Does Tallahassee Still Have a Balanced Real Estate Market?

For most of the past two years, Tallahassee has had a nearly balanced real estate market. Does it still? Ask around, and you’ll get three answers.

A neighbor says sellers still hold the cards. A headline says buyers have taken over. Someone else is sure nothing has changed at all. Believe the wrong one, and you could price your home too high or pay more than you need to.

Understanding market balance (market equilibrium) is crucial when you price a home for sale or negotiate a real estate contract. It tells you where you sit in the negotiation. Are you dealing from a position of strength or a position of weakness? Market time answers that question.

That’s why the best agents track market time every day, and our team does. When you talk with an agent about selling or buying, ask what market time is for somebody in your situation today, and how it will impact your negotiation posture. A strong agent will have the answer ready. This report shows exactly the type of market Leon County faces today and what it means for your next move.

What the numbers show:

• At the past year’s pace of sales, the homes for sale in Leon County today would last 5.1 months, the most for early November since 2016. That means more competition for sellers and more choices for buyers.
• 4.5 months of supply is where the market shows no favoritism to sellers or buyers. Below 4.5 months of supply, sellers have the edge, and the lower the number, the stronger their competitive advantage. The opposite is true above 4.5 months of supply, where the higher the number, the stronger the position for buyers.
• Market time has exploded 167% higher from 24 days in 2022 to 64 days over the past year, meaning that home sellers are sitting on the market 6 weeks longer than they were 4 years ago.
• Over the past 12 months, the median value is up 1.6%, but nearly all of that came from a strong summer. Since August, values have been flat, and October slipped 1.6% below last October on only 197 sales. That has me concerned we might be at the start of a depreciation cycle that most reports will not have picked up on.
• The 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 7.17% on November 6, below its 50-year average of 7.60%. By history, today’s rate is normal, not high.

What Today’s Market Means for Buyers

Start with the simplest number: how many homes are for sale. This chart counts every home listed in Leon County at the end of each month since 2008, plus November 8. It includes new homes and homes already under contract.

On November 8, Leon County had 1,285 homes listed, up from 914 on the same date in 2022. That’s 371 more homes, about 40% more. If you’re buying, that means more homes to choose from. If you’re selling, it means 371 more homes competing with yours.

We track this count back to 2008, and that history shows how far supply has really moved. The fewest homes for sale came in late 2022, just 755 in December, and today’s count is still 63% below the peak of 3,473 in May 2008. Supply is up, but it is nowhere near the glut of the last crash.

But the count alone can’t tell you who has the upper hand. That depends on how fast buyers are taking those homes.

How Long Would Today’s Homes Last?

To measure that, we divide the homes listed by the number of homes sold in an average month over the past year. The answer is how many months today’s homes would last if no new ones came up for sale.

On November 8, the answer was 5.1 months, the most for early November since 2016. Put another way, if no new homes came on the market, it would take until mid-April to sell every home listed today. We have clearly moved into a new cycle, but the number is still far from the extremes of 17.1 months in mid-2009 and 2.0 months in early 2022. For this time of year, buyers haven’t had this much leverage since 2016, but this is nothing like 2009.

Leon County has been above 5 months before. It reached 5.8 in the late spring of 2025. Then buyers worked through the extra homes, and by January 2026 it slid back to 4.3. At 4.3, Tallahassee had a nearly balanced real estate market again.

Since then it has climbed again, to 5.3 by June. It held there through September, then eased to 5.1 today. That’s still well above the 4.7 of a year ago, so sellers face more competition than they did last fall.

So at 5.1 months, does Tallahassee still have a balanced real estate market, or a buyer’s market? By the six-month rule most people learned, it isn’t a buyer’s market at all. That rule no longer fits, and here’s why.

The Internet Rewrote the Rules of Market Equilibrium

For decades, the rule of thumb was that market equilibrium was reached at six months. The National Association of Realtors used it, national housing websites repeated it, and local agents were taught it. But that number was built for a different era.

The rule made sense in its day. When I started selling homes in Tallahassee in 1991, the multiple listing service (MLS) was a paper book printed once a month.

Photos meant a roll of film and a trip to the lab. Miss the deadline for the book or the home magazines, and a new listing waited another month to reach buyers.

