Calvin James Realtor

07/25/2026

Florida remains the clearest example of what happens when climate risk and market economics collide. The average cost of homeowners insurance in Florida is more than $5,700, more than any state except Nebraska and Louisiana, and about $3,350 above the national average.

That gap has reshaped who can realistically afford to stay along the state's coastline. The numbers behind that cost are staggering on their own.

Since 2000, Florida has had 36 presidential disaster declarations, with damages from just the last seven years exceeding $300 billion, according to NOAA. A newer report adds another layer to the story: across the United States, homeowners insurance premiums increased an average of 38 percent, while in Florida, premiums shot up 75 percent during the same period, according to the Coalition for an Insurable Future.

Some relief has arrived recently, but it's modest against that backdrop. Although Florida has struggled with high insurance rates for years, data show a slight reduction between 2023 and 2025, and it remains the most expensive state for home insurance, but rates are starting to decrease

06/13/2026

Pinellas County Data for May 2026
Active listings 7,908
New Listings 2,166
Price Reductions 1,801
Days on Market Avg 88
Pending Sales 2,100
Closed Sales 1,598
Expired Listings 274
List/Sales Price Ratio 97%

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05/31/2026

Sellers vs. Buyers in Tampa Bay (2026)
According to Redfin’s April 2026 data, the Tampa Bay area had 26,917 sellers compared to 12,313 buyers — meaning there were about 1.37 times more sellers than buyers in the region at that time WTSP.com.

This ratio is well above the national average for buyer’s markets, where the number of sellers is typically much higher than buyers. In fact, Redfin’s report ranked Tampa among the top buyer’s markets in the U.S., with the seller-to-buyer ratio being a key factor WTSP.com.

Market context:

Tampa Bay’s median home price in April 2026 was about $371,028, down roughly 1% from April 2024 WTSP.com.

The excess supply of homes over buyers has contributed to a shift from the seller’s market of the pandemic era to a more buyer-friendly environment, where buyers have more negotiating power and options WTSP.com.

Factors like increased homebuilding, higher insurance costs, and condo HOA fees have also influenced the supply-demand balance WTSP.com.

Summary:
In April 2026, Tampa Bay had over 1.37 more sellers than buyers, reflecting a buyer’s market condition where competition for homes is lower and buyers have more room to negotiate.

05/17/2026

Pinellas County data for April 2026
Active listings 8,089- holding steady in the low 8,000s for this year.
New Listings 2367- also about the same for the past 4 months
DOM (avg days on market) 89- increasing month to month taking longer to sell
Sales 1761- lower than new listings Buyers have more to choose from and can make offers with lower prices and more contingencies and discounts
Expired 271 More properties not selling as Sellers still want higher prices than Buyers are willing to pay.
Price reductions 4406- some Sellers have decided to try to match the current demand

Call anytime. For sale 1/1 Rosery Rd Largo $112,9

04/27/2024

Home for sale in: New Port Richey, FL
3 beds 2 baths
Available at: $372,500
For more info click here:

3 beds, 2 baths listing in New Port Richey, FL for $372,500

05/17/2023

When a client is happy, I'm happy. This made me happy >>

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07/21/2022

By
Rebecca LiebsonTimes staff
Prospective homebuyers in Tampa Bay have had to endure frenzied bidding wars, make cash offers and even waive their rights to an inspection just to have a shot at snagging a home in recent years.

As housing markets across the country show signs of cooling off, Tampa Bay buyers may get some reprieve. Still, experts warn that prices may never drop back down to where they were before the pandemic.

“We’re definitely seeing some slowing (nationally) but it’s not as pronounced in Florida.” said Kristine Smale, senior vice president for the real estate analytics company Zonda.

One reason behind that is the influx of buyers moving here from more expensive states.

Though a $700,000 home may seem expensive to a Tampa Bay native “to someone from (California) who just sold their house for $2.5 million and is bringing their (California) wages here...we look like a bargain,” said Renee Celli, a Realtor with RE/MAX in St. Pete.

