Market Update
August 2025
The latest housing numbers are out from Florida Realtors. Let’s dive in!
For the most part in August, Bay County’s housing market saw a continuation of the prevailing trends we've observed in recent months. According to the latest data from Florida Realtors®, there was, however, one major exception. New pending sales, which is essentially the number of homes for sale that went under contract during the month, were up year over year by a significant margin. That's something we haven't seen in a while, at least at this magnitude.
New pending sales of single-family homes in particular, were up by 22.5% compared to August of last year, their largest year over year increase since May, when they were up by over 21%. Before that, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2021 to see year-over-year growth like this. Obviously, the 109 and 72% year-over-year increases in March and April of 2021 were due to the onset of the pandemic, drastically limiting the number of new pending sales the year prior, but that's not the case for January and February of 2021, when new pending sales were up by about 22 and 29% compared to the prior year, respectively.
What's more amazing is that even the condo market got into the act in August. New pending sales of condos and townhouses in Bay County were up by 43% compared to a year ago, the first time we've seen positive year over year new pending sales growth for this property type in any month since October of last year, and only for the second time since November of 2023.
The most likely reason we saw such an uptick in new contracts in August is that mortgage rates fell to yearly lows early in the month and fell even further late in the month. Rates have continued to decline here in September, so it will be interesting to see if even more buyers put homes under contract this month. Time will tell.
Closed sales of single-family homes in August were also up compared to a year ago, by 12.3% year-over-year. Over in the condo and townhouse category, closed sales were also up by 16%, which actually is the only year-over-year increase for this category since December.
Still, with new pending sales and closed sales rising year-over-year in August, there's reason to be optimistic that closings could be up over the next month or two as well.
New listings of single-family homes were down year-over-year for the fourth consecutive month in August, this time falling by over 8%. Optimism among potential sellers that their homes should still fetch 2022 prices has waned over time, as the reality of the market is set in.
New listings of condos and townhouses also fell year-over-year in August by close to 7%. Year-to-date, new listings in this category are now down compared to a year ago as well by 9%.
The increased number of homes going under contract in August, along with the decline in new listings, led to an increase in inventory levels again. The number of single-family homes for sale at the end of August was down compared to the end of July, making this the third consecutive month-over-month decline in single-family inventory we've observed. Condo and townhouse inventory, meanwhile, was down for the fourth consecutive month.
As I discussed in my previous update on the July statistics, this is a fairly normal seasonal trend for inventory, a gradual decline through the summer months, but considering that in 2024 single-family homes did not see this normal seasonal decline in the middle of the year, it's also a sign that longer term inventory growth in general is slowing down this year. Still, inventory levels remained elevated above what we typically saw in the pre-pandemic period of 2014 through 2019, and Bay County can still be considered a buyers market.
Finally, let’s look at median sale prices. In the single-family category in July, the median sale price was $370,000, which is 3.6% below last July’s median price. Despite this being the fourth month this year that we've seen year-over-year declines in single-family median prices, for the year overall, the median price is actually up from $325,825. So it doesn't appear that price declines are happening just yet in Bay County for single-family homes.
The median price for closed sales of single-family homes in August was up, but only by 0.02%, to $359,900. Over in the condo and townhouse category, where price declines have been more substantial over the past year, the median sale price fell 2.6% to $370,000.
So to summarize the August data, most of what we saw was similar to the trends we've observed throughout the summer and the late spring, modest increases in home prices, modest declines in condo prices, optimistic increases in closed sales, and fewer new listings than a year ago. Inventory growth seems to be leveling out, or at least slowing down, once you account for seasonality. That leaves the incredible gains in new pending sales as the big story for this month, thanks to falling mortgage rates.
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That's all for this month!
Check back in next month and every month for the latest real estate news!