Today's top story:  The economy is clearly heading for a recession, if we're not already in one, oh boy!

Hi everybody, Joe Hillner with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty, where we guarantee the sale of your home or I'll buy it! 

Ok, so every week, I share market data to keep you informed with the local real estate market.  

Here is this week’s Boca Market Watch.

First, Single Family Homes:

This past week, 70 new listings, that's a bunch, and ranging in price from $429K to $15M!  13 homes back on the market, while 76 homes listed took a price decrease, woah, and 7 sellers raised their asking price.  And a terrible week, just 21 different properties under contract, and 24 going pending, just awful! 26 homes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired outright.  And a poor week for sales with 49 homes sold, ranging from $400K to $5.8M!

Next up, Condos and Townhomes:

59 new listings, so so,  and ranging from $125 Grand to $4 Million.  21 units came back on the market, 46 properties with a price decrease, and 4 sellers with an increase.  And another bad week with 33 different properties under contract, and only 25 going pending,  37 condos or townhomes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired. 61 closed sales this week, not great, and ranging in price from $95K to $1.3M.

Here's what's making news right now.

Unemployment is down, so mortgage rates crept up even more this week.  Although the about 260,000 new jobs were created last week, the unemployment rate still dropped.  It was expected to be close to 4%, but it unexpectedly dropped to 3.5%, as many employees simply left the job market.

So with 10 million job openings unfilled, employers are forced to offer higher wages to attract help.  That just continues to feed the inflation monster.  Average earnings last month were up 5% vs a year ago, which is still not enough to keep up with inflation, but in an ironic quirk, helps to feed the inflation numbers.

As a result, investor concerns drove up treasuries and mortgage rates followed suit.  Where will it end?  Well, the Fed has given clear guidance that they intend to keep driving mortgage rates higher, at least until they correct the real estate market.

Ivy Zelman, who predicted the last market crash, is saying that we can expect real estate prices to decline by 12% between now and 2024.  If you're a seller, sit up and take notice.  You need to take swift, decisive action now and sell your property rapidly.  Otherwise, you'll be trapped in the death spiral of chasing the market down, down, down... and losing a lot of money in the process.

If you're a buyer, this represents an opportunity that we haven't seen in years.  Much less competition to bid against, and more and more inventory coming to the market daily.  I know that mortgage rates seem inordinately high, but let's put that into perspective.

Over the last 40 or so years, mortgage rates have averaged 7.2%.  Back in the 80's, we had rates in the 14-18% range, and people still bought homes.  So we're just now coming close to that historical average.

If you're thinking about buying in our area, keep in mind that our population swells by 150% when we get into high season.  All the snow birds are here and many decide to buy when they come down.  That's when our home sales peak - between Dec thru April. That means that Oct and Nov represent your best opportunity to score a great deal, so I wouldn't want you to miss out by not knowing that.

One other item of note.  If you're a Florida business owner and your business was negatively impacted by Hurricane Ian, Gov Desantis just activated a Business Bridge Loan Program.  The maximum loan per business is $50,000 at 0% interest, and owners have one year to pay the money back. They’re personal loans using State of Florida funds. They are not grants and must be repaid by the approved applicant.  If you need help, or know someone who does, go to FloridaJobs.org/EBL (for Emergency Bridge Loan) for details.