Median Sales Price Falls VS Last Year for First Time Since May 2020

Summary

Unless otherwise specified, the source of all data in this report is Stellar MLS for the combined area of Sarasota and Manatee Counties and the residential property-types Single Family Homes, Condominiums, Villas, and Townhouses for the time periods indicated.

Monthly unit sales have been declining on a year-over-year basis every month since July 2022. Although the size of the shortfall each month has become smaller over the past 4-5 months, May sales still missed May 2022 by 2%
The average number of homes on the market during the first 5 months of this year was about 5,500 homes. That is about twice the average number of homes on the market for this same part of the year in 2022 and 2023.
The median sales price this May was 4% less than May last year. A year-over-year decline in the monthly sale price has only happened 2 other times since January 2019, once in April 2019 and again in May 2020. Both times the decline was only 1%
In the first 5 months of 2023, expired listings (marketing agreements ending without the home selling) totaled 536. That is 78% of expired listings that occurred in all 12 months of 2022 and 129% of expired listings in all of 2021.
In May, it took an average of 26 days on the market to get a home under contract (the Days on Market statistic). For Jan – May, the Days on Market ranged from 23-28. During this same period in 2022, the DOM ranged from only 4-5 days.

Unit Sales

Starting in July 2021, year-over-year monthly sales turn negative due largely to the huge sales figures spurred by the pandemic starting in the spring of 2020. However, all of 2022 sales failed to meet the same month’s sales in 2021. While unit sales improved significantly over the past couple of months, during all of 2023 monthly sales have been less than 2022 each month. Overall, we have gone 23 consecutive months where monthly unit sales have been less than the same month in the previous year.

^{Sarasota-Manatee County Year-Over-Year% Change in the Number of Properties Sold May 2023}

^{Sarasota-Manatee County Number of Properties Sold May 2023}

Inventory of Homes Available for Sale

The levels of inventory at the end of May were nearly double May 2022 levels, triple that of May 2021. Still the 5800 homes on the market at the end of May is a long way from what could be considered normal levels of about 8000 properties listed for sale.

If you drill down into the inventory levels by price point, you will see that inventory levels are normal when compared to 2018-2020 for all price points except 0-500k range. There is a huge shortage of inventory in the low-price ranges compared to previous years.

If you drill down even further, you will see that most of this difference is the lack inventory in the under-$300k price point for single-family homes.

In 2018, single-family home sales under $300k were 36% of the entire market. In May of 2018, there were 1754 single-family homes on the market priced under $300k and during the month there were 767 sales. This May, there were only 126 homes priced <$300k on the market at the end of May with only 102 sales during the month.

^{Sarasota-Manatee County Properties Listed for Sale May 2023}

^{Sarasota-Manatee County Homes Available for Sale by Price Range May 2023}

^{Sarasota-Manatee County Single Family Homes under $300k Listed for Sale May 2023}

Median Sale Price

The rate of increase in the median sales price (current month vs same month last year) has been declining since the beginning of January 2022. This month, for the first time since May 2020, the median sales price was actually 4% less than the previous year.