Palm Beach County Housing Market Splits: Single-Family Sellers vs. Condo Buyers

Palm Beach County’s housing market is not crashing—it is splitting. According to Loodmy Jacques, a real estate agent who leads The Jacques Team at Keller Williams Reserve in West Palm Beach, single-family homes remain in seller’s territory with roughly 3.5 months of supply, while condos have tipped toward buyers at about 6.7 months. The median single-family home goes under contract in about 40 days, compared with 69 for condos, and sells for about 95 percent of its original list price versus 93 percent for condos. That extra month on the market matters, as each additional week tends to invite lower offers. Multiple offers are still common on well-priced houses but rare on condos unless the building is newer or fully funded. Even so, condo prices have not collapsed; Jacques puts the median condo price up about 5 percent year over year.

Much of the pressure on older condos traces to reforms Florida adopted after the 2021 Surfside collapse. Buildings three stories or taller must now complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study and set aside money for identified repairs. “Owners in older buildings are now paying for decades of delayed repairs all at once,” Jacques says, through higher monthly dues, special assessments, or both. Financing has tightened alongside it—Jacques estimates that only about 21 of roughly 2,400 South Florida condo buildings are approved for FHA loans, and more than half of condo purchases in Palm Beach County are now paid in cash. On the single-family side, the problem is the opposite: many owners with low-rate mortgages are staying put, and Jacques estimates the county has about 24 percent fewer single-family homes available than a year ago. Buyer preference is shifting toward owning land without association rules and simpler financing. Still, it is not 2021 again—buyers remain price-sensitive, and homes priced in line with the market move quickly while others sit.

The county-wide condo figure can mislead. A headline showing condo prices up 5 percent blends newer, well-funded buildings with older ones that may be flat or declining. For an individual unit, Jacques says, the building’s reserve study and financial health matter more to price than the county median. That makes the buyer’s side increasingly about documents rather than square footage. The county’s housing story heading into the fall is less about direction than divergence. Single-family homes are being priced against a shortage. Condos, as Jacques puts it, “are a building-by-building decision.”