State of the market: Home sales are up again amid spring-buying season

As mortgage rates started to stabilize in the beginning of the year, more buyers started to come out from the sidelines and jumped in to the market.

In response, sales have started creeping up across South Florida, though homes are spending more time on market.

Here is the latest on the housing market, from pending sales, price growth and rents:

February showed signs of sales ticking back up as the market entered the spring-buying season and mortgage rates started to stabilize.

According to the latest numbers from the Broward Palm Beaches and St. Lucie Realtors, pending sales in Palm Beach County increased from 1,278 in January to about 1,453 in February.

It was similar in Broward County: Pending sales increased in February to 1,282, up from 1,152 in January. And in Miami-Dade County, pending sales jumped from 974 in January to about 1,213 in February.

Data provided by Whitney Dutton, with the Dutton Group in Fort Lauderdale, shows that in the Fort Lauderdale area, pending sales have increased since January. On average, there were about 44 pending sales per week in January, about 62 pending sales per week in February and approximately 50 pending sales per week in the month of March.

February was a big month for pending sales, which mirrors the time when interest rates started to go back down to the low 6%’s. Currently, rates have ticked back up to about 6.42%.

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“For a lot of the buyers that we had, a lot of them said that they were sick of being eaten up by the market. They had stopped looking when rates were high. So when January came around, there was a pent-up amount of people,” said Dutton.

Sales are still lower than they were a year ago, but agents attribute that to the housing market coming down from a record high.

“Sales have decreased [when compared to last year], but we were at a fever pitch this time last year,” said Scott Gerow, the executive director of luxury sales at the Cotilla-Beresh-Gerow Luxury Team. ”But we do expect to have strong numbers through April.”

On average, the median sale price of a single-family home in the tri-county area increased anywhere from 2% to about 8% in February when compared to the year before.

A year ago, the median sale price increased on average about 19% when compared to the prior year.

In Palm Beach County, the median sale price of a home increased 2.7% to $549,500. For Broward County, the median sale price of a home rose 7.9% to about $560,000.

In Miami-Dade County, the median sale price of a home increased by 3.5% to $555,000.

“We are noticing a huge disparity in homes that have been sitting on the market for, let’s say, 100 days to properties that go to pending in four and five days with multiple offers,” added Dutton. “The current buyer is so much more experienced, and they’ve learned so much in the past year, they’re not even touching the overpriced properties.

Rents, while still high, have seen year-over-year increases start to moderate.

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For West Palm Beach, the average rent growth in the area decreased about 2.6%, making the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment about $2,104, according to data from ApartmentList.

And in Fort Lauderdale, the average rent growth increased by 2%, with the median rent for a two bedroom is $1,984.

In Miami, average rent growth over the past year has been about 6.4%. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,156.