Buyer’s market or seller’s market? Not in Florida — in your area

The measure is months of supply

How long the homes currently for sale would take to sell at the current rate. Under 4 months favours the seller, over 6 favours the buyer, and in between is balanced.

It is a better question than “are prices going up”, because it is about leverage rather than direction. Months of supply tells you whether you can ask for repairs, a closing credit and thirty days to close — or whether someone behind you will offer without any of that.

Redfin Data Center, July 2026, for the 135 Florida areas with a published figure. The median across all of them is 5.5 months — technically balanced, and true of almost nowhere.

The spread inside one state is enormous

Days on market runs from 22 in Pinellas Park to 175 in Sunny Isles Beach. Those are not the same market and no state-level number describes both.

The four fastest areas we track — Pinellas Park at 22 days, New Port Richey at 23, Baldwin Park and Carrollwood at 25 — are all on the west side or in Orlando. The four slowest are all South Florida condominium markets: Sunny Isles at 175, Aventura at 172, Mid-Beach at 168, Downtown Miami at 164.

If you read a national headline about a “cooling market” and apply it to Pinellas Park, you will lose the house. If you apply a “hot Florida market” story to Sunny Isles, you will overpay.

Two numbers that sharpen the answer

Supply tells you the balance. These two tell you what to do about it.

• Share of asking price achieved. Across our areas this runs from 90.6% to 99.3%. In an area at 99% there is nothing to negotiate; at 91% there is nine per cent of the price on the table, and offering full price is leaving money behind.
• Share of listings with a price cut. The median across our areas is 30%, and the highest is over 51%. A market where half the listings have already been reduced is telling you sellers arrived with the wrong price — and that the next reduction is available to you, in negotiation, if you ask.

What to do with each answer

The same house deserves a different offer depending on which of the three you are in.

• Seller’s market, under 4 months. Move fast, keep the offer clean, shorten the inspection period rather than waiving it, and decide your ceiling before you start.
• Balanced. Ask for a closing credit rather than a price reduction — it costs the seller the same and it is easier for them to say yes to.
• Buyer’s market, over 6 months. Ask for the repairs, the credit and the rate buy-down. Somebody who has been on the market four months will consider all three.