Coastal Crisis: Significant Stress Revealed in Florida Condo Listing Market

Executive Summary

• In June 2024, our analysis using the Parcl Labs API identified 15 U.S. markets showing early signs of housing stress—13 in Florida. We promised a follow-up analysis leveraging our more granular API data—unit-level housing events. To conduct this study, we analyzed 4,270,368 Florida homes, including 147,925 active listings.
• Approximately 50% of Florida's for-sale inventory is experiencing price changes. This research examines the geographic distribution, pricing behavior, and property types of these on-market units.
• Geographic Trends:
  • Coastal South Florida cities (e.g., Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale) show less frequent but larger price cuts (-3% to -3.5% every 28-30 days).
  • Northern/Central Florida markets (e.g., Jacksonville) make more frequent, smaller adjustments (-2% every 16 days).
  • The Tampa Bay area (Clearwater, Tampa, Lakeland, St. Petersburg) exhibits frequent and moderate price changes, with reductions around 2-2.5%, signaling an especially active and volatile real estate market.
• Property Type and Vintage Findings:
  • Condos underperform, with -7% price drops from original listings by July 2024, versus -5% for single-family homes.
  • New construction exhibits the most dynamic pricing, averaging 5-7 price changes per unit, compared to 4.5 for other property types.
  • Older condos (pre-1970s) face the steepest price drops, reaching nearly -10%, likely due to impending condo assessment fees following the Surfside-related regulatory requirements set to take effect.
  • Single-family homes built in the 1990s-2010s show larger price drops (exceeding -5%) compared to both older and newest (2020s) homes, possibly due to competition from recent construction.
• Density maps highlight concentrated price change activity in southern coastal regions, particularly Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Cape Coral/Ft. Myers, and Tampa areas.
• Parcl Labs API uniquely enables real-time tracking of both evolving market-level dynamics and granular unit data. This data is essential for operationalizing hyperlocal strategies based on these findings. Access our API for free today.

Background

In June 2024, our analysis using the Parcl Labs API identified 15 U.S. markets showing early signs of housing stress—13 in Florida. This initial study, which examined 1,000 U.S. markets, focused on three key criteria:

1. Supply-demand divergence (rising listings, declining sales)
2. Increasing price cuts (>35% of inventory)
3. Significant appreciation since 2020 (>50%) with minimal decline from peak (<5%)

While these insights at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level are valuable, real estate's hyperlocal nature demands deeper investigation. To this end, we've leveraged our newly released property-level API data to examine more granular Florida trends, addressing critical questions:

• What trends are emerging at the sub-metro level?
• What specific behaviors are we observing across listings?
• What types of properties are driving price changes?

Our current analysis encompasses 4,270,368 Florida homes, including 147,925 active listings. Strikingly, about 50% of Florida's inventory is experiencing price changes. This follow-up study focuses on these units undergoing price adjustments, examining trends in magnitude, direction, and frequency of changes.

Where Is Florida's Housing Market Under the Most Pressure?

To identify specific Florida markets showing significant signs of stress, we've focused our analysis on homes that have undergone one or more price changes.

The scatter plot below breaks down Florida's top 50 cities based on active inventory, visualizing three key metrics:

• X-axis: Average days between price changes
• Y-axis: Average percentage price change
• Bubble size: Relative size of active inventory

Cities in the lower left quadrant are experiencing more frequent and larger price drops, while those in the upper right have less frequent and smaller price changes. Larger bubbles indicate cities with more active listings with observed price changes.

Coastal South Florida cities, including Miami Beach, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Naples, Punta Gorda, and Fort Myers, cluster in the lower right quadrant. This indicates less frequent but larger price cuts, typically 3-3.5% reductions every 28-30 days. Sellers in these areas appear more resistant to frequent price changes but make deeper cuts when they do adjust. Notably, Delray Beach/Boca Raton stands out even among this group, showing the largest price drops while maintaining a similar frequency to its neighbors.

In contrast, Northern and Central Florida markets show more frequent, smaller adjustments. Jacksonville, with the largest inventory of listings with price changes, leads with dynamic listing behavior, adjusting roughly every 18 days at about -2% per change. This suggests a more reactive market where sellers are frequently adjusting prices to find the right balance.

The Tampa Bay area (Palm Harbor, Clearwater, Tampa, Lakeland, St. Petersburg), along with cities like Pensacola, Daytona Beach, and Tallahassee, show a pattern of frequent and moderate price changes, placing them closer to the center of the plot. This indicates an active and volatile real estate market in these regions, with sellers regularly adjusting prices and making meaningful cuts.

The bar chart below complements the scatter plot by focusing on the magnitude of individual price cuts across Florida cities.

