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Both housing starts and total sales in Florida hit six-month lows in September, and even with a slight uptick in closings in October, the overall statewide market remains middling.
The state recorded a total of 22,272 single-family closings in October, up slightly from 21,807 in September, according to data from Florida Realtors and The Florida Chamber of Commerce’s Florida Scorecard. Those sales figures are off from May, when there were 28,070 sales in the state, a 12-month and 2018 calendar year high-point.
Housing starts, meanwhile, fell under 8,000 in September for the first time since March, with 7,203. That’s off from the 12-month high, in June, of 9,070 starts, Florida Realtors data shows. The state reported 7,840 starts in March, then had at least 8,000 per month through September.
One of the issues, according to a separate report from First American, a financial services and real estate title company, could be inventory: "The primary culprit for the housing market's performance gap remains severe supply shortages — homebuyers can't buy what's not for sale," First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming says in the report, released in mid-November.
The First American report adds that overall the national housing market is underperforming by 6.5%. Yet demand, the report adds, remains strong. “The housing market is experiencing a wave of first-time home buyer demand, as millennials age into homeownership," says Fleming. "According to the latest release of the American Enterprise Institute's first-time home buyer index, more than 50% of all homes were purchased by first-time home buyers as of July 2018."
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