Housing market heat check: Realtors now outnumber homes for sale 3-to-1 in Daytona Beach

To veteran Realtor Alisa Rogers' astonishment, the number of real estate agents in the area keeps growing, making the competition to land available listings more and more challenging.

"Every day, we're still getting eight to 10 applicants," said Rogers, board president for the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors.

As of last week, the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors had 2,288 members, and that's not counting the more than 600 other real estate agents locally who are not members of a Realtors association, said Rogers, a managing broker with Lifestyle Realty Group in Ormond Beach.

Numbers tell the story

As of the end of September, the Daytona Beach area had 674 active listings of existing single-family homes for sale, down 28.9% from 948 a year ago, according to the latest monthly home sales report issued by the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors. That number was up slightly to 709 as of Monday, according to Rogers.

Despite the scarcity of homes for sale, the number of closed sales in the Daytona Beach area inched higher to 499 in September, compared with 476 in August. Area Realtors also put 505 homes under contract in September, down from 524 in August, but essentially steady with the 503 new pending sales recorded in September of last year.

Median sale prices, meaning half were higher and half lower, rose in the Daytona Beach area 18% year-over-year to $325,000 in September, up from $275,000 the same month last year, but just shy of the record $330,000 set in August.

Looking at the entire Volusia County, Realtors in September completed 921 sales of existing single-family homes, down from 973 in August and 932 a year ago, according to Florida Realtors data provided by the West Volusia Association of Realtors.

The median sale price of existing homes sold Volusia County-wide rose 16.5% to $291,250 in September, up from $250,000 a year ago and down slightly from $295,000 in August. The inventory of available homes county-wide last month was 1,324, down 12% from 1,509 a year ago.

The Flagler County Association of Realtors reported that its agents in September completed sales of 330 existing single-family homes, up from 283 in August as well as 321 in September of last year. The median sale price of the homes sold last month rose 18% year-over-year to a near record high $330,000, up from $327,500 in August and $279,310 in September 2020.

Flagler County had 435 active listings of homes for sale as of the end of September, down 30% from 621 the same month a year ago.

Meanwhile, the number of Realtors in Flagler County also continues to grow. As of Monday, the Flagler County Association of Realtors now has 1,546 members, which is a ratio of more than 3-to-1 compared to the number of homes for sale in the county, according to Cassandra Pittman, the association's office manager.

A year ago, the Flagler County Association of Realtors had 1,376 members, a ratio of roughly 2-to-1 compared with the 621 active listings of homes for sale in September 2020.

"We're still getting quite a few new members," said Pittman. "We're seeing a lot more non-member agents than usual."

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'Getting creative' to land listingsJournal Alisa Rogers, center, is seen here on Oct. 11, 2021, with Jami Gallegos and Jamie Barkley at Lifestyle Realty Group in Ormond Beach. The three are partners at the new real estate brokerage along with Rick Durgin and Susan Barkley. Rogers is a longtime Realtor who recently left the previous realty firm she had been with for years to join Lifestyle Realty Group because of the opportunity to become a partner as well as a managing broker.

Rogers said the scarcity of homes for sale is causing some real estate agents to "get creative in getting listings." The tactics include making unsolicited phone calls to neighbors of recently sold homes to see if they might be interested in putting their property on the market, as well as sending out post cards and even knocking on people's doors, she said.

Some agents are resorting to unethical tactics such as making social media posts of existing single-family homes as "coming soon" even though they have yet to actually be put on the market, said Rogers. If a house is advertised as "coming soon" and its not immediately put on the market within one calendar day, it is a violation of the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors' code of conduct. which means the Realtor is subject to a fine.

"I sit on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) committee for the Daytona Beach area. We've had quite a few fined every month for at least the past year," she said. "Some actually will pay the find and don't care."

That wasn't the case in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, said Rogers. "Last year, everybody had a lot of business, but now that inventory levels are low, some are being very creating in obtaining business and some of it is not ethical."

Rogers said she currently only has two property listings, both for vacant land in Daytona Beach, because of the difficulty in finding existing homes for sale. "Even vacant lots are going fast," she said.

The median amount of time it took for homes on the market to be put under contract in September was 13 days in the Daytona Beach, compared with 27 a year ago, and 10 days in Flagler County, compared with 36 in September 2020. 

Gap widens between haves, have-nots

Lucy Stewart Desmore, a Realtor with EXP Realty in Daytona Beach, said she recently represented a couple who plan to move to Daytona Beach from Minnesota, who put a yet-to-be-built oceanfront condominium unit under contract to purchase for $1.1 million. The unit will be on the 20th floor of a planned luxury condo tower called "500 Atlantic" that is part of the Protogroup development at the east end of Oakridge Boulevard. The condo units are currently advertised by Protogroup as set to be ready for occupancy in late 2022.

The complex includes the recently completed 27-story Daytona Grande Hotel.

But as home prices continue to escalate, it is making it increasingly difficult for some to find houses they can afford, especially those in the middle and lower income brackets.

"I've got a first-time home buyer who will finally be closing on a 1980s-built house off Nova Road in Holly Hill for $189,000," she said. "He's a single father with two kids who works in a manufacturing plant as an assembler. We started looking in May, but it took until August to finally put a house under contract. It closes Nov. 5. He put offers on three other homes and either got out-bid or beat out by someone who bought in cash. We also visited homes where we felt they were not in sufficient-enough condition to quality for Volusia County's down-payment assistance program." 

Rogers, as Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors president, recently formed a new advisory group of local Realtors called the "Affordable Housing Opportunities Committee." Desmore has agreed to serve as committee chair.

Rising home prices, fueled in large part by the steady stream of people moving to the Volusia-Flagler area from other parts of the country, is "increasing the need for affordable (and workforce) housing dramatically," said Rogers. 

Lydia Gregg, assistant director of Mid-Florida Housing Partnership, said, "the gap between the haves and have-nots in the real estate market is definitely widening."

The Daytona Beach-based Mid-Florida Housing Partnership is a nonprofit agency that provides HUD (Housing & Urban Development) housing counseling to first-time home buyers interested in buying a home in either Volusia or Flagler counties.

Affordable housing event on Nov. 4

On Nov. 4, Desmore will be taking part in an affordable housing event put on by Mid Florida Housing, Allen Chapel and Fifth Third Bank at the church parking lot at 580 George Engram Blvd. in Daytona Beach. The event from 4 to 7 p.m. will coincide with a tiny house display also in the church parking lot that will be available for visitors to walk through, from noon to 7 p.m.

The tiny house event is courtesy of Allen Chapel and Daytona Beach Zone 3 City Commissioner Quanita May.  

The affordable housing event itself will include a Fifth Third Bank "Financial Empowerment Mobile" as well as other displays where the public can get a free credit reports and learn about financing options as well as take seminars on the responsibilities of home ownership and how to avoid foreclosure.

Some time in mid-November, a ground-breaking event will be held in Daytona Beach's Shady Oaks subdivision off of Sixth Street, just west of Nova Road, for a new work-force housing development.

"The new homes are all priced between $230,000 and $250,000 for median income families," said Desmore. "It's for three couples and one single parent. Their occupations include nursing, a correctional officer, a Votran bus driver and a factory worker. They make too much money for down-payment assistance, yet have been finding it difficult to find a house they can afford."

For more information about the affordable housing event at Allen Chapel on Nov. 4, contact John Raisor at john.raisor@53.com. For more on the Mid-Florida Housing Partnership, visit its website at mfhp.org. For details regarding the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors' Affordable Housing Opportunities Committee, call Lucy Stewart Desmore at 386-295-7758.