31 October 2017

Halloween Treat: Buyer’s Market In South Florida

As I had anticipated in a previous post, the property market in South Florida is now firmly favouring home buyers.

Hurricane Harvey (Texas), Hurricane Irma (Florida) and Hurricane Maria (thankfully never made landfall) on the TV screens every minute every day was enough to scare a lot of buyers away.

The September numbers for closed sales (closings taking place) were down 37 percent. That is not astonishing, as closings are routinely postponed as soon as an area is “in the box”, a large rectangle of drawn around a hurricane that moves with it.

Much more telling are pending sales, meaning the number of sales contracts being signed by a buyer and a seller:

42 percent fewer contracts were signed this September versus September 2016. Colleagues from various offices confirm this tendency for the current month as well.

While only few properties for sale were taken off market, all these homes and condos now encounter far fewer buyers.

So while the timing is bad for sellers, it's an invitation for buyers: they face much less competition and often a seller willing to negotiate a bit more than a short while ago.

So if a home (or condo) purchase in South Florida is on your radar, right now is a very opportune time to make it happen.

Please don’t wait too long then if you want to discuss a purchase – and a happy and fun Halloween!

 
South Florida - A Buyer's Market, by Tobias Kaiser / ModernSouthFlorida.com


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