The meteoric rise in home prices that followed the pandemic has largely abated around the country throughout 2025, with most states seeing the growth in prices slow.
Except in Florida, where that growth has stopped flat.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s all-transactions Housing Price Index for the third quarter of 2025 shows home prices rose by 3.3% nationwide compared with the same period last year. That’s the slowest pace of price appreciation since 2013, according to a report by the National Association of Home Builders. Exclusive Homes.com data shows a 2.4% increase in home prices overall in the U.S. in November.
But Florida's metropolitan areas are not enjoying those gains.
The Homes.com report showed tallied drops in Tampa and Miami, and most significantly, in Jacksonville, which the National Association of Realtors named a homebuying hotspot for 2026.
Prices in Punta Gorda on the southwest coast fell 7.8%, the steepest drop nationally, according to the FHFA report.
It’s a result that didn’t surprise Florida Realtors president Tim Weisheyer. “We are going through a stabilization of the market,” he said. “All this really does is confirm the reality that we knew we were going to see a leveling off.”
Weisheyer and Florida Realtors chief economist Brad O’Connor say that to understand the decline, one first has to look at Florida’s rise over the past five years.
Fast rise means fast fall
Florida’s population has swelled by nearly 2 million people since the pandemic, going from 21.6 million in 2020 to 23.4 million in 2024, according to the Census Bureau. O’Connor said that orders to work from home translated into a massive migration away from colder states.
“All those things combined caused housing demand in Florida to skyrocket more than most other states,” O’Connor said. “As a result, our prices were driven up at a faster rate than other states and higher.”
Over the same period, the statewide median home price grew from $290,000 to $420,000, a 45% increase, according to Florida Realtors data.
Basically, Florida hit its ceiling first, according to O’Connor. Because of the swiftness of the state’s rise, its moderation looks more dramatic than what’s happening in other states. “We rose higher, and we had a little farther to fall,” he said.
O’Connor pointed to the rise in interest rates beginning in 2022 as the cause of falling prices. Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida, said other factors affected Florida’s appeal as well, such as the runup in insurance premiums.
Snaith said the average property tax bill has risen in the state, too. “Because property values were soaring for a couple of years, appraised values went up,” he said. “That, plus what happened to prices, and now that monthly payment is increasingly out of the reach of many potential homeowners.”
Florida legislators are currently debating plans to cut or even eliminate property taxes in the state, something Weisheyer said is generating positive buzz for the housing market. “Everywhere I go around the country, people are talking to me about the property tax reforms in Florida and how it will be a game-changer,” he said.
But Snaith said the main reason that Florida’s home prices didn’t keep rising is a simple rule of economics: “Things that can’t go on forever don’t.”
Signs of turnaround ahead
Cassie Lamoureux, an agent with Keller Williams Classic Realty in Orlando, said her own research has shown that homes in Central Florida have been selling 1% to 5% below asking price all year. Buyers in the state have become choosier than they were in the post-pandemic panic-buying days, she said.
“People either want a diamond or they want a good deal, but they want a diamond for a good deal, too,” she said. Luxury homes are still selling, and investors and flippers are still picking up fixer-uppers, according to Lamoureux. “It’s the meaty middle that’s really struggling,” she said.
In her view, one of the biggest factors pushing down prices is the increase in new construction, where the developers can offer incentives such as rate buydowns. As an example, she pointed to a neighborhood that had three pending resale sales but 75 pending new construction sales.
Weisheyer said new construction is probably affecting price, but not enough to chase away more development, which he said is needed to tackle the state’s housing shortage. “If profitability weren’t there, it would impact whether or not builders are going to take the risk and move in,” he said.
O’Connor said things have started turning around. Sales in the state are up 12% and 13% year over year in September and October, respectively, according to Florida Realtors data. He connects the rise to the Fed’s quarter-point rate cut in September.
“There was an instant reaction to rates dropping, and if we can get rates down further, I think that will unlock even more demand,” O’Connor said.
The Fed cut interest rates another quarter-point Wednesday.
O’Connor believes the moderation in prices will bring buyers back to the state.
“There’s a lot of latent demand still wanting to move in Florida and elsewhere,” he said. “I think affordability is what’s holding people back.”