A buildup of unsold houses sitting on the market for weeks is beco
ming a new reality in once-booming housing areas across the Sun Belt.
Real estate agen
ts in the South and Southwest say they’re seeing more people list hom
es, giving up on hopes that mortgage rates will drop anytime soon. I
n Florida, homeowners are fleeing soaring insurance costs, and in Colorado, investors are culling rental properties.
The result is a rise in supply, something real estate agents who were getting multiple offers on even ho-hum
ouses not so long ago are not accustomed to. In Florida, houses no
w take a median 73 days to sell, up from 55 days two years ago and twi
ce as long as in New Jersey and Virginia, according to Realtor.com data.
“In the big picture it’s not horrible, but compared to what everyone was
used to, it feels like molasses,” said Michael Lauer, a broker in Flori
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da’s Tampa Bay area. His business remains steady, but overall sales
in his county have declined about 14% and the supply of homes for sale has more than doubled in two years.
A rise in the supply of homes — whether sold by owners or new — is generally a good thing in the US, where low invento
ries since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis have contributed to render many regions unaffordable for a majority of people.
An influx of people moving south during the pandemic and the lack of sellers willing to let go of cheap mortgage
s had exacerbated the issue and led to fierce bidding wars. Today, the supply of previously owned homes on the market nationally is still below 2019 levels, but
nine states in the South and West now are above, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Drew Reading said in a June 10 note.
Homebuilders who sped up production during the pandemic-era hou
sing boom in the Sun Belt now are having to cut prices and offer steep price concessions to move excess homes.
Economists call the buildup of unsold houses in once-hot areas “normalization.”