While I focus most of my time on what’s happening in Manatee and Sarasota counties, it’s also important to follow the broader real estate trends. Overall, the real estate market in the United States is seeing significant price increases. Over the past 12 months, average sale prices for homes have risen by 6.9%.
In my opinion, the market has been rising too fast to be sustainable. One of the best home price forecasters, CoreLogic, agrees. They are forecasting home prices to rise across the U.S., but at the slower rate of 5.3% over the next year. That is still a larger than average price increase, but it isn’t pricing people out of the market as fast as what we saw last year.
Zooming in to Florida, we saw home prices rise by an average of 5.8% last year. That was slower than the national average, but still significant. CoreLogic is forecasting the rate of price increases in Florida to accelerate to 7.5% over the next twelve months. I tend to be more conservative than that. With higher interest rates and the stock market getting more volatile, I would take the under on CoreLogic’s forecast. I think it’s a safe bet as even CoreLogic sees much of Florida’s properties as overvalued even at today’s prices.
Regardless, we have now seen 75 consecutive months of home price increases on a nationwide basis. The market will correct at some point, but it doesn’t look to be a risk in the near future. In my opinion, it is still a good time to buy in our area. Check out the video below for more.