Palm Beach County Condo Sales Drop 10% In Winter Buying Season To Great Recession Levels
A review of the Palm Beach County condo statistics shows less than 3,900 units traded between November 2023 and April 2024.
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This was the worst Winter Buying Season for Palm Beach County condo resales since the Great Recession, according to an analysis of statistics compiled by CondoVulturesRealty.com.
The Winter Buying Season traditionally extends from November through April when visitors flock to South Florida to take advantage of the weather, events and vibe.
Tourists may have come to South Florida and specially Palm Beach County this Winter Buying Season but they were not purchasing condos at the same pace as previous seasons.
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Buyers purchased less than 3,900 condos in Palm Beach County between November 2023 and April 2024. By comparison, buyers bought nearly 4,300 condos in the 2022-23 season. That is about a 10-percent drop in total transactions.
In the 2021-22 season, buyers purchased nearly 6,600 condos in Palm Beach County.
This is the third consecutive year that condo resales were down from the recent peak of the 2020-21 Winter Buying Season when more than 7,200 units traded.
It is worth noting, the last time so few condos traded during a Palm Beach County Winter Buying Season was the 2009-10 season when about 3,500 units transacted.
A year earlier in the 2008-09 season, less than 2,300 condos traded in Palm Beach County.
Many industry watchers consider the September 2008 bankruptcy filing of the former Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers as the “climax of the subprime mortgage crisis” and the resulting Great Recession, according to Wikipedia.
For context, nearly 4,565 condos transacted during the 2010-11 South Florida Winter Buying Season. A year later in the 2011-12 season, about 4,525 condos traded as prices were slashed.
This is an about-face from the pandemic years when a plethora of work-from-home employees relocated to South Florida from places such as California, Illinois and New York.
The influx of transplants to South Florida bought up or leased out much of the available housing supply, which increased prices and triggered new development.
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Rising property values from strong demand, skyrocketing insurance prices following the Surfside condo collapse disaster and high interest rates from a series of hikes by the Federal Reserve brought the South Florida housing market to a standstill in the second half of 2023.
Added to this, Florida unit owners are beginning to experience the headwinds - spiking special assessments and falling prices from sellers trying to unload their properties - from the 2025 condo association financial cliff.
In response to the Surfside condo collapse in 2021, Florida is set to require associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin to fund the necessary work in January 2025.
Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market in 2024. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once interest rates begin to fall. Bearish investors contend that home prices are too high and likely to collapse in the months ahead.