A lack of available homes has also created challenges for buyers, though that may be starting to change.

According to data from Florida Realtors, the number of active listings in Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater has steadily decreased since the spring of 2019, hitting a four-year low in February this year with just over 2,000 active listings.

Historically low interest rates triggered by the pandemic created a surge in demand from homebuyers looking to score a bargain, Smale explained. That caused inventory to plummet and sellers capitalized on the opportunity by raising their prices.

Tampa Bay experienced some of the biggest price jumps in the country according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index, which found that prices increased by 34.8% in 2022.

But with average mortgage rates now nearing 6% according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, many buyers have decided to cut their home search short.

“The low interest rates were the one thing that was keeping things affordable for some people,” said Christopher Lai, a Realtor with People’s Choice Realty Services in Tampa. “Now it’s either you have the money and the financial wherewithal or you don’t unfortunately.”

Nationally, mortgage applications declined for the third week in a row this week, reaching the lowest level since 2000, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Trista Page, a loan originator with Amerifirst Home Mortgage said she’s seeing that trend reflected here in Tampa Bay.

“People are finding that the houses they could afford six months ago or four months ago, they can’t afford anymore,” she said. “They’re having to downsize or look in a different area or just rent for a year and hope that the rates will drop.”

Lai said as demand has dropped some, it’s begun to free up homes for buyers who can afford to stick it out.

Florida Realtors reported 6,573 active listings across Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater in June. That’s a 77.7% increase from that same time last year and a 47.9% increase from May.

More inventory means sellers may be forced to make some concessions.

“They’re not getting six offers above asking on the first day anymore,” Celli said. So if a buyer finds a home they like that’s slightly out of their price range, “make a lower offer. You might be pleasantly surprised.”

The average sales price in June 2022 for Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater was up 25.9% from the year prior, according to data from Florida Realtors.

Smale said there will likely be a price adjustment in the coming months, but thanks to the influx of out of state buyers, prices in Florida probably won’t fall as far as the rest of the country.

“You would need a massive flood of inventory and I just don’t see that happening,” she said.

07/15/2022

Key Facts July 14, 2022
Housing supply rose 2%, Redfin reported Thursday, noting the number of homes for sale has risen as a result of high home prices and the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes, which have pushed more buyers to the sidelines.

The average mortgage rate has jumped to 5.7% from less than 3.3% at the start of the year—adding hundreds of dollars to the average monthly payment for new mortgages and cratering demand, with home sales falling nearly 16% from a year ago in June and posting the largest decline since May 2020, according to Redfin.

"The country's economic woes have already cooled the housing market, and they're likely to continue dampening demand," Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement, noting the abrupt shift has already started impacting sales prices, which fell 0.4% month to month but are still growing at 11.2% on an annual basis.

In a note to clients this month, Goldman Sachs chief credit strategist Lotfi Karoui noted housing affordability has deteriorated to its worst level since at least 1996 as mortgage rates have risen, adding that it will likely remain at "historically challenging levels" through the end of the year.

However, he also points out a growing share of single-family home listings are cutting prices—particularly in the "hottest" pandemic markets such as Phoenix and Boise, Idaho; Redfin reported a record-high share of sellers dropped their asking prices after the Fed's rate hike in June, reflecting "mounting pressure" to sell as demand suffers.

"The party is over," Pantheon Macro chief economist Ian Shepherdson says of the price cuts, predicting the combination of falling demand and rising supply is likely to trigger price declines over the second half of the year as the housing market "finds a new equilibrium—from a seriously stretched starting point."

02/09/2022

Don't Wait for a Market Crash
For prospective home buyers who weren’t lucky enough to get into the game before the pandemic, the hope of a housing market crash may be the one thing to hold onto following month after month of rising prices and quick sales. Maybe prices will bottom out, we think, suddenly making homeownership more affordable and attainable.

