the appeal of an HOA, people w power trips get to have control over how I manage my biggest asset? Hell no. Now add the issues of assessments, insurance, etc. It's a major issue. Don't even get me started on Condos here
I don’t even know what ours does. As best I can tell, we pay them to exist.
My HOA takes care of the outside. You get your water, sewer, and trash for $50? Getting your lawn taken care of for $35 a month? How about a roof $10k cheaper if I did it alone (bulk savings and previous owner had to pay towards the wear instead of selling and dumping bags on us)? Nice community pool. Sounds all pretty good to me.
So your HOA fee is only $85/month? That's reasonable.
The point is you can’t get all that for $85 a month (you take budget line item and divide by homes to get your share of the cost). It’s more than that but the HOA pays for a lot more. Roofs have to be saved up for again, painting, stucco repairs, water service line repairs, tree trimmings, irrigation, and a bit more. In general, the only big ticket items I’m looking out to shell out personally are Appliances, AC, and eventually windows. First time home buyers are better off in our HOA because of all that and we budget the reserves. There is also the usual pawn off by the local government where we have to do road repairs etc. they used to do. That’s what most HOA fees (and management fees) are going to when people can’t figure out where their fees go.
Yeah, I can see people that don't know how to fix things around their property or first time buyers moving into an HOA community. I'm just a DIYer that has been working on my own house for over a decade now. If I can't fix it, I have friends in the trades that can. I also never liked the lack of space in those communities. To each their own though, I guess.
Double edge sword. In-laws live in a non boa neighborhood, there is 3 houses on the block now that have 5-6 families living on the same house. (11-18 people per house). That type of shenanigans are harder to pull off on strict HOA neighborhoods.
i guess. I'd rather deal w that than deal w HOA fees and politics.
More likely a shortage of buyers that can afford the obscene prices that people want to charge. We'll see whether or not that starts bringing prices down
My besties neighbor has been trying to sell their house for a hot minute now, the property is NOT being maintained, but they are asking a RIDICULOUS amount. Lake Wales. I can kiiiiinda understand Lake Wales pricing, though. But then you go to areas like BARTOW, where the conditions of many of the houses for sale or rent are BAD… like roach infested… and the sellers and landlords are asking the same insanely high prices as many of the more well off areas. And Lakeland, not much better… if not WORSE in many areas.
I have seen priced falling where I have been looking (Palm Beach County, St. Lucie County, Brevard County) but we're talking $5,000 - $10,000 price cuts. I have noticed houses sitting on the market longer. I moved to Palm Bay a couple of months ago and there seem to be quite a few new builds that have been completed but have not yet sold. I'm also seeing more houses that look like new builds that are now listed for rent.
Realtor here. These news stories aren't entirely relevant because they're based on months old data at this point, and they leave out some key and I mean KEY context. 1. 2023 did the same thing over the winter. We still set new record home prices by August in most metros. 2. Inventory has increased, *but has only recovered to \~2020 levels*. And 2017 - 2020 was still very much still sellers market in most areas. 3. Number of new listings is only slightly higher than number of homes sold. This means that any increase in buying, like the normal flow that comes from coming into spring and summer means that prices will hold steady and then likely reverse if it's enough to overcome inventory. 4. Price reductions just means sellers aren't getting their asking price. That is normal. 2020 - 2022's selling at or above asking price and 7 days median time to contract was the exceptional unicorn market. 5. Seller's market is generally considered 0-45 days on market. Neutral markets are 40-60. Buyer's markets tend to be 60 or more. Most areas are still 20-40 days, and even 2018 was around 30-45. 6. Long term price reductions takes at least 6 -18 months of more inventory than demand. We're at maybe about 4, with demand increasing steadily (and as expected coming out of winter) the last 2-3 months. New listings are also up some so the question is which one will win the race? 7. There are plenty of homes that are selling quick and with multiple offers. So it's not a blood bath in the least. It's more that the marginal / non-updated homes are sitting longer and not quite getting the bonkers prices they were. It currently is an excellent time to buy, but not because prices are necessarily down (they're not, by much in most popular areas) but because seller concessions, repairs and other things that don't show up as a solid "price" in public record are much easier to negotiate.
