Data Analysis

Zillow reported that newly built homes sold for less per square foot than existing homes in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville in July 2026, with Tampa's 12.4 percent new-construction discount the third deepest of any major U.S. metro.

Zillow's September 29, 2026 release put the national median at $205 per square foot for new homes against $212 for existing ones. Miami is the Florida exception, where new construction still carried a premium of $73 per square foot.

Zillow reported on September 29, 2026 that newly built homes sold for a median $198 per square foot in Tampa in July 2026 against $226 for existing homes, a 12.4 percent discount that Zillow ranked the third deepest among major U.S. metros. Orlando and Jacksonville showed the same direction at a smaller size, $214 against $220 and $198 against $204. Miami went the other way, with new construction at $394 per square foot against $321 for resales. Nationally Zillow put new homes at $205 per square foot and existing homes at $212.

That is a reversal of the way the market priced new homes for most of the last decade. Zillow stated that new homes sold for more per square foot than existing homes in 77 of the 84 months from 2018 through 2024, and that the premium peaked at $25 per square foot in November 2022. New homes have sold at a discount in 17 of the past 19 months, with the deepest gap at $12 per square foot in June.

Where do new homes cost less than existing homes in Florida?

Three of the four Florida metros in Zillow's table. Tampa is the widest, at $28 per square foot below the existing-home median for July 2026. Orlando and Jacksonville are both $6 below, which works out to 2.7 percent and 2.9 percent by this desk's arithmetic on Zillow's two published columns. Only Tampa's figure carries Zillow's own percentage.

Tampa's placement is the part worth noting. Zillow named Austin at 19.3 percent and Raleigh at 14.4 percent as the two largest new-home discounts in the country, with Tampa at 12.4 percent in third. Those are three metros that built heavily through the last cycle, and they are now the three where new construction is priced furthest below the resale stock.

Miami sits at the opposite end of the same table. New construction there ran $73 per square foot above existing homes in July 2026, a premium of 22.7 percent on this desk's calculation. That still falls short of the metros Zillow flagged at the top, which were the New York metro at 64.9 percent, Cleveland at 50.7 percent, Milwaukee at 46 percent and Detroit at 44.5 percent. Miami's gap reflects what gets built there rather than a shortage of resale supply, since very little of what sells in Miami is new at all.

Why are new homes cheaper than resales right now?

Supply, on Zillow's reading, and the two sides of the market are moving in opposite directions. Zillow cited the U.S. Census Bureau figure of 9.6 months of new-home supply in July 2026, up from 7.6 months two years earlier and against roughly six months in July 2018 and July 2019. Existing-home inventory, by Zillow's measure, is still 17.1 percent below pre-pandemic levels.

Builders carrying that much standing inventory have reasons to move it that an individual seller does not. Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow, said in the release that "New homes are the overlooked opportunity more buyers should be thinking about."

The desk would add a caution the release does not. A median price per square foot is not a like-for-like product comparison. New homes on the edge of a metro are not the same house as a 1990s resale closer in, and a lower figure per foot can reflect where and what builders are putting up rather than a discount on the same thing.

How much new construction is actually selling in Florida?

Enough to matter in north and central Florida, and almost none in south Florida. Zillow put new construction at 22.6 percent of sales in Jacksonville over the 12 months ending July 2026, 19.8 percent in Orlando, 13.6 percent in Tampa and 3.7 percent in Miami. The national share was 12.6 percent.

Every one of those four is below where it stood in 2019. Jacksonville was 23.3 percent then, Orlando 24.0 percent, Tampa 16.1 percent and Miami 7.1 percent. So the builder share of Florida's four largest metro markets has slipped even while the national share held flat at its 2019 level and fell from a 2023 peak of 16.7 percent.

That pattern is not universal. Zillow listed San Antonio up 12.9 percentage points on its 2019 share, Dallas up 7 and Houston up 6.8, with San Antonio at 37.1 percent the highest new-construction share of any metro in the table and Raleigh second at 33.6 percent. The largest losses were New Orleans at 17.7 points, Baltimore at 5.8 and Atlanta at 5.7. Hartford was lowest in the country at 2 percent.

What does this mean for Florida buyers this fall?

A buyer shopping Tampa, Orlando or Jacksonville is looking at a market where the new-build option is priced at or under the resale option per square foot, which was not true for most of the period from 2018 to 2024. In Miami the arithmetic still runs the other way by a wide margin.

What the release does not answer is whether the gap holds through the fall, because the price figures are July and the release came out at the end of September. Nor does it speak to the rest of the state. Zillow's metro table does not carry Cape Coral, North Port-Sarasota, Lakeland, Port St. Lucie, Palm Bay, Deltona, Pensacola or Tallahassee, so nothing here should be read as a statewide new-construction figure. Current figures for every Florida market this desk tracks sit on the market data pages.

Limitations

Zillow's price figures are medians of price per square foot and do not control for home size, age, lot, finish level or location within a metro, so a lower figure for new construction does not mean the same house costs less. The price data is for July 2026 and the release was published September 29, 2026, so it is two months old at publication. Only Tampa's 12.4 percent discount is Zillow's own stated percentage; the Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville percentages in this article are this desk's arithmetic on the two columns Zillow published, and the dollar gaps are the published figures subtracted. Zillow's new-construction share covers the 12 months from August 2025 through July 2026 and is compared against calendar-year 2019, which are different periods. The release states that the deepest national discount was $12 per square foot "in June" without giving a year, so this article reports it as Zillow wrote it. Zillow marks metros with at least one missing month as N/A, and only four Florida metros appear in the table at all. The 9.6-month new-home supply figure is the Census Bureau's and is quoted here as Zillow quoted it, not read from the Census release.

Sources

Zillow, "New homes now cost less than existing ones in one-third of major markets," September 29, 2026, zillow.mediaroom.com. The same release, read independently at investors.zillowgroup.com, returned identical figures for every number used above. U.S. Census Bureau months' supply of new homes, as cited within the Zillow release.

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.