Cape Coral has been losing ground for two years now. The Gulf Coast metro’s home prices peaked in the first quarter of 2023 and have declined in nearly every quarter since, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s repeat-sales house price index. That alone would be notable. What makes it alarming is the company Cape Coral is keeping.
In the most recent quarterly FHFA data, published in spring 2026, home prices fell in 39 of the 129 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Seven of the ten steepest declines belong to Florida: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Tampa, Jacksonville, North Port-Sarasota, Palm Bay-Melbourne, Lakeland, and Deltona-Daytona Beach. No other state placed more than one metro in the bottom ten. The concentration is striking and suggests that the forces dragging prices lower in Florida are statewide, not isolated to any single housing market.
Where the declines are sharpest
The FHFA index tracks actual closing prices on conforming-mortgage transactions, not list prices or Zestimate-style estimates. That makes its signal harder to dismiss. When Cape Coral’s index falls quarter after quarter for roughly two years, it means real buyers and real sellers are agreeing to lower numbers at the closing table.
Tampa, Jacksonville, and North Port have followed a similar arc, just on a slightly shorter timeline. All three metros posted some of the nation’s sharpest pandemic-era gains between 2020 and early 2023, driven by remote-worker migration and mortgage rates that briefly dipped below 3%. As those tailwinds reversed, prices began giving back a portion of the run-up. Palm Bay, Lakeland, and Deltona round out the Florida contingent in the bottom ten, reinforcing a clear pattern: the metros that surged the fastest during the boom are now correcting the fastest.
Falling prices have not made Florida more affordable
A price decline might sound like relief for buyers, but the full cost of owning a home in Florida has moved in the opposite direction. Mortgage rates have hovered near or above 6.5% for much of the past two years, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Meanwhile, Florida’s property-insurance market remains under severe stress. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort, approved double-digit premium increases in both 2023 and 2024, and several private carriers have pulled out of coastal markets altogether…