South Florida Housing Market Could See Drop in Prices, With Nearly 52,000 Homes Listed for Sale
The number of homes listed for sale in South Florida has risen to its highest point in nearly a decade — which ultimately could lead to some lower prices, real estate experts say.
There were nearly 52,000 active listings across South Florida’s tricounty region in April — more than quadruple the number from 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when listings had fallen to 12,825, according to Reventure, a real estate analytics tool.
The home inventory has kept going up in recent years. Last year, active listings in April stood at nearly 37,000, before the region saw yet another increase this year.
Three key factors are leading to the inventory spike, according to Nick Gerli, founder and CEO of Reventure. He says contributing to the rise has been:
— Many local homebuyers have been priced out of the market.
— The “big crush” of people moving to South Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed.
— Many people are now trying to sell.
A family who lives in either Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties likely earns the median annual income, which hovers between $70,000 to $80,000, Gerli said.
“This type of family could afford to buy a house prior to the pandemic at prevailing prices and mortgage rates,” Gerli said. “They can now no longer afford it. They can’t even qualify for a mortgage in many cases, and that’s just leading to a constriction in demand at the local level.”
For the second factor, Gerli said the “massive wild entry of people,” particularly from the Northeastern portion of the United States, is significantly down from its peak several years ago. This loss of new people also is hurting demand, he said.
And for the third influence, Gerli said many people across the state, not just in South Florida, are looking to sell their homes because of homeowner association fees or “crazy property insurance.”
“It’s kind of like this perfect storm now,” he said.
Louie Granteed, the senior vice president of real estate for Tobin, a real estate company, said he’s seeing more frequent downsizing, or moving to a smaller home, which also is influencing the rise in the home supply.
“I hear more and more people saying, ‘I could just go rent and pay my rent and I don’t have to worry about maintenance on my home. I don’t have to worry about the annual real estate taxes. I don’t have to worry about homeowners insurance. I can just pay my rent and if I decide I want to move, I move at the end of my lease, and I could do whatever I want,'” he said.
Prices
Because of the inverse relationship they share, home prices tend to go down as active listings go up.
And a market correction, or a drop in prices that could create a more affordable environment, is less severe than a crash. Usually, a correction sees prices drop between 10% and 20%, while a crash sees a steeper decline that is often more sudden.
If “home value is declining at all, that could be thought of as a correction,” Gerli said. “For it to be thought of as a crash, prices would probably need to drop over 20% from their peak. And we’re definitely not at that point.”
According to Reventure, in March of 2024, home values were about $486,000. One year later, in March of 2025, that dropped to about $485,000.
Values for condominiums are particularly dropping, the byproduct of the issues plaguing the condo market.
In response to the 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, state lawmakers implemented legislation that mandates inspection reports and reserve requirements for condos, but many boards were struggling to keep up with deadlines.
These rules may be loosened, though, as a bill makes its way to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk that would extend by one year the deadline for structural-integrity studies and allow for a temporary pause in reserve funding for two years immediately following a milestone inspection.
“I’m hearing about that every day, about associations that have not been putting reserves aside for maintenance of their buildings, associations that are sending out assessments that are significant in dollar amount to the people who live in the buildings, and a lot are saying that they can’t afford them,” Granteed said. “There’s a lot of seniors that have zero mortgages and are getting these massive assessments that are being sent out that is the size of mortgages, and they’re not going to be able to afford them so I think the correction is going to be mainly directed in the condo market.”
Save for a few ZIP codes in Miami-Dade County, condo home values experienced a significant drop from March 2024 to March 2025, with some areas seeing a drop by nearly 20%.
If interest rates stay relatively high, Granteed said home prices will continue to come down and inventory will keep growing.
“I keep seeing a lot of expired listings, which is telling me that I know the houses are not selling but there was a lot on the market,” Granteed said.
For people who may want to buy in South Florida, this is good news, Gerli said.
“A lot of people are going to finally see more affordable home prices, and they’re going to see more options on the market in terms of more inventory, and so this is actually great news for local homebuyers who have been priced out,” he said.
“However, it’s still going to probably feel expensive, right, for the next year,” he said. “It might take some time to get back to affordability, but the ball is moving in the correct direction for local homebuyers who’ve been waiting.”
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