LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Home sales in Fort Myers and Cape Coral could decrease over the next year, according to a report from Core Logic. This comes as prices have soared since the pandemic and inventory is low as more people are moving to the Sunshine State.
Chief Economist at Core Logic, Selma Hepp, says seeing a drop will level out our market to what it should be.
"Local residents can no longer afford to buy in their own market," Hepp said. "Given the current over valued market situation, they may fall over the next 12 month period."
The data predicts the market has a 50-75% probability of seeing prices decline. According to Market Trends of Southwest Florida, the median sale price in Lee County in 2022 was a little more than $400,000. The actual sale price, specifically in Cape Coral, was more than $500,000.
"It is a higher probability of more than a 10% decline," Hepp said.
The reason for the decline, she believes, comes back down to home value and what people can buy.
"I think the issue right now is affordability is so far stretched that folks can no longer afford to buy," Hepp explained. "I think some resetting definitely always helps for potential home buyers."
To actually see a decline, Hepp says we need more inventory and to balance local income growth.
"Particularly in Florida markets when you have a lot of people migrating from other parts of the country and they have a lot of cash. They have higher spending power," Hepp said. "It’s never good when markets are over valued."
She says a healthy housing market means having rate stabilization.
"The intent is not to create a panic, the intent is to say things are normalizing," Hepp said. "What we’ve had over the past couple of years is not normal."
Again, this is just a prediction, though Hepp believes both buyers and sellers need to look at what they're looking for in a home.
"People shouldn’t worry that much about specifics of where home prices are at the moment, but what’s important to them," she said.
