everyone knows that the housing market was on fire for the last two years but what
am i seeing now on the ground level in the tampa housing market
hey everybody Melanie Atkinson here Realtor with Smith & Associates in beautiful Tampa Bay
florida does anybody else feel like the housing market is giving us mixed signals it was all hot
and heavy with us for two years and now i kind of feel like we're being ghosted and when you're
getting mixed signals it is easy to look at the best and the worst case scenarios both of which
i can argue with the housing market but just like with relationships the truth is probably somewhere
in the middle sure that giddy excitement is wearing off but that just gives us an opportunity
to enjoy a more balanced and healthy market so let's take all the hype and the buzzwords out
of the conversation and just talk about what's really happening in the tampa bay housing market
the average house price in the tampa bay area in the last two years has increased by over 30
percent nobody thought that we were going to be able to continuously sustain that level of price
increases we had off the chart buyer demand in less than one month of inventory to sell them
so as that pace has slowed down over the last couple months people start feeling a panic
because of the slower market we were sprinting at a 10 and someone just turned down the treadmill
we aren't struggling as much to keep up and having better footing feels like concrete shoes right
now instead of better balance buyers sellers and real estate agents will get used to this new pace
and realize that the slower pace is actually better for everyone starting around mid-summer in
the tampa bay area we saw inventory lasting longer on the market inventory was finally trending up
price decreases started happening because the prices on a lot of homes were just too high for
the quality of home that was being offered buyers were able to negotiate again however well-prepared
and well-priced houses were still selling fast and for top dollar and how is that a bad thing
yes for sellers you can't just throw up your unprepared house and expect to get 20 offers on
it over the weekend and yes for real estate agents we have to know our job and we have to do it well
but for buyers it meant that whenever they came to look for houses they actually had multiple options
to look at they weren't necessarily competing with five other offers half of them being cash
buyers are able to have reasonable inspection periods now and if they want new construction
the builders are actually excited to have them in the model center again now before you buyers
get too drunk with power please remember that we still only have about two months worth of
inventory on the market properties in the most popular markets are still selling very quickly
i had a buyer lose out on a house in dunedin just last week to a multiple offer situation also keep
in mind that the housing market is notoriously slow in august and september here in florida early
august is when school starts here in the tampa bay area so most buyers who were moving over the
summer have already chosen their house by june or july september feels like the surface of the sun
here and it is the peak of our hurricane season so we're not exactly swimming in buyers in september
either seasonally our market picks back up around october and is pretty busy for the next 10 months
so yes inventory is up from two weeks to two months but we are still a long way away from
the six months of inventory that is typically defined as a balanced market for an episode i
recently did i was doing the research back on inventory at the end of 2019 and we actually had
three months of inventory and it felt really low at the time but for some reason the two
months of inventory that we have now feels really high it is all about perspective
let's talk about demand now do people still want to move to florida in 2019 in 2020 florida had
the highest influx of high net worth households that means that people were moving to florida at a
higher rate than any other state and we all know why people are moving here no state income tax
lower costs of living and great weather most of the time and we all know that that trend continued
during the coveted years where remote workers were moving from big expensive cities to more mid-sized
lower-cost living cities like tampa but here's the question with the increase of house prices
the increase of property taxes and homeowners insurance is florida still an affordable place to
live and that is an answer that is still emerging it is definitely not as affordable as it once was
but i do think that we were undervalued especially on the west coast of florida for what this area
offers i do still really believe that it's a good buy for people coming from more expensive states
our desirability here on the west coast of florida is expanding into states that never
paid attention to us before like california oregon and washington state international buyers have
always been interested in orlando and miami but they've started to discover the west coast from
tampa to naples however for residents who have lived here for a long time the increase in cost
of living is shocking and that is why a lot of current homeowners will not sell their homes
where can they go that wouldn't be significantly more expensive to support this higher cost of
living the tampa bay area needs to continue to grow and attract businesses with high income
employees so while we're on the subject let's talk about growth is it still happening here
absolutely developers are still very bullish on the tampa bay market water street in downtown
tampa has started to transform the city's skyline with tons of buildings opening in the past year
and new projects starting the addition hotel is the city of tampa's first five-star hotel which
opens very soon and the luxury condo residences above the hotel were sold out before completion
midtown tampa the area between westshore near the airport in downtown tampa is quickly taking shape
as well tons of new restaurants apartment living hotels and all sorts of cool things to do mid-city
development is also happening all over the heights which is just north of downtown tampa riverside
heights tampa heights seminole heights seeing lots of growth ybor city is about to be transformed as
well with the addition of gas worx that is a 40 acre parcel that will bring 5000 new residences
and around 500 000 square feet of commercial space to the ybor city area and we can't forget
about all of the luxury condo towers that are currently going up on bayshore boulevard in
tampa growth in the suburbs is happening at a very rapid pace mostly to the northeast
and the southeast those large neighborhoods that are being created come with some super
cool amenities like those beautiful pool lagoons that you see pinellas county is also seeing a lot
of growth especially in the downtown st petersburg area there is construction going on all over
the place on several luxury condo towers and apartment buildings and with all of this growth
does it feel like too much is happening no it doesn't feel like too much is happening here most
of these developments are selling out relatively quickly and the residents that already live here
are very much enjoying the new restaurants entertainment venues and professional services
that are coming along with all of this growth talking about all this growth always gets me a
little excited so we'll bring it back down if the housing market continues to slow if
interest rates continue to go up and if housing affordability is a problem then yes there is
potential to see a price decline in the tampa bay housing market but will it be an adjustment
or a crash now i am going to go off on a very quick little tangent here i hate the word crash
nobody should be wishing for a housing crash i was in real estate during the last housing
crash and i saw very terrible things happen to very good people i saw families lose their homes
and i saw houses stripped of everything down to their doorknobs it was complete devastation here
in the tampa bay area during the housing crash and i wouldn't wish it on anybody i know that the
housing market crash gets a whole bunch of clicks on videos right now but i would never wish that
on my buyers or sellers okay so back to the question will it be an adjustment or a crash
five percent decrease or 40 decrease obviously there are a lot of economic factors that will
weigh in over the next couple years to determine how much housing will go down if it does at all
at this point i have no reason to believe it will be anything but a housing market adjustment
one that was bound to happen as the market balanced out and buyers had more choices the
tampa bay area is on the map more so than it has ever been before i don't believe that the appeal
of living here is going to go down anytime soon the turn towards a more balanced market is good
and healthy in comparison to the sprint that we were in before frankly it feels good to breathe
again and have normal real estate conversations i will continue to keep you posted as more housing
data comes out so one piece of data that i'm always keeping an eye on that i wanted to share
with you is the distressed sales market so short sales and foreclosures how many are on the market
in our area as of this morning there are only 24 distressed sales on the active market out of the
9,493 houses currently on the market in these three counties that is so incredibly low but obviously
i will keep an eye on that in the meantime if you have any questions or comments please put
them below i would love to hear from you and if you're not a subscriber please click that
subscribe button if you're looking for anything else to watch on this channel check out a really
great episode that i just did with a friend of mine from dallas and a friend from la to compare
our markets it's great thank you all so much for watching see you next time with love Melanie