Today's top story: The gate is beginning to open’: Big inflation drop may aid homebuyers!

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, 52 new listings, much better, and ranging in price from $450K to $25M, nice! 11 homes back on the market, while 54 homes listed took a price decrease and 1 brave seller raised his asking price. And a slightly better week, with 24 different properties under contract, and 20 going pending. 16 homes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired outright And an improvement over last week with 35 homes sold, ranging from $400K to $4.5M!

Next up, Condos and Townhomes:

79 new listings, much better, and ranging from $130 Grand to $5.25 Million. 20 units came back on the market, 74 properties with a price decrease, wow, and 6 sellers with an increase. And an up week with 38 different properties under contract, and 25 going pending! 26 condos or townhomes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired. 45 closed sales this week, that's about a half of what used to be a normal week, and ranging in price from $90K to $2.1M.

Here's what's making news right now.

The once-frantic pace of consumer price growth has been slowing for months, which may bode well for buyers' budgets — and financing, according to new data from Bureau of Labor Statistics.


Consumer price growth cooled to a 6.5 percent annual increase last month, down from the 9.1 percent year-over-year growth reported in June, according to Thursday’s report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices actually declined by 0.1 percent from November to December.

It’s a development that could improve the odds of mortgage rates eventually falling below 6 percent once again, Lawrence Yun of the National Association of Realtors said in a statement.

“The gate is beginning to open for homebuyers who got shut out in October and November when the rates went above 7%,” said Yun, the group’s chief economist. “However, there is still a housing shortage and not enough listings.”

If the fall in prices continues, it could persuade the Federal Reserve to back off its ongoing policy of interest rate hikes earlier than expected, removing some of the upward pressure on mortgage rates in the long run. Yesterday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in Philly said he is in favor of 25 basis point increases this year. Let's hope that he backs off of this position based on these improving numbers.


And as home prices continue to fall, more affordable options in the months to come may draw more buyers back into the market. But those lower prices have yet to show up in the government’s estimate of housing inflation. Data in recent months have been pointing to near-zero rent growth in some major cities, and aggressive apartment construction will probably raise rental vacancy rates. That could be good news for wannabe homebuyers who were priced out of the market last year.


And in other news, despite a decelerating housing market, the National Association of Realtors hit its highest membership count ever in 2022, edging very close to 1.6 million and surpassing its previous record set in 2021.


This is quite surprising. Those of us who have been at this a long time, expected just the opposite. When the market cooled off last spring, the new licensees probably didn't close another deal for the rest of the year, so we were expecting the number of realtors to drop significantly - we've seen it happen before.


Real estate sales and brokerage is a fiercely competitive business. Some real estate professionals, like myself, do well even in down markets, while others struggle even in hot markets. What's interesting is that Florida has the greatest number of realtors in the entire country - over 223,000 of us. You can't throw a rock without hitting 5 agents, lol! So if you're not happy with your agent, fear not, you have plenty of choices out there.