October Update for Ocala Housing Market

The data is in—the October 2021 data for the Florida housing market update, that is, based on the latest report from Florida Realtors. After the crazy year that 2021 has been—in and out of the housing market—we have finally entered the final quarter. If you want the highlights of the report without reading every single statistic, keep reading!

Low Inventory Continues

October is the third month in a row where the single-family home inventory in the Sunshine State lingered at just 1.3 months’ worth of supply. Of course, if you’ve been following the market reports, you know that a lack of inventory isn’t anything new as it’s been on a steady decline for many months in Florida. With 36,943 active listings for single-family homes, supply was down just under 30% from October 2020. There were also 27,628 sales closed in the month which is down 6.8% from October 2020.

With such a low amount of inventory in Florida, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the time to sale in October was down from a year ago by just shy of 21%. At 53 days, average closing time remained the same as September 2021 but was significantly down from 67 days in October 2020. Time to contract is also impressively lower at just 12 days, down almost 43% from October 2020 when the average was 21 days. 

So if you are looking to purchase in Florida right now, be prepared to move fast! If you take too long to make your decision about a property, it may already be gone. 

The Seller’s Market Persists 

For the seventh straight month, the median home sold in Florida received 100% of the list price. This is up 1.7% from October 2020. The average sale price for single-family homes was $483,685 which is up just under 13% from October of last year. On the other hand, median sale price for the month was $358,950, up by 17.7% from a year ago. Total dollar volume for homes sold in the area in October was $13.4 billion. This is also up from the previous year by 5.1%.

Cash Sales Remain Strong

Like we’ve been seeing all year, cash remains king in the Florida housing market. This October, buyers purchased 8,256 homes using just cash. This is a 25.4% increase from last year, and it represents nearly 30% of the transactions for that month. When you couple the heavy use of cash with the low inventory, it’s no wonder that the average time to sale was so short.

A large amount of cash sales is typically a sign that investors are largely the ones driving real estate transactions. So if you’re looking to invest in the Florida real estate market, you’ll have your work cut out for you. Be ready with cash, offer fast, and be prepared to pay the full asking price. That being said, many investors will still want to off a little longer to add to their portfolios. 

While things may seem like they are ever so slowly improving, Florida is most definitely still in a seller’s market. Although it’s unlikely too much will change in just a month, we’ll have to wait and see what the December 22^nd Florida housing market update brings!