Published October 1, 2026 in Market Update

One Price Band in The Citrus Got Full Price Half the Time

By David Gibson

Real estate, Citrus Market Data cleaned

Most sellers in The Citrus got close to what they asked. The whole market closed at 97.3% of the last asking price. But "close" is not the same across the board. One price band did something the others did not: half the homes in it sold at or above asking price. Every other band landed below 25%.

Homes priced $1,300,000 to $1,450,000 sold at or above asking price half the time

12 homes sold in that range. 6 of them got every dollar they asked, or more. That is a 50% hit rate. The next closest band, under $1,300,000, managed 23.5%. The $1,450,000 to $1,850,000 band was the weakest at 18.8%. The $1,300,000 to $1,450,000 range is the one spot in The Citrus where buyers pushed back the least. That does not mean every home in it sailed through. It means the odds of a full-price result were better there than anywhere else in the market.

Homes that first asked $1,250,000 to $1,500,000 gave up the least and closed the closest to asking

26 homes in The Citrus first asked between $1,250,000 and $1,500,000. Only 2 gave up without selling. They closed at 97.6% of what they first asked and 98.2% of the last asking price. Compare that to the whole market: 95.2% of first asking price and 97.3% of last asking. The gap between first ask and final sale is where sellers lose money quietly. In this band, that gap was nearly closed. The typical home here sold in 37 days, three days faster than the market overall. Homes built in the 1990s tell a similar story: they sold in a typical 39 days and recovered 96.4% of their first asking price. Homes built in the 2000s took a typical 64 days and recovered only 93.9%. That is a 25-day difference and a 2.5-point gap in what sellers got back.

Homes that sold in the first month got 98.6% of what they first asked

24 homes sold within the first 30 days. Their typical sold price was $1,447,100 and they closed at 98.6% of their first asking price. The whole market closed at 95.2% of first asking. That 3.4-point gap is real money at these prices. A home that sat longer gave up more, not just in time but in dollars. The fastest sale in The Citrus in this file was on Cereza: on the market 1 day, 2,811 square feet, asked $1,350,000, sold for $1,325,000. The slowest was on Citrus: 248 days on the market, 2,886 square feet, asked $1,285,000, sold for $1,248,000. Two homes, nearly the same size, priced within $65,000 of each other, and one took 248 days to find a buyer while the other took 1. The difference was not the home. It was where the price sat from day one.

The half-by-half comparison adds another layer. From October 2024 to October 2025, the typical sold price was $1,444,200 and sellers recovered 95% of their first asking price. From October 2025 to September 2026, the typical sold price was $1,412,500, but sellers recovered 95.3% of their first asking price and the last-asking recovery rose to 98.1%, up from 96.1%. Prices dipped a little in the more recent period, but sellers who priced well got closer to what they asked. The market got more precise, not looser.

What this means if you are selling or buying in The Citrus right now

If you are selling, the data points to one thing: price it right from the start. 42.9% of what is on the market today has already dropped its price. Homes that needed a cut started somewhere the market did not want them. The band from $1,300,000 to $1,450,000 is where buyers competed hardest. If your home fits there, price it there from day one. If it does not, the 4-bedroom and larger-home numbers show what happens when you ask too much: 4-bedroom homes took a typical 80 days to sell and closed at 93.8% of what they first asked.

If you are buying, cash still moves fastest. 75.8% of the sales where we know how the buyer paid were cash, and cash buyers closed in a typical 31 days against 42 days for buyers using a loan. The 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.03% as of September 24, 2026, up from 6.30% a year earlier (Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey). That gap matters when you are deciding how hard to push on price. Nationally, existing-home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million in August and supply hit its highest level in over a decade (NAR, September 10, 2026). The Citrus is not the national market, but more supply nationally means buyers have more choices, and that matters when you are negotiating.