Palm Beach County housing market currently in ‘pause’

“I call this period the pause,” Jeff Lichtenstein of Echo Fine Properties in Palm Beach Gardens said.

The pause, as he said, refers to decreasing home prices as inflation and mortgage rates rise.

Lichtenstein said the rising rates are not only affecting buyers, but also sellers who are now reluctant to walk away from their low mortgage rates in their current homes.

“People do not want to give up their ‘precious,’ like from the ‘Lord of the Rings,’ their 3% interest rate,” Lichtenstein said. “There are a lot of pent-up sellers right now that aren’t putting their home on the market and pent-up buyers because inventory is so low.”

The downturn doesn’t seem to be affecting cash buyers who are now still combing the area mostly for bargains.

A study from Redfin reports cash buying is down in most of the country, but was still about 52% of the purchases for December in the West Palm Beach market.

“I think a lot of investors are very finicky right now because there is a lot of uncertainty in the market, but cash buyers are flocking to West Palm and Palm Beach County,” Sasha Kraver, a real estate agent at Douglas Elliman on Palm Beach, said.

Kraver said despite the slowdown, Palm Beach County is still a destination of choice for out-of-state home buyers.