Tampa Bay’s Housing Market Getting Back to Normal


For the last two years, the housing market has seen impressive growth. In fact, economists and real estate experts predicted that sales would slow in 2023.
 
That hasn’t happened yet and there are signs that Tampa Bay’s housing market is on track to getting back to a pre-pandemic normal.
 
According to real estate analytics company, Zonda, housing markets across the U.S. are doing better now than in the last quarter of 2022.
 
In Tampa Bay, the median home price is $389,995, up 3.1% over 2022, according to the National Association of Realtors. The organization notes that nationally, the median price of a home has gone down 0.2%.
 
While Greater Tampa Realtors report that single family homes sales in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater were down 19.4% in February, when you look at year-over-year sales, there’s been an increase of nearly 25%.  Nearly 3,050 homes closed in February, 2023.
 
Mortgage rates are also trending down from last October when they topped 7% for the first time in 20 years. In mid-March, the 30-year fixed rate according to Freddie Mac averaged 6.60%, which was down from 6.73% just a week earlier.
 
Still, housing inventory remains tight in Tampa Bay, with just 6,988 active listings in February, 2023. Limited supply and a greater demand helps drives up home prices, but home sellers shouldn’t look for multiple offers after just listing their homes, which was a frequent occurrence in the last few years.
 
With limited resale homes available, many prospective homebuyers are turning to new construction home purchases. New construction homes give homebuyers a chance to put their personal stamp on a home with the choice of countertops, cabinets, fixtures and more. Homebuilders are also offering more financial incentives to prospective homebuyers such as mortgage “buy downs” where the homebuilder helps subsidize the buyers mortgage to offer a lower rate for a set period of time.
 
All of these factors are positive when it comes to Tampa Bay’s housing market. But the future may hinge on whether or not a recession is on the horizon, and that’s an a question no one can answer with certainty just yet.