If you’ve seen a headline about home prices rising and it didn’t match what your neighbor’s house actually sold for, you’re not imagining things. There’s a real gap between the “average” price you read about and the price a typical home actually commands here.

Over the last 24 months, the median list price across St. Lucie and Indian River counties has barely moved. It’s held in a tight band between roughly $385,000 and $399,900 the entire time. The median is the true middle, half the homes sold for more, half for less, so it’s the best single number for what a typical home actually costs.

Click to view full image

The average tells a different story. Average list prices ranged from about $532,127 (May 2026) to $587,092 (Feb 2025) over the same period, with a lot more month to month movement than the median. Averages get pulled upward by a smaller number of higher priced sales. When a few large transactions close in a given month, the average jumps even though the typical home didn’t change in value at all.

The other number sellers should pay attention to

There’s a second gap worth understanding if you’re pricing a home to sell. BeachesMLS tracks two ratios, sale price against the most recent list price, and sale price against the very first list price a home was given.

The first ratio has stayed remarkably steady, in a tight band between 96 and 97 percent for two straight years. Once a price is set correctly, homes here sell close to it.

The second ratio tells a different story. It ranged from about 91.5 percent up to 93.8 percent over the same period, meaning homes that started with an unrealistic asking price typically had to come down several points before they found a buyer. That gap was widest in July 2025 and has been narrowing since, but it’s never fully closed.

Click to view full image

What this means for you

When a seller asks why the average price they saw online doesn’t match what their neighbor’s house actually sold for, the answer is simple. Headlines only report the sale that closed. They don’t mention the weeks of low showings or the offers that came in under asking before that number was reached.

The advice on pricing right now is direct. Price aggressively to where the market actually is. Overpriced listings aren’t just sitting longer, they’re losing value the longer they sit, and a shrinking pool of active listings means more sellers are pulling homes off the market withdrawn or expired rather than getting a sale.

Click the charts for a full view.