Market Watch 2021, the conference that looks at residential and commercial real estate trends, was held at Hertz Arena this year in Estero, FL. The speakers were among Southwest Florida’s most experienced real estate brokers, agents, property appraisers, builders and more. Overall, the conference showed that home builders across the nation are having trouble keeping up with demand from consumers.

The Keynote Speaker, David Cobb, Regional Director of Zonda stated that new home sales are booming across the country. Through April 2021, they were up 79% over last year. Additionally, he said that 21% of new home builders have stopped selling across the country because they can’t keep up with demand.

Part of this demand is Southwest Florida is due to buyers fleeing big cities, many in New York and New Jersey, and moving south. Those buyers have 30-40% more purchasing power in Florida than they did in northern cities due to the higher housing prices in the places they’re coming from.

Another trend causing an influx of people to move south is referred to as “baby chasers”. These are baby boomers moving closer to their millennial children as they begin to have babies themselves. This trend has caused a higher demand for multigenerational homes to allow grandparents to cohabitate with their children and families.

While inventory continues to be an issue, all panelists of the conference seemed to agree that the COVID-19 pandemic had a more positive than negative impact on the local real estate market which is something they did not expect.

For more information about topics discussed at the Market Watch conference, click here.

If you are interested in purchasing a home in Fort Lauderdale or the surrounding south Florida areas, call us today!