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Florida Keys home sales rebound after Irma
Big Pine Key, where damage was significant, is still struggling to recover
The residential market in the Florida Keys is bouncing back less than a year after the islands were hit by Hurricane Irma.
The inventory of new listings is down nearly 35 percent to 146 in January 2018, according to data from the Middle and Lower Keys Real Estate Association. A year before, 224 properties were on the market in the Middle and Lower Keys. Home sales on those islands totaled 76 in January, a year-over-year increase of about 33 percent.
Properties were bought up quickly after the storm hit in September, David Grego, president of the Middle and Lower Keys Real Estate Association, told Keys Weekly. Jo Ann Cook, a broker for RE/MAX in Marathon, told the publication that inventory is at an all-time low, mimicking home inventory nationwide, which dropped to the lowest point in a decade.
Prices rose the most in Cudjoe Key, Summerland Key, Geiger Key, Sugarloaf, Saddle Bunch and Key West. In Key West,residential inventory fell 9 percent compared to the previous year.
But in Big Pine Key, where damage from the hurricane was significant, inventory rose 11 percent, according to Keys Weekly. The average sale price in Big Pine Key was $348,471 in January, down from $420,061 last year. [Keys Weekly] – Keith Larsen