Florida Real Estate: How's the market so far in 2025?
Jun 01, 2025
How's the Florida Real Estate Market? 🙋♂️
It's the question you get when anyone finds out your in real estate.
It's also the question I built The Market Distillery to answer.
Because if you can answer this question clearly and confidently, it becomes a door-opener for your business leading to new opportunities and growth.
In fact, every time you get asked this question, it's an audition for the future.
The challenge? Few brokerages train their agents to understand the market or how to answer this question well.
Let's look at both those things, shall we?
How are sales and home prices changing? 🔍
There's a wide range of stats you could track to understand the real estate market.
Two of the most basic ones to pay attention to are home sales and sold property prices.
The graphic above organizes the different metro ares in Florida by their growth in sales and prices.
Most people judge the health of a real estate market on the prices.
They think if home prices are rising, the market is hot and vice versa.
Gently rising home prices can be good for owners, but if things go up too much, you run into affordability challenges that can disrupt entire markets.
That's when the majority of economic value is created for the local area economies.
Based on this, you really would like to be in the top right of the chart.
Unfortunately, only Homosassa Springs barely qualifies as green in the first quarter of 2025 with flat prices and sales up 5% year-over-year.
Here's a detailed table so you can easily see how each metro market performed:
You can see that Florida has a lot of markets that are down in prices and sales.
Florida as a state averaged 4% fewer sales and 1% lower prices.
Some of this is related to the hurricanes from last Fall. Some of this is our market taking a breather after outrunning the rest of the country during the '20, '21, '22 boom. And some of it is a drop in demand for properties given the rise in mortgage rates, insurance premiums, and property tax costs.
Now, let's talk about how to answer the big question here..
How to Answer "How's The Market?" 💡
Most agents don't know or haven't thought about what to say when someone asks them about the market.
They tend to react with whatever is on their mind at the moment...
- It's great! I'm really busy..
- Oh it's ok. I'm just keeping my head down...
- Eh, it could be better. It's a little slow out there...
These answers are door closers as I call them.
They shut the conversation down and the other person will likely move on to another topic since there's not much to discuss at that point.
Instead, we should factor in these tips to turn door closers into fruitful conversations:
- 👍 The market is always good for someone.
If you're not excited about real estate, why would your prospects be? Recognize that markets are always shifting between favoring buyers and sellers. Some markets are great for people interested in purchasing and others are better for those looking to sell. Start off with something like this:
"It's incredible! There's a lot of changes going on."
"It's amazing! The market is so dynamic it keeps me on my toes."
You want to highlight how much the market is changing to pique their interest and highlight that they'll want to have a guide when navigating it. - 📈 Give them a big picture trend.
A lot of people get caught up trying to memorize stats. Don't! Instead, focus on the big trends in the market and tell the story of what's happening. Follow up the first part with this next piece:
"There are different parts of the market that are on fire and others that are pretty slow"
"I've been watching the condo market closely. It's got a bad reputation, but I think there are some good opportunities if you know what you're looking for."
We want to give them something to chew on, but keep things a bit vague so they naturally ask for more. - ❓ Ask a question.
The best way to keep a conversation going is to ask good questions. Get in the habit of asking questions to control where the conversation goes. Finish off the answer with a question like these:
"What have you seen others saying about the market?"
"Have you noticed more houses for sale in your neighborhood lately?"
We're not going for the kill with the first question and asking them if they're thinking of buying or selling. We're asking easy-to-answer questions the keep things moving and give you some insight on where the other person is.
Of course, you'll need to know what's going on in your local market.
Knowing how the sales and prices are changing is a good start. Then you'll want to fill in the blanks with background on why those changes are happening and what it means for buyers and sellers.
You can do it! And if you're in Northeast Florida and want help along the way, I'll be opening 10 spots in my Market Insiders coaching membership in August. Add your name to the waitlist to get an invite. 🚀
Dr. Alex Stewart
Founder
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