Unpopular Opinion Alert! Is it really a supply issue causing the real estate market to be as hot as it is? I don’t believe that is the main factor like it was two years ago. Yes, supply is lower than it should be, and yes, there are a lot of people moving to Florida. But my opinion is it’s not what is driving the market to be so hot.

The Data

When you look at this graph from Stella MLS, You will see the blue line is New Listings, and the green line is Days on Market. When I dove into the data, the lowest days on market across all four counties of Tampa Bay are the last 12 months. However, when I went and highlighted the highest new listings, there were multiple months in 2021 and 2022 in Sarasota and Manatee counties that had more new listings than pre-lockdown. Pinellas and Hillsborough, however, did not see the same information where new listings per month were spread across 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Link for Excel Sheet of Data

Data were all pulled on April 15, 2022, from Stellar MLS.

So What Is Going On?

As agents or any “salesperson,” we are taught to create a sense of urgency during a transaction. It helps us do our job. When there is a sense of urgency, we can get contracts signed, items needed, and appointments scheduled for inspections and appraisal. We have used it to keep transactions on time and buyers and sellers moving to the closing table for years.

One issue with this was when we did have a shortage of inventory during covid and 2020, which was two years ago. Agents had to create a sense of urgency to get their buyers the home. However, as supply has come back… agents have gotten great at living and working in the sense of urgency bubble.

Here is what I believe is happening in our market. I believe agents have gotten so good at that sense of urgency that they are making the market move at lightning speed. This is why you see our days on market being below 30. Agents are so hungry to push and put buyers under contract that they show properties hours after it goes live, writing contracts from their cars, and waving all inspections. Then because they are creating this anxiety state for buyers, the buyers are living in a state of FOMO. It’s the toilet paper crisis all over again in the housing market. The question stands, how long will buyers stand for this craziness?