The southwest Florida real estate market continues to defy national real estate trends and statistics. “This is our new normal,” stated Steve Kolenda, managing broker for Berkshire Hathaway Florida Realty’s office in Bonita Springs. “We have come through the pandemic and market changes and are now left with a strong market in an area with low inventory and high desirability.”
The inventory of the Bonita Springs- Estero area continues to be low relative to pre-pandemic levels with 1,376 active listings in August of 2019 and only 486 in August of 2022. Local brokers agree that people continue to purchase homes in Southwest Florida and plan to use them as primary residences, second homes &/or rental properties.
The months’ supply of inventory sat at 5.1 in 2019, which was very close to the balanced market indicator of 6 months of active listings. This number has dropped to 1.6 months in 2022 in the Bonita Springs-Estero area, in contrast to the national average, which is currently 3.3 months of inventory. This emphasizes just how different the southwest Florida market is compared to the rest of the nation.
“Real estate is hyperlocal. It is important for buyers and sellers to focus on local not national trends,” said Erin McDonald, managing broker at Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. Ms. McDonald added that the current local market can be characterized as a buyer friendly seller’s market. The seller advantage is due to the short supply of active listings, yet sellers have had to react to the fact that the frenzy of the past 2 years is over. Buyers are benefiting from slightly higher days on market, fewer multiple offer situations, few properties selling over list price and some sellers are having to reduce their list prices before going under contract.
Currently, the median price is $583,000, which is a 42.9% increase from August 2021. This coupled with 65.4% of transactions being cash transactions illustrates the continued demand for this market. While days on market has risen from a low of 10 in April of this year, August 2022 saw an average 24 of compared to 107 in August 2019.
“The current prices we face will simply become the prices of homes here in southwest Florida,” said Managing Broker Jerry Murphy of Downing-Frye Real Estate’s Bonita Springs office. “The prices are based upon the inventory and the desirability of the area. There is a fight for good neighborhoods and there are only so many houses that are available. The good news is, everybody wants to live here; the bad news is, they are doing their best to do so. Those riding the fence should make a purchase or else they might end up living on the fence.”
Factoring out the pandemic driven spike in sales, our current market is stable and shows healthy growth from 2018 and 2019, which were locally strong years for real estate. Local brokers are encouraging anyone who is interested on purchasing a home to not wait. Even with the end of the buying frenzy, demand remains high, and values are not projected to soften much, if at all.
Bonita Springs-Estero Realtors provides the public with up-to-the-minute real estate reports, trends and information about the Bonita Springs and Estero real estate market. For more information, visit www.bonitaesterorealtors.com/. ¦
