Single-Family vs. Condo: Palm Beach County's Two Housing Markets Are Diverging

Palm Beach County Market Report · Real Estate Investor Guide · 2026

By Jean Taveras, Broker-Owner, Atlis Property Management  ·  Updated September 2026

Ask whether Palm Beach County real estate favors buyers or sellers right now, and the honest answer is: which one are you looking at? Single-family homes and condos across West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Wellington, and the rest of Palm Beach County are telling almost opposite stories in the same market at the same time, and understanding why matters for anyone deciding where to put capital in 2026.

The Numbers, Side by Side

Data per MIAMI Association of Realtors / Southeast Florida MLS, as of July 17, 2026. A balanced market generally falls between 5.5 and 6 months of supply.

Below 5.5 months of supply favors sellers, since buyers are competing for scarce inventory. Above 6 months favors buyers, since sellers face more competition for a smaller pool of interested purchasers. Single-family homes, at 3.9 months, sit firmly in seller's-market territory. Condos, at 7.2 months, sit just as firmly in buyer's-market territory. That's not a small gap -- it's two fundamentally different negotiating environments existing in the same county at the same time.

Why Condos Are Lagging So Far Behind

The biggest driver is structural, not just cyclical. In the years following the 2021 Surfside condo collapse, Florida enacted Structural Integrity Reserve Study (SIRS) requirements, forcing condo associations statewide to fund reserve accounts for major structural repairs based on formal engineering assessments. For many older buildings, that has meant large special assessments landing on unit owners with little warning, and buyers have responded by pricing that risk into their offers or avoiding older buildings altogether. Some brokers describe the market as working through the worst of this adjustment, with much of the highest-risk inventory already repriced or repaired -- but the caution among buyers hasn't fully lifted yet, and days-on-market for condos remain elevated as a result.

Single-family homes carry no comparable structural mandate. A single-family owner doesn't face the same association-level reserve requirements or the risk of a shared special assessment landing on their specific unit, which removes an entire category of buyer hesitation that's actively weighing on the condo market right now.

Why Single-Family Homes Stay Tight

On the other side, single-family inventory keeps getting absorbed by sustained demand, much of it tied to continued migration into Palm Beach County -- including the well-documented wave of financial services relocations to West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens that has compressed inventory and pushed appreciation well above the statewide average in those specific submarkets. Cash buyers make up a meaningful share of this demand, which further insulates the single-family market from the mortgage rate sensitivity that affects more finance-dependent buyer pools.

Insurance Is a Factor in Both Markets, Differently

Property insurance shapes both sides of this divergence, but in different ways. For single-family homes, insurance is an individual owner's problem to solve -- premiums vary widely based on roof age, elevation, construction type, and flood zone, and Citizens Property Insurance, the state's insurer of last resort, carries an average premium around $1,750 a year in Palm Beach County, though private carrier quotes for older or coastal homes commonly run several times that. For condos, insurance operates at the association level as well as the individual unit level, meaning a single-family buyer's insurance research applies only to their own property, while a condo buyer needs to evaluate both their individual HO-6 policy and the master association policy covering the building itself.

This is part of why condo due diligence takes longer and requires more documentation than single-family due diligence -- a buyer isn't just evaluating one insurance policy, but the master policy's coverage adequacy, the association's claims history, and how insurance costs feed into monthly association fees on top of the mortgage payment itself.

What to Watch Before Buying Either Type

“The condo market isn't broken, but it is going through a real adjustment, and buyers who understand what's driving that adjustment can find genuine value in buildings that have already done the reserve work. The single-family side just requires a different kind of patience -- less negotiating room, more competition, but a demand story that isn't going anywhere.”

— Jean Taveras, Broker-Owner, Atlis Property Management · FL Broker CQ1071712

Rental Demand Doesn't Split the Same Way Sales Data Does

It's worth noting that this divergence describes the for-sale market, not necessarily the rental market for either property type. Tenants renting a single-family home or a condo are typically far less exposed to association reserve funding decisions or the sale-side pricing pressure driving the current gap -- a well-maintained condo with a healthy reserve fund can rent just as easily as a comparable single-family home, even while that same condo might be harder to sell at the seller's preferred price. For an investor thinking in terms of rental income rather than resale timing, the sale-side divergence matters most as a buying opportunity, not necessarily as a signal about future rental performance.

That said, a building actively working through a large special assessment can affect a rental unit's appeal if the assessment translates into higher monthly association fees passed through to residents, or construction activity disrupting the property during the hold period -- both real, practical factors to weigh in a rental pro forma, separate from the purchase price advantage a softer condo market may currently offer.

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