All told, it could take about two months to get a new listing in front of the buyers looking for it. Today, about 95 out of every 100 ready buyers know about a well-marketed home within four days.

Take those two months out, and six months becomes about four. Some lag remains, because buyers and sellers still need time to negotiate a contract. So today we measure market equilibrium at 4.5 months of supply.

I first wrote about this shift in 2018, in Is It Time to Redefine Housing Market Equilibrium? I’m not alone in seeing balance well below six months.

In June 2024, the nation had enough homes for sale to last 4.1 months. When those numbers came out a month later, Dr. Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, said, “Supply and demand dynamics are nearing a balanced market condition.” In other words, the group that taught the six-month rule saw balance coming at 4.1 months. Judge today’s market by the old rule, and you’d set your price or make your offer for a market that’s already gone.

Is Tallahassee in a Balanced Real Estate Market or a Buyer’s Market?

Here is the scale we use, measured the same way:

• Under 4.0 months: a seller’s market.
• 4.0 to 4.49 months: nearly balanced, favors sellers.
• 4.5 to 4.99 months: nearly balanced, favors buyers.
• 5.0 months and up: a buyer’s market.

Leon County is at 5.1 months. That makes it a buyer’s market, not a nearly balanced one.

If you’re selling, that means pricing for today’s buyers from the first day. If you’re buying, it means room to negotiate.

That doesn’t mean prices are collapsing. Well-priced homes still sell. Buyers simply have choices now, and they’re using them. The next three charts show what that costs sellers in time and in value, and where mortgage rates fit in.

Are Sellers Waiting Longer to Sell?

When buyers have more homes to choose from, each home waits longer for its buyer. Here is the median time to sell for existing homes sold in the 12 months ending November 8 of each year since 2007.

Over the past year, the median time to sell was 64 days. That’s the longest for that stretch since 2014, and up from 24 days in 2022.

Those 40 extra days are nearly six more weeks of keeping the house spotless, leaving work early for showings and making a payment on a home you’re trying to leave. To see what speeds up or slows down a sale, read How Long Does It Take to Sell a Home?

The homes that sell fastest now are the ones priced right from the first day. A home priced for last year gives buyers a reason to look at the one down the street.

Is Your Home Still Gaining Value?

When homes wait longer, values usually feel it next. This chart compares each month’s median value with the same month a year earlier, so you can see when gains grew and when they faded.

Value here means price per square foot. When everything else is equal, it’s a better gauge than the median home price. Here’s how I like to explain it: prices tell you what buyers are spending, and values tell you what sellers are getting.

Over the 12 months through October, the median value is up 1.6% from the year before. Nearly all of that gain came in a strong summer, when May through July ran 4.1% above the same months last year. Since August, values have been flat, and October slipped 1.6% below last October, on only 197 sales. That one month has me concerned we might be at the start of a depreciation cycle that most reports will not have picked up on.

That matters most if you’re selling. A price set from this summer’s best sales is likely more than today’s buyers will pay. If you’re buying, flat values take away the pressure to stretch your budget and buy before prices climb.

Are Mortgage Rates the Real Problem?

It’s easy to blame mortgage rates for the slowdown. Is that fair? This chart compares today’s rate with the yearly average 30-year fixed rate for every year since 1972.

On November 6, the 30-year fixed rate closed at 7.17%. Its 50-year average is 7.60%. So by history, today’s rate is normal, and the rate alone doesn’t explain why homes are selling more slowly.

What isn’t normal is the rate many owners already have. The record low was 2.65% on January 7, 2021. Owners who bought or refinanced near it hold a payment that’s hard to give up. In 35 years of watching Tallahassee homes sell, I have never seen buyers and sellers so sensitive to mortgage rates.

Here is an example of why. Say you bought a $235,000 home in 2021, the median price for the first ten months of that year, with 20% down at 2.65%. Your loan payment comes to about $758 a month.

Today that home could be worth about $315,000, the median price for the first ten months of 2026. If you sold it today, a buyer using the same loan program you have, 20% down at today’s rate of 7.17%, would pay about $1,705 a month. That’s 125% more than your $758. Can you see why the $758 payment you locked in as a median home buyer is unaffordable to today’s median home buyer?

It’s no surprise that demand is falling in the market right now.