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Unfortunately, it’s tough to predict what’s to come. Conditions today are completely different than they were prior to the 2007 housing crisis, so we can’t use that as a benchmark. In fact, many experts believe that we’ll be in a seller’s market for a while: housing supply is still relatively low, and even if price increases don’t stay in double digits, they’re also unlikely to reverse. Rising interest rates that make borrowing more expensive could cool things off a bit, but a crash is probably not on the horizon.

That begs the question: If you want to buy, should you wait it out, possibly for months or years, and hope it gets easier? Or just go for it, knowing you can’t possibly know?

There’s no perfect time to buy a house
There are, of course, risks and rewards to both approaches. As Joe Pinsker writes in The Atlantic, “identifying the perfect time to buy is impossible because perfect timing is clear only in retrospect.”

What that means for you is that if you’re ready to buy, and you can afford to buy, and you want to buy, maybe it makes sense to just go ahead and buy. There might never be “perfect” moment when low interest rates, stable housing prices, market supply, and your financial and emotional readiness converge.

As much as buying in a hot market is a risk, waiting can be a gamble too: you may price yourself out with rising prices and interest rate hikes, also losing the chance to purchase a home you really want now. So instead of trying to strategize or game the market, consider buying a house as just that—buying a house, especially one you plan to stay in for awhile.

From Pinsker:

Herbert recommended a different way of thinking about the timing of buying a house, one that I found much more comforting. “You ought to be making this as a housing decision and not an investment decision,” he said. If you’re buying a house, he advised, it should be because you want to live in it for at least five years, and ideally many more—which also will mean that even if prices fluctuate, you have a better chance of your investment appreciating over time. “The longer you stay in the house, the [less] your timing in this particular house-price cycle [will] matter,” he said.

If you do decide to enter the fray, you still do need to keep the financial implications in mind. Don’t go for more than you can actually afford, and don’t necessarily give up contingencies that protect you, the buyer, from a bad deal.

01/04/2022

Inflation Pushing 1 in 4 Buyers to Accelerate Plans
By Kerry Smith
Inflation is weighing on buyer decisions, according to a study. While 24% now plan to move faster, 1 in 10 have canceled plans and 29% have decided to delay.

SEATTLE – Three out of four (73%) of homebuyers and sellers say inflation is influencing their future plans, according to a study commissioned by Redfin.

Of Americans planning to buy a home in the next 12 months, 29% of respondents said they’re delaying homebuying plans due to inflation. Twenty-four percent of respondents are moving up their homebuying plans and 11% are canceling plans altogether.

Meanwhile, 10% of sellers said inflation caused them to move up their home selling plans, 7% are delaying and 3% are canceling.

“The way Americans interpret news about rising prices can have a variety of effects on their financial decisions, including homebuying,” says Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Some people may delay buying because they’re worried that with prices rising on everything from food to fuel, now is not the right time to make a huge purchase – but others might move faster to find a house because they’re worried home prices and rent prices will increase even more, and they want to lock in a fixed payment.”

The survey results come amid reports that inflation is at its highest level in nearly 40 years, with consumer prices jumping 6.8% in November from a year earlier. Increasing prices for gas and other energy sources are driving the inflation surge.

Inflation’s impact isn’t always directly related to the cost of a home purchase. For many buyers (73%), higher gas prices have caused them to rethink the cost of a longer commute. To compensate for a higher commuting cost, 35% plan to drive less often or drive a more efficient vehicle, and 25% plan to shorten their commutes. One in five buyers (21%) plans to buy a cheaper home.

“Different homebuyers react to high fuel prices in different ways, depending on their circumstances,” says Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “Some people will pay a premium to shorten their commute, while others will opt for a more affordable home to make up for expensive gas or a new – but more fuel-efficient – vehicle.”

Inflation fears also impacts rising home energy costs: 36% of respondents said they plan to add energy-saving features to their home, 33% plan to move to a more energy-efficient home and 15% plan to move to a smaller home.

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