Across Southwest Florida, housing demand is high and homes are selling both quickly and steadily.

Historically, April is our strongest month in terms of sales. This April, however, broke the 4-year record! With a total of 3,004 sales, that’s a whopping 16% higher than April of 2017, and about 5% higher than April of 2018.

With all of these sales happening, many home buyers and sellers have one big question: is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market?

To answer that, we first have to know what “months of inventory” means, and what is considered a “balanced” market…

“Months of inventory” is an estimate of how long it will take to sell all current listings, at the current rate, if no new listings come on the market.

Typically, 0-4 months of inventory is considered a seller’s market, 4-8 months is considered a balanced market and anything above 8 months is considered a buyer’s market. With less inventory, buyers have less options, giving sellers more negotiating power. With more inventory, buyers have more options, giving them more negotiating power.

Throughout this season, inventory was stacking up and this summer was expected to be more of a buyer’s market. In January, Southwest Florida had 13 months of inventory, versus 10 months of inventory in January of 2018. During this period of high inventory, the median days on market also rose by about 15% from 53 days to 63 days.

By April, however, this number had dropped dramatically, down to just 7 months of inventory. This number is on track with our historical averages, and also shows that the market is balancing back out. With the inventory getting back to normal, the median days to sell also dropped back down to about 53 days.

Are you thinking of selling or buying?

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