It clearly shows that markets like Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, which we identified as making less frequent adjustments, indeed make larger cuts when they do update prices (over 3%). Conversely, cities like Jacksonville and Orlando, which we noted had more frequent changes, show more moderate reductions (around 2%). This data aligns with and quantifies the different pricing patterns we observed in the scatter plot analysis.

How Does Property Type Influence Florida Listing Price Behavior?

Evaluating Price Change Behavior Across New Construction, Single-Family Homes, and Condos

To gain a more nuanced understanding of Florida's listing market dynamics, we not only examined regional differences (above) but also aimed to identify how housing product type-specific segments contribute to Florida's volatility.

By segmenting listings with price changes by property type—single-family homes, condos, and new construction—and analyzing listing behavior trends based on four key metrics—total price change delta on listings, individual percentage drops per price change event, days between price changes, and number of price changes—we gain a highly specific view on the listing behavior by property type.

Total Price Drop Magnitude: Condos Show Steepest Total Price Declines Among Florida Property Segments

First, we examined the total change between the original listing price and the current listing price for each segment.

The overall Florida market, represented by the red line, charts a middle course between single-family homes and condos, ending at about -5% below original list prices by July 2024. New construction demonstrates the most volatility but outperforms the Florida benchmark.

Condos emerge as the clear under performer, showing consistent and steeper price declines compared to other segments. By July 2024, condo prices had plummeted nearly -7% from their original listing prices.

Individual Price Drop Magnitude: New Construction Shows Smallest Price Adjustments, While Condos Experience Largest Individual Drops

This next graph illustrates the magnitude of individual price drops when change events occur across different property types in Florida.

New construction exhibits smaller, more incremental price adjustments, typically ranging from -1% to -2%, suggesting a more cautious and responsive pricing strategy. In contrast, condos consistently show larger individual price drops compared to other property types, often exceeding -3%.

Days Between Changes: New Construction Listings Show Most Frequent Price Changes, Condos the Least Frequent

This chart offers insights into the frequency of price adjustments across different property types in Florida. Intuitively, frequent changes suggest active management of a listing. This could be due to algorithmic pricing updates, often seen with properties owned by businesses, or indicate a highly motivated seller trying to quickly find the market-clearing price to exit.

Across all property types, we see a spike in days between price changes around the holidays, likely a seasonal effect. Outside of this anomaly, clear patterns emerge:

• New construction consistently shows the shortest interval between price changes, typically 3-4 weeks.
• Condos demonstrate the longest periods between price changes.

New construction exhibits the most dynamic pricing approach and condos the most static.

Number of Changes: New Construction Leads in Frequency

Analyzing the average number of price changes per unit provides more insight into how different segments of Florida's real estate market are managed:

• New construction sees the highest frequency of price changes, with 5 to 7 adjustments. This suggests a dynamic pricing strategy by homebuilders to closely align with market conditions.
• Single-family homes and condos, along with the overall Florida market, average around 4.5 price changes, indicating a less frequent but still active adjustment pattern compared to new construction.

Florida's listing market is notably active. Among active listings with price changes, the average number of adjustments exceeds four, underscoring the fluid nature of the market as sellers and agents react to shifting demand and competition.

To summarize the insights from our price change analysis by property type:

• New construction properties are managed very actively, with frequent, small price drops. This suggests that new constructions are both better priced initially, likely due to the homebuilders' expertise and market knowledge, and they leverage dynamic pricing technology to find the price that moves the needle for buyers.
• Condo units are the most static in terms of price adjustments, with less frequent changes and fewer total drops, but they experience the largest price reductions. This leads to a significant net price decline, with the segment approaching a 7% drop from the original listing prices.

The Influence of Property Type and Age on Listings

One hypothesis we had in our original research is that condo units affected by the Surfside regulations are contributing to Florida's market risk.

Florida's new condo law requires:

1. Mandatory structural inspections for older condos (30+ years old, or 25+ if near coastline).
2. Prompt repairs based on inspection findings.
3. Condo associations must conduct reserve studies every 10 years.
4. Full funding of reserve accounts for major repairs and replacements.

The deadline to comply is December 31, 2024. By this date, condo boards in Florida must show their financial reserves are fully funded for maintenance, inspections, and potential future repairs. This looming deadline suggests that the market may be experiencing increased pressure from sellers of older condos trying to exit before these new financial obligations take effect.

This hypothesis aligns with our findings on the behavior of condo units and the regional concentration of price cuts in coastal, condo-heavy markets like the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa areas. To further investigate these trends, we'll analyze the data by vintage, examining how the age of condos correlates with pricing trends and listing behaviors across Florida.

Older Condos Are Seeing the Steepest Price Drops

Our analysis of Florida's condo market by age cohort reveals a clear relationship between property age and pricing pressure.

