South Florida home prices soften slightly

The median sale price of homes in South Florida started to soften this summer, another sign that the market is rebalancing after a year of frenzied growth.

The housing market, while still strong and favoring sellers, is in a state of flux: Buyers may have more options as inventory levels rose over 20%, but their ability to afford homes has gone down due to rising interest rates, reflected in a 20% decline in sales, according to the latest numbers from the Broward, Palm Beaches and St. Lucie Realtors.

“The craziness we saw in 2021, when supply was obliterated and just at all-time record lows, we knew that kind of market was not going to sustain itself,” said Bonnie Heatzig, executive director of luxury sales at Douglas Elliman.

Sale price softens from July to August

The median sale price in all three counties saw declines from month to month, according to the latest numbers from the Broward, Palm Beaches & St. Lucie Realtors.

In Palm Beach County the median sale price for August was $565,000, a decrease from July’s median sale price of $600,000. It was similar in Broward County, where the median sale price of a single-family home was $562,500, a decrease from the previous month’s median price of $600,000.

In Miami-Dade County the median sale price for a home was $551,250, a decrease from July’s median price of $570,000.

There’s a few factors contributing to this: more inventory coming to the market, rising interest rates and sellers who are willing to take offers slightly lower than what they could have gotten at the peak, real estate agents said.

“We are seeing prices soften,” said Whitney Dutton, with the Dutton Group in Fort Lauderdale. “We are seeing sellers make adjustments down to new appraisals, and we are seeing negotiations on appraisals.

“As you are looking for homes and the values tick down one sale at a time, that changes the appraisal on the next contract,