Florida’s housing market cools, forcing sellers to adjust

After years of record-breaking price growth, Florida’s once-sizzling housing market is beginning to lose heat — and the effects are reverberating through neighborhoods across the state. Property values in many parts of Florida are softening, homes are lingering longer on the market, and some investors are tapping the brakes. Real estate professionals say the shift may not signal a crash, but a correction appears to be underway. More from Gulf Coast News and WFTS.

Trade a condo for a house? Florida's 'condo crisis' spurs condo-swap deal

Where others see a "condo crisis," Phil Thompson sees opportunity. Coral Reef General Contracting, a luxury custom homebuilder and home-renovation company, is pitching a novel offer to condominium owners sick of rising ownership fees and dealing with difficult condo boards. “I’ll take that condo from you,” said Thompson, founder and owner of Coral Reef. “I’ll deal with the structural problems. I’ll deal with the sometimes-crazy HOAs," he said. "I’ll take that on my back, if you use your condo as a down payment on one of my homes.” [Source: TC Palm]

Central Florida property values continue to skyrocket

Property values across Central Florida are soaring this year, fueled by billions of dollars of new construction, according to the region’s property appraisers. The booming values will help boost tax rolls as local governments begin preparing budgets for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. At this time every year, property appraisers are required to provide local governments, school districts and other taxing authorities with their “Best Estimates of Taxable Values” reports. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

Foreign buyers purchased only 10% of new homes in South Florida last year, a drastic drop

South Florida real estate isn’t beckoning foreign buyers like it once did. The share of residential real estate purchases by foreign buyers in South Florida plunged to 10% during the 2024 fiscal year, the lowest level in a decade and a dramatic decline from 50% in 2018, according to a Miami Association of Realtors report. The findings were based on responses of nearly 2,400 real estate agents in Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Martin counties to an online survey sent to about 60,000 members. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

See also:
» Foreign buyers are fleeing the South Florida condo market

An inside look at Disney's affordable housing development in Florida

If someone asked you to play a word association game using the term "Walt Disney World," your first response might be "Magic Kingdom" or maybe Mickey Mouse. It's a safe bet that "affordable housing" would be way down your list, but the economics of Florida's housing market have forced a paradigm shift. Florida living has become so expensive that Walt Disney World is building an affordable housing community for its employees in Florida. [Source: Yahoo Finance]

STAT OF THE WEEK
650
A home with a fish tank isn’t unique. But what about a 650-gallon arched saltwater aquarium that you walk under to enter the living room? [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

ALSO TRENDING:

› Canadian buyer interest drops sharply in Naples, Cape Coral [Gulfshore Business]
Canadian interest in U.S. real estate is falling amid escalating trade tensions and new U.S. travel rules. According to Realtor.com’s first quarter 2025 International Demand Report, Naples saw the sharpest decline in Canadian online searches, dropping from 73% of international traffic in late 2024 to 59.6% — a 13.5 percentage point loss. Cape Coral followed with a 10.8-point drop.

› Thousands of new homes lift Florida county’s new-construction value [Tampa Bay Times]
The value of new construction in Palm Beach County will top $5 billion this year as thousands of new residences are added. This is according to Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks, who recently told county commissioners about the state of the market from last year and what to expect this year. New construction value also hit $5 billion in taxable value in 2024 with nearly 6,500 “new livable units added to the tax roll for 2025,” Jacks said during a recent public County Commission meeting.

› St. Johns rental scam exposes Florida’s growing real estate fraud problem [First Coast News]
In one case, a scammer posed as an authorized business representative and altered official records on Florida’s Sunbiz.org to sell land he didn’t own. By the time the real owner found out, the sale had already gone through. In another case, a fraudster used a fake Venezuelan passport and a deepfake-style video call to impersonate an overseas property owner, tricking lenders and buyers before the deception was discovered.

› First South Florida Live Local Act project to break ground is in Miami-Dade [South Florida Business Journal]
Beacon Hill Property Group's apartment complex in the Princeton neighborhood of Miami-Dade County is the first South Florida workforce housing development to break ground after being approved under Florida’s Live Local Act. The law allows developers to bypass local density and height rules to build multifamily on a commercial or industrial site, as long as 40% of the units are workforce housing for people making up to 120% of area median income.

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CBS News Miami’s Jim DeFede sits down with Jeanette Nuñez for her first interview since becoming Int