All signs point to a great year for real estate in Northeast Florida in 2020!

All signs point to a great year for real estate in Northeast Florida in 2020. The Northeast Florida Association of Realtors market stats for December 2019 show sales, closings and prices are up for the month and year. The supply of homes on the market continues to drop.

Year over year numbers are:                     2018             2019           Change   

Pending sales                                            30,244           32,466          +7.3%
Closed sales                                              30,253           31,881          +5.4%
Median sales price                                $222,000       $233,990        +5.4%
Inventory of homes for sale                        9,181             7,602          -17.2%
Months supply of homes for sale                 3.6                 2.8            -22.2%

A study by ShowingTime indicates that buyer traffic has increased in all four major regions of the U.S. The South region saw the biggest uptick with 10.8% year-over-year increase in October. We are seeing increased buyer activity in Northeast Florida.

The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) are having their International Builders Show in Las Vegas now. Some interesting forecasts from NAHB:

• Total housing starts are expected to hit 1.3 million units in 2020, up more than 2% from last year. While that would mark the highest output since 2007, it’s still well below normal production levels that averaged 1.5 million units annually from 1960-2007.
• Single-family starts are forecasted to increase more than 3% from 2019 to about 920,000 units.
• Multifamily starts should hold steady in 2020 at 383,000 units.

As you can see, the inventory of homes available has been going down and buyer traffic is up. The projections for new home construction to increase by 2% isn’t going to solve the supply issue. There is a possibility that homes coming available from Baby Boomers may help.

Baby Boomers own about 1/3 of all U.S. properties and it is projected that 27% of them will sell their home within the next 20 years. In the decade from 2007 to 2017, roughly 730,000 U.S. homes each year were released into the market by seniors aged 60 or older. From 2017 to 2027 and from 2027 to 2037, that number is set to rise to 920,000 and 1.17 million per year respectively. It will be interesting to see if the location, price and style of homes coming on the market will meet the buyer demands.

Thank you for your past support and referrals. Please let me know if I can help you with any of your real estate needs in 2020.

About Sherry Davidson, President of Davidson Realty
Since launching Davidson Realty in 1989, Sherry Davidson has built the firm to include nearly 60 agents and exceed $100 million in annual sales. She is known throughout the First Coast as an authority on all things residential real estate, having served on the Board of Directors for Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, Florida Realtors® (a division of the National Association of Realtors), and Builders Care (charitable arm of Northeast Florida Builders Association).

Thanks to Sherry’s leadership, Davidson Realty has been recognized as one of the state’s Best Companies to Work For (Florida Trend Magazine), as well as one of the region’s Best Places to Work and 50 Fastest Growing Companies (Jacksonville Business Journal). Get to know Davidson Realty’s talented team of agents by clicking here or call us at (904) 940-5000.