Every so often, I like to take a detailed look at residential sales in the Tallahassee real estate market. By downloading all of the sales from the Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS), I am able to graph some trends that might not be so readily evident from the general market reports that are published without scrutiny from the Florida Association of Realtors.

For the purpose of this study, we will define residential sales in the Tallahassee real estate market as the sales of condominiums and townhouses (CT) plus the sales of single-family detached homes (DET) in Leon County, Florida. These abbreviations are used in the following graphs to differentiate the unit types.

The first graph depicts units sales (quantity) for the months of January through April for each year. We can see that the market peaked in 2006 and has been settling back since. Based upon these units sales figures, we can see that the first four months of sales in the Tallahassee real estate market were down 54% from the height of the market.



The next graph records the movement of average prices by property type in the Tallahassee real estate market. As we would expect, prices continued to move higher beyond the height of unit sales (lag in market awareness) and peaked in 2007, and since we have only seen about a 1% drop in the average price of residential properties since that time. It is this information that I continue to see reported as “proof” that our local market is doing very well.




The next graph shows the average size of homes sold during this period in the Tallahassee real estate market. Unlike the previous two graphs, this one shows that the average size home has actually started to increase since the height of the market in 2006. I think this reflects the buying power of the buyers in the Tallahassee real estate market is stable or has grown (interest rates are low, employment is strong) and so even while prices drop (see next chart), the average price stays the same because buyers are buying bigger homes.

The final graph, one that I do not see reported elsewhere, shows the relative price of homes in the Tallahassee real estate market is actually dropping. By looking across the Tallahassee MLS and focusing on price per foot, we can see that this figure is dropping since the height of the market. The average price per foot is down a little over 4%, and I would view this as the real pricing change in the Tallahassee real estate market since the height of home prices last year.





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Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.


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