Data Shows A Growing Split In Housing Markets

[Michael Carbonare]

New data highlights a growing split across U.S. housing markets. What’s happening in one city is increasingly irrelevant to another.
https://lnkd.in/dCbhWSXU

We’re seeing a true bifurcation:
Some markets, (primarily Sun Belt), are seeing price softness and rising inventory.
Others, (Midwest, parts of the Northeast), continue to show price resilience and tighter supply.

It’s being driven by three structural shifts:
Inventory is no longer uniform
Certain regions overbuilt coming out of COVID. Others never caught up. That imbalance is now showing up in pricing.
Affordability is improving ever so slightly in some markets. That helps buyers, but only in markets where supply exists.
The “lock-in effect” is fading. More homeowners are giving up ultra-low rates, slowly increasing supply and creating more localized opportunities.

The result?
A housing market that no longer moves as one.
Instead, it behaves like a collection of micro-markets:
Oversupplied gives us price cuts, longer DOM, investor opportunity.
Undersupplied gives us sticky pricing, continued competition.

National headlines won’t help you much here. Understanding local supply/demand dynamics will. The ZIP code matters more than the economy, apparently.

Personal, real world example. My daughter and her husband are recent, first time parents, (I suppose that makes me a recent first time grandparent). They decided they need to upgrade from their townhouse to a larger SFR with a yard for the kid and dog. Location: Jupiter, FL.
The first house they looked at and loved sold on day two, $1.1M
The second house they looked at and loved sold on day two, $1.2M
These are not luxury homes, by the way. Nice enough, of course. But the first was a 2/2, 2000sf. Renovated, move in ready.
The second needed a roof, new AC unit, and impact windows.
Stop the insanity!

[Jason Wray]

Jupiter has become over priced and you cannot get a good purchase to cash flow ratio on top of higher taxes.  The problem is the area attracts the rich crowd who want to be close to Miami without actually living in or paying Miami prices.

Most of the Jupiter crowd is extremely busy trying to keep up with the Jones's...

Take a drive just North of Jupiter up into Melbourne and you can find that same house for $450K versus $1.1M.