Florida Realtors has put together the infographic below to help you prepare for hurricane season. Let’s hope that 2026 ends up like 2025 where we had no major storms impacting our area.
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Hurricane Prep
Tag: Manatee County
Selling a home in Florida comes with its own playbook. Between hurricane season, year-round humidity, and a buyer pool that includes plenty of out-of-state and international investors, what works in Ohio or Colorado doesn’t always translate here. If you’re getting ready to list, keep these three factors in mind.
1. Get ahead of your roof and insurance situation before you list. Florida’s insurance market has tightened considerably, and buyers, along with their lenders, are increasingly cautious about a home’s insurability. A roof older than 10-15 years, especially one without a recent wind-mitigation inspection, can scare off buyers or tank their financing at the last minute. Before you list, consider getting a wind mitigation and four-point inspection done proactively. Sharing this paperwork upfront, along with a recent insurance quote, reassures buyers that the home won’t come with a costly surprise and can meaningfully speed up your sale.
Manatee County’s single-family home market showed real momentum in June 2026, with closed sales jumping 26% year-over-year to 890 transactions. That surge in activity came alongside rising prices: the median sale price climbed 11% from a year ago to $490,000, suggesting buyers aren’t just active, they’re competing for homes and pushing values higher in the process.
If you’ve been watching our market from the sidelines, here’s some good news: after a few frenzied years, things have leveled out. Inventory is up, homes are sitting a little longer, and sellers are actually negotiating again. That’s a real shift from where we were, and it means buyers finally have some breathing room to make a smart decision instead of a rushed one.
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Mortgage Interest Rate Update
Mortgage interest rates were essentially flat over the past 30 days. As of this week, the average U.S. rate for a 30‑year fixed mortgage is 6.49%, compared with 6.52% a month ago. At this time, there are as many experts predicting a rise in mortgage interest rates for the remainder of 2026 as there are predicting a fall.