Pre-1960s, 1960s, and 1970s condos exhibit the most volatile and steep price drops, reaching nearly -10% at their lowest points. This contrasts sharply with 2020s condos, which show the smallest declines, consistently hovering around -3% to -4%.The data indicates a widening gap between older and newer units starting April 2023, with a spread of approximately 5 percentage points between best (2020s) and worst (1970s) performing cohorts by July 2024.This trend aligns with the December 31, 2024 deadline for new regulatory requirements. Older condo pricing appears to be factoring in potential compliance costs, leading to more aggressive price reductions.The data supports our hypothesis that condos affected by Surfside regulations are contributing to Florida's market risk, with clear evidence of pricing pressure on older units. This trend may indicate sellers of older condos attempting to exit before new financial obligations take effect, potentially creating localized market stress in areas with high concentrations of aging condo inventory.

Condo Price Drops Are More Dramatic Than Single-Family Homes in Their Age Cohort

The data also reveals a contrast between condo and single-family home price trends across age cohorts. Condo price reductions show a clear correlation with age, steadily increasing from a modest -2.8% for 2020s builds to a substantial -6.5% for pre-1960 units. In contrast, SFH price adjustments remain relatively consistent, steady near -4.5% regardless of age.

A notable divergence between condos and SFH becomes apparent starting with the 1990s cohort, coinciding with the threshold where properties begin to fall under the new regulatory requirements. This gap widens significantly for older properties, reaching its peak in the pre-1960 category where condos experience a -6.5% drop compared to -4.5% for SFH – a full 2 percentage point difference. This pattern strongly suggests that the impending regulations are exerting outsized pressure on older condo valuations compared to their SFH counterparts.

In the SFH Market, Newer Homes Show Surprising Pressure

Analysis of single-family homes SFH by vintage reveals an unexpected trend: homes built in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s are experiencing the largest price drops, exceeding -5% by July 2024. This trend contrasts with both older (pre-1960) and newest (2020s) SFHs, which show more resilience.

This pattern suggests newer, but not brand-new, SFHs may be facing competition from recent construction spurred by Florida's pandemic-era migration influx. New developments with modern amenities could be undercutting the appeal of homes built in preceding decades.

In summary, Florida's housing market shows distinct trends across property types and age cohorts. Older condos face the steepest price drops, likely due to impending regulatory requirements, while newer single-family homes unexpectedly show pricing pressure, possibly from competition with recent construction. These findings highlight the complex dynamics at play in Florida's real estate market and the importance of granular analysis in identifying risks and opportunities.

Visualizing Florida’s Active Inventory and Price Changes

Building on our previous analysis of price cuts, we now broaden our focus to include all active listings in Florida. This expanded view aims to reveal the concentration of inventory and the frequency of price changes at the unit level, providing actionable insights for market participants.

Implications for Sellers

Understanding who you are competing against and how distressed these competitors are can inform your pricing and selling strategy. The granular information is important whether you are an individual homeowner selling your property, an investor disposing of assets, or a homebuilder bringing new inventory to market. Knowing if distressed properties are right next door can help tailor your approach to be more competitive.

Implications for Buyers

For buyers, pinpointing where deals are available and understanding the reasons behind these opportunities can lead to better purchasing decisions.

Density of Florida’s Listing Price Changes - Statewide View

The density map of price changes across Florida provides a statewide view of where listing activity is occurring. This visualization highlights the concentration of price changes by unit, with a color gradient indicating the number of price changes. Blue indicates minimal changes (0-2), while yellow indicates very volatile listing behavior with 8 or more changes.

The southern coastal regions on both the east and west sides of Florida are hotspots for price change activity, specifically in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Cape Coral/Ft. Myers, and Tampa areas.

Density of Florida’s Listing Price Changes - Fort Meyers and Cape Coral

Density of Florida’s Listing Price Changes - Tampa

Conclusion

Our original analysis began with a broad examination of 1,000 U.S. markets, which led us to focus on Florida as a potential hotspot for housing market stress. By drilling down to granular, unit-level data, we uncovered trends across property types, age cohorts, and geographic locations within the state.

This journey from macro-level market analysis to micro-level unit behavior highlights the critical intersection of market strategy and individual decision-making in real estate. It underscores the importance of having access to both broad market analytics and granular unit-level data to make informed decisions.

At Parcl Labs, we're committed to empowering efficient real estate analysis through our API, which provides both market-level insights and unit-level specifics. We also offer open-source tools for visualizing and analyzing this data using best practices, enabling users to conduct their own in-depth market research.

As Florida's real estate market continues to evolve, we'll be watching closely, ready to provide the data and tools needed to navigate these complex dynamics. Join us today.

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