What’s ahead for the Tampa-St. Pete housing market in 2021

The volume of home sales in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan market is expected to outpace the national average in 2021.

The price gains for local sellers also are projected to be above average next year, according to a new survey from realtor.com.

The real estate listing website projects an 8.7 percent year-over-year increase in the number of homes sold in the Tampa-St. Pete metro area next year, compared to a 7 percent increase nationwide. The median price of an existing home in the Tampa-St. Pete area is expected to increase 7.5 percent in 2021, also above the forecast national average increase of 5.7 percent.

The median sales price for a home in the Tampa-St. Pete metro in October was $285,000 according to the Tampa Bay Partnership.

There’s already a shortage of inventory and strong buyer demand locally, said Barry Rothstein, a Realtor at Dalton Wade Real Estate Group-St. Petersburg. Those trends have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think it’s a combination of people being tired of sitting in their homes and realizing they want something nicer and bigger and more suited to their needs, while the interest rates are low and they realize they can get more house than they thought they could,” Rothstein said. “Usually around the holidays, it quiets a little bit but I don’t think it will this year. People are not traveling so they have more time to think about their needs.”

In 2020, the seasonal pattern for home sales was dislodged when the pandemic took hold in March and shelter-at-home and other measures were rolled out to slow the spread of the virus, just ahead of what’s normally the hottest time of year for home sales, realtor.com said.

In 2021, “we expect the housing marketing to settle into a much more normal pattern than the wild swings we saw in 2020,” the report said.

Mortgage rates have been below 3 percent during 2020, but realtor.com projects those rates will average about 3.2 percent in 2021, and climb to 3.4 percent by the end of next year.

One key trend for 2021 will be continued prominence of working from home.

“As remote work extends into 2021 and in some cases employers grant employees the flexibility to continue remote work indefinitely, expect home listings to showcase features that support remote work such as home offices, zoom rooms, high-speed internet connections, quiet yards that facilitate outdoor office work, and proximity to coffee shops and other businesses that offer back-up internet and a break from being at home, which can feel monotonous to some, to become more prevalent,” the report said.

See the full realtor.com report here.