Data Analysis

Bay County sold 22.5% more homes in July and took two weeks longer to do it

Panama City was the only Florida market where time to contract got worse over the year. Its new construction now sells $39,000 below resale.

Half of the homes that sold in Bay County in July went under contract within 70 days. A year ago the figure was 56 days.

Every other market we cover got faster or held steady. Bay slowed by 25.0%, and it did so while closings rose 22.5%, to 517 from 422.

More homes are selling, and they are taking two weeks longer to find a buyer. That combination means supply grew faster than demand did.

New construction is the cheaper half

New-construction closings in Bay were 125 in July, up 25.0% from 100. Their median sale price was $330,000, down 14.5% from $385,800.

Resale closings were 392, up 22.1%, at a median of $369,000, up 8.6%.

So new homes in Bay County now sell for $39,000 less than used ones. A year ago they sold for $46,000 more. That is an $85,000 swing in the relationship between the two halves of the market in twelve months.

Lee County to the south did the same thing in July, with new construction closing $23,000 below resale. Bay's version is larger.

Bay is one of twelve markets where our new-construction and resale counts reconcile exactly to total closings, which is what allows this comparison. It cannot be made in seven of our nineteen.

The county median stayed still

Bay closed at a median of $350,000 in July against $350,650 a year earlier, a change of 0.2%.

That is what happens when the cheaper half of a market grows its share while the more expensive half rises. Resale gained 8.6% and new construction lost 14.5%, and the blend went nowhere.

Sellers received 94.5% of original list price, up slightly from 93.9%. Florida Realtors, publishing Bay together with Gulf County as the Panama City metro, reported 454 single-family closings up 23.0% at a median of $379,900, unchanged, and 113 condo closings up 36.1% at $385,000, up 7.8%.

What this does not mean

A 25% increase in days to contract is not evidence of a weak market on its own. It arrived alongside a 22.5% increase in sales, which is not what a stalling market looks like. More listings taking longer to clear is a supply story, and this data cannot separate that from a demand story.

New construction closing below resale does not mean new homes are worth less. Different sizes, different locations within the county, different lot positions. Two medians describing two different sets of houses.

Builder pricing also understates what builders gave up, because incentives and rate buydowns never appear in a sale price. The $39,000 gap is a floor on the difference.

A county median is not an appraisal.

If you are in this market

Buying in Bay County means more choice and more time than a year ago. The typical listing now takes ten weeks to go under contract, so the pressure to decide quickly is lower here than anywhere else we cover.

The new-build option is currently priced below the resale option at the midpoint, which is unusual. Ask what the builder is contributing on top of that before comparing the two.

Selling a resale home in Bay, you are competing with a segment that grew 25% and cut its median 14.5%. Ten weeks is the realistic planning horizon, not four.

If you own in Bay and are not selling, a median that moved 0.2% over a year says nothing about your house.

Limitations

Our Bay County figures come from the Central Panhandle Association of Realtors feed and are all-residential, so we cannot separate single-family from condo ourselves.

Florida Realtors publishes Bay together with Gulf County as the Panama City metro. Our hub covers Bay only, so their counts and ours describe different geographies and no like-for-like comparison exists between them. Ours are published as county figures and theirs as metro figures.

Both sides are preliminary and move as late closings report.

Sources and links

• Florida Realtors, Statewide by Metropolitan Statistical Area, July 2026
• Data hub: /data/panama-city/
• Tool: /tools/hurricane-deductible-calculator.html

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.