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 has been seeing significant price increases. Over the past 12 months, average sale prices for homes have risen by 5.5%. 
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 4.7% 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. Also, I should note that both the historical and forecast rates have been steadily declining over the last few months.
Zooming in to Florida, we saw home prices rise by an average of 5.9% last year. That was a little faster than the national average. CoreLogic is forecasting the rate of price increases in Florida to accelerate to 6.9% over the next twelve months. I tend to be more conservative than that. With projected higher interest rates and the stock market continuing to look 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 at today’s prices.
Regardless, we have now seen 79 consecutive months of home price increases on a nationwide basis. This month showed a very minor month over month price increase, and it could easily reverse as early as next month. The market will definitely correct at some point, but it doesn’t look to be at serious risk of price decreases 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.