What's Happening In Your Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)?

There are signs of a slowly improving housing market in the Tallahassee MSA, but our region is still glutted with too many homes for sale in the Tallahassee MLS.

Normally, the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog focuses solely on the housing market in Tallahassee (Leon County), but every so often I like to expand it to our entire Tallahassee MSA.

Wikipedia defines an MSA this way:

A Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are not legally incorporated as a city or town would be, nor are they legal administrative divisions like counties or sovereign entities like states. As such the precise definition of any given metropolitan area can vary with the source. A typical metropolitan area is centered around a single large city that wields substantial influence over the region.

For the most part, the Tallahassee MSA includes all of Leon County, Gadsden County, Wakulla County, and Jefferson County. However, the Tallahassee MLS includes sales (a few) and listings in the surrounding counties of Franklin, Madison and Taylor too.

Improvement In Tallahassee MSA

When we look at a real estate graph of supply and demand for houses in the Tallahassee MSA, three major trends stick out.

First, relative supply is finally on the decline. The purple line in the graph below has dropped below 14 months of supply, a significant improvement from the 21 months of supply in April 2009. Unfortunately, this level is still more than double what is needed for the market to return to equilibrium.

Second, the real supply of homes is down 31% since the peak in May 2008 when more than 5,000 homes were listed for sale in the Tallahassee MSA. The red line shows however, that we are still far above the levels that were available prior to the boom of the housing market in 2004.

Finally, the number of home sales each year has been relatively stable and bumping along a market bottom first reached in 2009. The green line shows some strengthening recently, but it is too early to determine whether or not home sales will really return to normalized numbers.

Focus On Demand In Tallahassee MSA

The real key to a housing market recovery in the Tallahassee MSA is the return of the home buyer. Currently, demand is at levels not seen in the past twenty years, and we need to get historical norms back into play in our area.

So the ability to sell a home in Tallahassee and its surrounding area are improving, but we still have a long way to go. For most of the Tallahassee MSA, this means falling home values for many more years

If you find yourself needing to sell a home in the Tallahassee MSA, just drop me a note and we can discuss the best course of action for your specific situation and needs.