Hi everybody, Joe Hillner with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty. Every week, I share market data to keep you informed with the local real estate market. Here is this week’s Boca Raton Real Estate Market Watch.
Single Family Homes
This past week, 65 new listings, that's okay, and ranging in price from $425K to $26.7M, nice! 26 different properties under contract, and 23 going pending, that's about normal. And a so-so week with 40 homes sold, ranging from $505K to $5.5M!
Condos and Townhomes
76 new listings, that's okay, and ranging from $110K to $4.5M. And a down week for contracts, with 40 different properties under contract, and only 22 going pending. 57 closed sales this week, that's not good, and ranging in price from $150K to $4.1M!
Gov. DeSantis Vetoes the Vacation Rental Bill
And here's what's happening now. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the veto of SB 280 – Vacation Rentals, late last week. The veto, which was a priority for realtors and homeowners alike, protects the property rights of owners who wish to rent their homes on a short-term basis, safeguards Florida’s economy, and ensures Florida’s tourism industry remains strong.
Realtors® have long agreed that short-term rentals need to be regulated, but SB 280 would have gone too far, becoming a tool to:
- “Tax” short-term rental owners through unlimited fees,
- Suspend and take away vacation rental registrations using undefined violations,
- Force vacation rental owners to appeal disciplinary actions through the courts - which is ridiculous!
Under the bill, any local ordinance or measure passed to regulate short-term rentals, would then apply to all residential properties. That would effectively prevent any local regulation of vacation rentals. And as we know, the vacation rental markets are far from uniform across the state. So while we all agree that some measure of regulation over the vacation rental market is in order, this clearly wasn't thought through very well. Back to the drawing board.
Real Estate Trends in Major Cities
In other news, among America’s 50 biggest cities, 20 of them show annual price declines since last year, and the metro with the steepest drop might surprise you. In Miami, the median home price plummeted 11.2% from a year earlier, to $439,000.
Despite the drop, higher mortgage rates compared with last May still increased the monthly cost of financing 80% of the median home by roughly $158 compared with a year ago. This increased the required household income to purchase the median-priced home by $6,400, to $119,700, after also accounting for the cost of taxes and insurance. So it hasn't really gotten any easier for buyers, yet.
Boca Raton Real Estate Market Watch
A little closer to home, Boca Raton remains an impressive bright spot. The median-priced home in Boca Raton was up 18% over last May, to $950,000, wow! And the median-priced condo was up 11.4% to $387,500! It remains to be seen whether or not the slowdown in volume and increase in inventory will affect us negatively, if at all.
As always, we'll be keeping a close eye on it for you...
