Tampa Bay Market Dashboard
Luxury prices are holding at record highs while affordability slips again. Tampa Bay’s luxury tier – the top 4% of sales, which now begins at about $1.46M – carries a median luxury sale price of $2.00M. The full series sits in our Tampa Bay luxury market intelligence center. That’s flat on the month but up 12.7% over the past year and more than double (+114%) the January-2020 level. Price per square foot ($642) rose +1.1% on the month and 13.3% on the year, so buyers keep paying more per foot even as the headline median plateaus.
There are 913 active luxury listings – about 9.4 months of supply at the current pace, a metro-wide figure that looks buyer-friendly on its face (the strongest neighborhoods, in Section 2, are far tighter). Homes take a median of 85 days to go under contract; this is the first month we’ve captured days-on-market at the index level, so a month-over-month change isn’t available yet.
| Metric | Current | vs last month |
|---|---|---|
| Median luxury sale price | $2.00M | +0.0% |
| Median price / sq ft | $642 | +1.1% |
| Days on market (median) | 85 days | n/a (first month tracked) |
| Months of supply | 9.4 | - |
| Active luxury inventory | 913 | - |
| Luxury sales, trailing 12 mo | 1,164 | - |
| Year | Median price | Luxury entry point |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $935,000 | $718,600 |
| 2021 | $1.15M | $840,000 |
| 2022 | $1.34M | $950,000 |
| 2023 | $1.60M | $1.11M |
| 2024 | $1.75M | $1.28M |
| 2025 | $1.82M | $1.31M |
| 2026 | $1.81M | $1.32M |
| 2026-08 | $2.00M | $1.46M |
Tampa Bay Neighborhoods
A tale of two markets: tight, fast-rising pockets inside a well-supplied metro. 62 neighborhoods have enough luxury volume this month to publish a benchmark. The most expensive addresses are the established waterfront and estate areas, the ones profiled in our guide to Tampa Bay luxury neighborhoods – Sunset Park, Snell Isle, Harbor Hills, Davista, and Avila all sit near or above $2.70M. The fastest-moving markets are elsewhere: Parkland Estates & Golfview clears in roughly two months of supply, with NE MacDill, Crescent Heights, and Historic Old Northeast close behind.
On growth, Harbor Hills leads at +64.2% year-over-year, followed by Madeira Beach and Davista. A caution worth keeping in view: luxury volume per neighborhood is thin (often 8-15 sales in a year), so treat the exact growth percentages as directional rather than precise – the sample tier and sales count are shown on every row for that reason.
| Neighborhood | Median price | vs last year | LTM sales (tier) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harbor Hills | $2.75M | +64.2% | 10 (full) |
| Madeira Beach | $2.50M | +59.3% | 12 (full) |
| Davista | $2.75M | 55.6% | 9 (limited) |
| Palm Harbor | $2.34M | +53.3% | 20 (full) |
| Old Southeast | $1.99M | +48.6% | 8 (limited) |
| Neighborhood | Months of supply | Median proice | LTM sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parkland Estates & Golfview | 2.0 | $2.35M | 18 |
| NE MacDill North of Chapin | 2.6 | $2.29M | 91 |
| Crescent Heights | 3.0 | $2.16M | 12 |
| Palma Ceia Area W of MacDill | 3.0 | $1.60M | 12 |
| Historic Old Northeast | 3.3 | $1.92M | 44 |
| Neighborhood | Median price | Price / sq ft | LTM Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunset Park | $2.95M | $594 | 30 |
| Snell Isle | $2.78M | $734 | 47 |
| Harbor Hills | $2.75M | $855 | 10 |
| Davista | $2.75M | $834 | 9 |
| Avila | $2.70M | $473 | 13 |
What’s Driving the Market
Rates are the ceiling; wealth and scarcity are the floor.
Financing. The jumbo mortgage rate sits at 6.7%, nearly double the 3.9% of early 2020. That single move is the biggest reason affordability has fallen even as incomes rose, and we unpacked what it does to each type of buyer in the new luxury buyer math.
Affordability. The Luxury Affordability Index is 0.91 – the comfortable purchase price ($1.34M) now sits below the luxury entry point ($1.46M). It improved slightly on the month (+0.9%) but is down -8.8% on the year and far below the 2.0-plus readings of 2020, when rates were low. In plain terms, luxury is becoming less affordable.
Demand is still firm. The luxury entry point itself is up 12.5% year-over-year – the bar to even count as “luxury” keeps rising. New construction commands a 1.28x price-per-foot premium over resale, so buyers are paying up for turnkey, new product. And supply is bifurcating: 9.4 months metro-wide reads soft, but the desirable neighborhoods are running 2-3 months.
Macro, briefly. Equities are up sharply since 2020 (the S&P has roughly tripled), which supports high-end demand through the wealth effect; the offset is the cost of financing. Tampa’s luxury tier has held up better than the affordability math alone would predict.
| Factor | Now | A year ago | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury Affordability Index | 0.91 | 1.00 | 2.08 |
| Jumbo mortgage rate | 6.99% | 6.35% | 3.87% |
| Luxury entry point | $1.46M | $1.30M | $718,600 |
| Comfortable purchase price | $1.34M | - | $1.49M |
Signature Bay Homes Insider
Founder’s read. What we’re seeing on the ground matches the data. New luxury is commanding real premiums: 214 new-construction luxury sales over the past year closed at a $2.20M median and about $796 per square foot, versus $2.00M and $622 for resale. That premium is the whole thesis, and it is the argument behind building custom rather than buying resale – at this level, buyers pay for new, well-located product. The tight, fast-appreciating pockets (Snell Isle, Harbor Hills, the Bayshore frontage, Davista) are exactly where that product lands best.
Outlook. Expect prices to stay firm and supply to stay split between hot pockets and a softer metro backdrop. Affordability is the swing factor into the fall: with the entry point up double digits and jumbo rates near 6.7%, the buyer pool is real but rate-sensitive.
Permit, spec, lot, cost, and timeline specifics are David’s manual input and are not sourced from the market tools.
| Segment | Sales | Median price | Median $/sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| New construction | 214 | $2.20M | $796 |
| Resale | 950 | $2.00M | $622 |
Measurement month: August 2026 (current live read on a trailing-12-month basis; the calendar month is partial). Scope: Tampa Bay metro, all residential (single-family and condo). Figures pulled live on 2026-08-03 from the SBH Market Index (query_market_index, query_lai, neighborhood_benchmarks). Per-neighborhood year-over-year and regional days-on-market month-over-month are shown as unavailable where the prior period is missing or the sample is too thin to publish; nothing is estimated.
Sources
Benchmarks in this report are computed from Tampa Bay MLS sales. The macro figures referenced above come from the following published sources, government data first.
- 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average — Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
- New Residential Construction — U.S. Census Bureau
- Characteristics of New Housing — U.S. Census Bureau
- Housing Affordability Index — National Association of Realtors
