Florida Housing Market Makes Surprising Shift

Newsweek

a day ago

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One of the nation's largest homebuilders, PulteGroup, has reported surprising gains in Florida in the last quarter compared to 2024, reversing years of slowing sales and dwindling prices in the state.
The Atlanta-based company, which has built over 800,000 homes across the country, said in its latest financial report that net new orders in the Sunshine State climbed 2 percent in the three months ending June 30 compared to a year earlier, going from 1,265 units to 1,272. In the six months ending June 30, net new orders in Florida were up to 1,660 from 2,539 a year earlier.
"We're really happy with what we saw out of Florida," PulteGroup president and CEO Ryan Marshall told investors on a call last month mentioned by Realtor.com. "We get buyers from all over the country, all over the world that come into Florida. We also see a healthy mix of folks moving within Florida as well."
Newsweek contacted Pulte for comment by email on Tuesday morning.
Why Are These Gains a Surprise?
Florida has experienced one of the most dramatic housing market corrections in the country in recent months, as a growing number of unsold inventory, including newly built homes, has piled up in the market.
During the homebuying frenzy that characterized the pandemic years, demand for homes surged in Florida, partly due to the influx of out-of-state newcomers relocating there for its relatively affordable housing, low tax environment, and sunny weather.
Chasing the opportunity offered by this growing demand, developers in the state started building more new homes than anywhere else in the country. But by the time this new inventory was ready, it was facing a very different market.
Construction workers on a condo tower on February 10, 2025, in Miami.
Construction workers on a condo tower on February 10, 2025, in Miami.Since the end of the pandemic, the pace of domestic migration to Florida has slowed down significantly, dampening demand for homes. Historically elevated mortgage rates and sky-high home prices are also keeping many buyers in the state on the sidelines.
Developers increasingly found themselves unable to off-load the properties they had just finished building, and were forced to offer discounts and other incentives to sell their homes, like mortgage rate buydowns.
What Has Changed?
Pulte's latest uptick in net new orders in Florida shows that things are starting to change in the state's housing market.
While sales of entry-level homes remain low due to ongoing affordability challenges, the homebuilder—the third-largest in the nation—reported an 18 percent increase year-over-year in sales of new homes for move-up buyers in the last quarter.
This is likely due to the fact that the recent decline in home prices in Florida, which has been steep in recent months, now appears to be slowing down as inventory stabilizes across the state.
Active inventory reached a record high in Florida in April at 182,600, but two months later it was already falling, sliding to 174,600 in July, according to Realtor.com.
A drop in new listing activity played a role in this decline, as homebuilders facing weaker demand pulled back on new construction in the state. Between January and June, new permits for single-family homes in Florida were 59,699, down by 11 percent from a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the National Association of Home Builders.
At the national level, single-family permits declined by 6 percent in the same time frame.
While home prices are still falling in Florida and are now 10 percent lower than they were two years ago as inventory is now above pre-pandemic level and demand is kept low by high costs, these declines are bringing back buyers into the market.
In June, the Sunshine State reported the first year-over-year increase in single-family home sales since January, at 2.8 percent, according to data by Florida Realtors.
"We're seeing buyers start to settle into the reality that today's market conditions are the new normal. If they want to own a home, this is the environment they'll need to navigate—and it's a relatively stable one," Tim Weisheyer, 2025 Florida Realtors president, broker-owner of Dream Builders Realty and dbr Commercial Real Estate Services told Newsweek.
"To me, a stable market means there's a healthy balance between buyers and sellers—enough inventory for buyers to have real choices, and enough demand for sellers to sell competitively and efficiently," he added. "That's what we're seeing now. Home prices have largely leveled off."
What's Next for Florida?
According to Weisheyer, for-sale inventory in Florida is not likely to fall again, but it will continue to stabilize.
"While it may feel like new inventory has slowed, the data tells a more nuanced story. Year-to-date, new listings of single-family homes in Florida are actually up 4.4 percent compared to last year, driven largely by strong activity in the first quarter. Meanwhile, new condo-townhouse listings are down less than 1 percent year-to-date compared to 2024," he said.
"Month-to-month dips can be misleading, and they're often driven by seasonal or personal factors. It's important to look at the big picture, which doesn't necessarily show a significant slowdown in new inventory, but rather a stabilization."
While the state is likely to continue to see falling prices in some areas, they are unlikely to drop below pre-pandemic levels, according to Weisheyer.
"There's no indication that home prices will decline to those earlier levels, and the reason is simple: supply and demand. The U.S. still faces a significant housing shortage," he said.
"According to the National Association of Realtors, we're short by about 5.5 million homes nationwide. That shortage, combined with strong demand—especially in high-growth states like Florida—continues to support current price levels."