What a Buyer’s Market Means for Sellers

If you’re selling, the first price you set matters more now than it has in years. With this many homes to choose from, buyers compare yours with every similar home listed. They skip the ones priced above what recent sales support.

In a buyer’s market, the sellers who do best price at market value on the first day and show the home at its best from the first weekend. They wait fewer weeks for a buyer and avoid the price cuts that come with waiting. That means more money in your pocket and fewer weeks of showings.

That takes an agent who knows today’s numbers and markets your home to every buyer in the area. The right agent gives you a price you can trust and the exposure to get it. Our report Succeeded or Failed: Which Home Seller Will You Be? shows what the sellers who sold did differently.

If You’re Buying Now

If you’re buying, you have more room to choose and negotiate than Leon County buyers have had in years. You can take time to compare homes, ask for repairs or help with closing costs, and walk away from a home priced for last year.

Two cautions. A home priced right in a popular neighborhood can still draw more than one offer, so the extra choice doesn’t mean every seller will bargain. And the payment matters more than the price, so know what you can afford each month before you shop.

Start on our neighborhood pages. Use our neighborhood comparison tool to narrow your search to two or three neighborhoods where you really want to live, based on the schools that serve them and the other features that matter to you. Then search every Leon County home for sale in those neighborhoods, refreshed every 15 minutes.

If You’re Selling and Buying

If you’re selling one home and buying the next, this market cuts both ways. When Tallahassee had a nearly balanced real estate market, a move like that came out about even on both sides. Now you give up some leverage on the sale and win it back on the purchase.

Price the home you sell for today’s buyers so it sells on your schedule. Then use the same conditions to negotiate on the home you buy. The costly mistake is the reverse: pricing your sale for a market that’s gone while making offers like it’s still 2021. Our report on mortgage rates shows what today’s rate does to the payment on the same home.

What Could Your Home Sell For?

The price that worked in last year’s nearly balanced real estate market may not work in today’s Tallahassee buyer’s market. Enter your address on our home value page to see what buyers are paying for homes like yours now, so you start with a price that sells.

How We Measured It

• Homes listed: every home in Leon County listed in the Tallahassee MLS, new and existing, for sale or under contract, counted every day and averaged over the 7 days ending each date. Homes under contract count because contracts sometimes fall apart and backup offers are common, so buyers still weigh them until they close.
• How long the homes would last: measured daily from MLS data alone, homes listed divided by the average month of MLS sales over the past 365 days. Each year is compared on the same date, November 8, so seasonal swings in listings don’t skew the comparison.
• Time to sell: the median number of days existing homes sold in the 12 months ending November 8 of each year spent on the market, counting earlier listings of the same home.
• Value: sale price divided by living area, existing homes, market sales only. Year-over-year comparisons use complete months through October 2026, because November sales are still being posted.
• Mortgage rates: the yearly averages and the 50-year average use Freddie Mac’s weekly 30-year fixed rate. The 7.17% rate is Mortgage News Daily’s daily rate on November 6, 2026.
• Payment example: 30-year fixed loans with 20% down, the loan payment only (no taxes or insurance). The 2021 loan uses 2.65%, the record low on January 7, 2021. Today’s buyer uses 7.17%.
• Data updated November 8, 2026.

Get the Weekly Market Report

The market can turn before you hear about it. Each Monday, our market report shows whether Tallahassee has a balanced real estate market, a buyer’s market or a seller’s market, and what the latest numbers mean for you.

Life After a Balanced Real Estate Market in Tallahassee

For most of the past two years, Tallahassee had a nearly balanced real estate market. Now it’s clearly a buyer’s market. What that means for you depends on which side of the sale you’re on. You don’t have to be ready to move to ask us.

Related reading: How the balance point has changed | Supply is back, but sales are not | Homes taking longer to sell | Which home seller will you be? | Mortgage rates and the payment | The best time to buy in Tallahassee. More from our team: explore Tallahassee neighborhoods, selling a home in Tallahassee or buying a home in Tallahassee.

Send our team a note with your address and your timeline, and ask what this market means for your move.

Sources: Tallahassee MLS through the Tallahassee Board of Realtors, Leon County Property Appraiser, Freddie Mac, Mortgage News Daily, Florida Realtors, HousingWire.