What Spring Rush? These 12 U.S. Metros Are Where Homes Are Taking the Longest To Sell

What Spring Rush? These 12 U.S. Metros Are Where Homes Are Taking the Longest To Sell

April 18, 2024
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Clare Trapasso

Michaela Vatcheva/Bloomberg via Getty Images

As the spring housing market moves into full gear, buyers in many parts of the country are bringing their A-games.

They’re scouring listings and scheduling showings the moment a cute home in their price range goes up for sale. They might have even more homes to choose from, as this week is the best time to list.

Many of these buyers are also acting quickly to submit offers when they find a home that checks off all of their boxes. (Nationally, homes spent a median of 50 days on the market in March, according to the most recent Realtor.com® data.)

But even with this frenzy of activity, there are still places where prospective buyers are taking more time to decide on what could be the largest purchase of their lives—in short, the metropolitan areas where homes are taking the longest to sell.

“Some of these markets are perennially slow-moving,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist of Realtor.com. “They tend to be smaller markets that are not on the radar of most buyers.”

All of the metropolitan areas on our list have seen the number of homes for sale grow year over year, according to March data from Realtor.com. Housing inventory shot up 130% in Punta Gorda, FL, which tied for our No. 2 spot, rose 101% in Cape Coral, FL, and jumped 82% in Naples, FL.

They also tend to be more affordable places to purchase homes. Nine of these metros have median list prices below the national price tag of $424,900. The cheapest metro, Huntington, WV, has a median list price of just $179,950.

Eight of the 12 metropolitan areas on our list lie along the storm-prone Gulf of Mexico. Some are still recovering from hurricanes or might be experiencing rising insurance costs due to the risks.

“Some of these homes tend to face flooding and other types of risks that are getting more expensive to insure against,” says Hale.

In Lafayette, LA, “inventory is actually starting to grow,” says Bill Bacque, the president of Market Scope Consulting, which analyzes real estate in the area. It was up 27% year over year in March.

“The market is going back to normal,” he notes.

Higher mortgage rates and increasing home insurance costs (and challenges) could also be reasons why homes are taking longer to sell, Bacque says.

Punta Gorda, which was hit by Hurricane Ian in September 2o22, has experienced a slowdown for similar reasons, says local real estate agent Karen Brown, of Michael Saunders & Company.

“It’s such a wonderful, small, friendly town,” says Brown of the area that lies along the Peace River and Charlotte Harbor near the Gulf of Mexico. However, “Punta Gorda is surrounded by waterfront, so we’re in a flood zone. … There’s still a lot of cleanup, and people are still fighting their insurance companies for funds.”

To figure out where homes are taking the longest time to sell, we looked at the median days on the market in March in the 200 largest metropolitan areas using Realtor.com data.

So where can buyers take a bit more time before making an offer? Take a look.