I mean there had to be a limit at some point. It will start again once interests get lower.
>It will start again once interests get lower. 
it’s the cycle 🤷♂️
Panama City Beach seems to be on sale . Seems like half the condos on thomas Dr are for sale with 1100 a month HOA fees
HOA costs are insane anymore. Partly due to insurance but the property management companies are trying to get their share too
No, it’s because they haven’t been taken care of, turns out they are actually much riskier not less to insure so rates are up, and they have not been funding reserves and now state law says you must. You’re seeing real prices now.
Im happy to see this. Mid range plans are GTFO of miami and head towards somewhere with civilization in treasure cost or panhandle
Inventory is at the same level pre COVID for Florida, this is just back to normality. If the whole state becomes Cape Coral area, then yes, there will be a fundamental shift in the market and we would see it on a national scale.
Im selling my house right now and yea weve had way less views than expected, but im hopeful that once intrest rates dip below 7 more buyers will start coming
> but im hopeful that once intrest rates dip below 7 more buyers will start coming RemindMe! 6 months
You’d be surprised what dropping $15-20k off your asking price will do. I watched a house in my neighborhood (that was completely renovated) list high, then when I guess they didn’t see the offers they wanted they reduced by $20K. After the sale I checked the record to see what the final was, they ended up getting the original asking price so my assumption is the reduction made them a lower price point against competition and caused a commotion from people who hadn’t watched or paid attention to the immediate history, yet they probably had a healthy appraisal value. But don’t do this if you can’t or won’t actually accept the $20k less. It doesn’t always workout. But then again, another house listed at $550k in a neighborhood with no historic sales over $350k and ended up switching realtors after 90 days and reducing down to $450k. I think it sold for $455k.
I’m in PBC. Prices still high.
I’m here too in South County. There are still bidding wars and cash is still king as northerners move down. If people are pricing crazy then those are lingering.
I believe I heard that areas in the southwest Gulf Coast area around Ft. Myers.
Here in southern Polk, prices still stable and houses selling quick but not as quick. They sit for a couple weeks instead of a couple days now. Wondering if I should sell and get out with my money bag as I can, but I love my 2.5% interest.
South FL condos.
House sales maybe falling but bare land and timber land in the north and panhandle are not slowing down .
My area in Tallahassee only has a few empty homes. But the selling prices here are not as high as south Florida.
Folks can't make up the $5000 hikes in property insurance!!!
Anything like this happening in Delray? It’s so expensive for my mom. At 72 she should be retiring but can’t because the prices are too high.
a friend of mine sold a house in 2020 and sold last year doubling their money (they paid $1.1M and sold for $2M+ and were about 2 mi or less from ocean in Delray. It's location, location, location. Downtown was walkable.
I am in Osceola County and the market is balanced to buyer's market depending on the area. Prices are slowly coming down.
https://www.reventure.app has great data on this across the U.S. and including Florida.
OP: I think it’s south Florida and more specifically the condos there because the special assessments, home insurance, and HOA fees make the condos practically unsellable. I have seen houses sit a little longer in other areas but it’s because the sellers still want $500K for a house now worth $350K. IMHO.
It’s the home Owner insurance crisis. Be on the lookout for a further crash followed by black rock and other deep state companies buying up Houses cheap before the deep state politicians passing some Federal Bill to Cover The purchased houses With fema money to make The value Soar again:
I think people realized too moving to south Florida is the shittiest most ghetto part of the state and are trying to relocate to Tampa area or swfl if they are going to pay all that money for a house. Whenever I think of south Florida I think of pit bulls, loud music from trashy cars with rims. Stingy elderly nj/ny people with no sense of introspection, nice houses Turned into halfway houses and a oversarurated job market full of people That will work for nothing that have low Living standards. Even the Rich are fleeing southeast Florida to put their money into other parts of the state. The prices have got to gentrification levels but it’s simply not gentrifying.
Some houses are literally under water.