Ever since the peak of the pandemic real estate boom in the spring and early summer of 2022, there have been sometimes gloomy, sometimes gleeful predictions of an impending crash in property values.

The persistence of this “chicken little” perspective is understandable. Home prices went up so far so fast that homeowners, homebuyers and even real estate professionals couldn’t help glancing up nervously, still expecting some kind of reckoning, even years later.

But it hasn’t happened. Not in Vero Beach. Not in 2025.

Instead, 32963 house prices were remarkably stable last year, with average, median and per-square-foot prices essentially the same at the start of January 2026 as they were at the beginning of 2025.

“Prices appear to have stabilized after the significant appreciation seen during the pandemic boom,” says Premier Estate Properties estate agent Melissa Talley. “Our internal data confirms that average/median prices and price per square foot in 32963 changed only modestly year-over-year, with no strong directional trend.”

Some statistical sources show average and median prices down 2 percent or 3 percent, while others have them up a few percentage points, but the bottom line is, despite a sometimes slow and uncertain real estate market here and around the country last year, island house prices did not falter.

Has price appreciation slowed? Definitely. Have sellers still chasing pandemic dreams of sudden wealth had to drop their initial asking prices? Yes.

But most of the value created during the buying spree of the boom now seems to be inherent. It wasn’t a mirage or the froth of a mania. For a whole host of reasons, including many well-to-do buyers finding Vero Beach for the first time during the pandemic migration, houses here are much more valuable than they were before COVID-19 turned the world upside down.

“Stability is the story,” says Douglas Elliman broker associate Sally Daley.

And that stability goes back further than last year. Data compiled by Douglas Elliman and provided by Daley, shows that per-square-foot prices for island homes shot up from about $400 to $700 per square foot between late fall 2020 and February 2022.

Then, in the final phase of the boom, they briefly went up another $80 or $90 before dropping back down to $700 by June 2022.

So, price gains in the last five months of the biggest real estate boom in history, when buyers threw caution to the wind and the price line on the graph was going almost straight up, did not hold.

But since the summer of 2022, per-square-foot prices for island homes have stayed stubbornly in a narrow range, rising and falling seasonally between about $615 and $700.

At the beginning of January 2023, the median per-square-foot price for a house in 32963 was $636. It climbed to a peak of $704 by September that year before dropping back to $676 on Jan. 1, 2024. By Jan. 1, 2025, it had climbed to $681, and on Jan. 1 this year it was a few dollars higher at $694, basically flat year-over-year but up from January 2023.

That is three and a half years of price stability, through good times and bad, despite tornadoes, stock market crashes and political changes.

One reason a perception of falling prices persisted last year was the unusual number of price cuts seen in the island market. Talley, one of the top luxury agents on the island, says homes sold for only about 92 percent of their original list price in 2025. Buyers and sellers seeing big price chops can easily get the idea the market is tanking, but the reductions were a reflection of unrealistic seller expectations, for the most part, not declining values.

Island brokers are universal in saying that homes must be priced very accurately within the current market norms to sell quickly and at asking price, a big difference compared to the peak of the boom.

Daley says she sees several factors supporting Island house prices and keeping them stable. “Part of it is a national phenomenon we are in the midst of that’s being called the ‘great withdrawal,’ which is happening on the island, too.

“A lot of sellers tested the water and didn’t like the temperature and took their houses off the market. I’d say that is still happening about 15 percent of the time.”

That supports stable prices in two ways, according to Daley. First, it cleans up the market and makes it less confusing by deleting unrealistic prices. Second, it keeps inventory tighter. Even though buyers have more choices this January than last, island house inventory is still well below pre-pandemic levels, which supports prices via the basic dynamic of supply and demand.

Daley says an influx of out-of-town buyers is another factor. “Anytime you have a lot of buyers coming in from places like South Florida, California and even other countries where homes are more expensive and the lifestyle isn’t as idyllic, that supports prices,” she told Vero Beach 32963.

“Thirty percent of buyers at one of my listings this month were British, and there has been a real uptick in buyers from Boca and Fort Lauderdale. They are buyers who are willing to pay for the lifestyle they want and who see Vero as a bargain.”

Of course, it is important for buyers and sellers to keep in mind that the island is not a monolith. Per-square-foot, average and median sales prices vary widely in 32963 from property to property and from neighborhood to neighborhood.

A lovingly maintained home with a new roof and plumbing and beautiful landscaping in a prime neighborhood is going to push the per-square-foot price higher, while a house in a more run-of-the-mill subdivision that needs repairs will push it down.

Oceanfront homes and homes in Riomar and John’s Island routinely sell for more than $1,000 a square foot, bumping the island average higher, while homes in some other neighborhoods might go for 500 per square foot or less.

“There were pockets of relative stability and even slight increases in sold prices [in some neighborhoods],” Talley says. In other areas, “homes underwent price cuts and longer marketing times were more prevalent.”

Overall, this amounts to very good news for the island market and anyone still fearful of a drastic decline in house values.

Condo prices did decline, but not as much as feared, and that was mostly due to continuing fallout from the 2021 Surfside tragedy and related increases in HOA fees and insurance costs, not a hangover from the pandemic boom.

The main takeaway looking back over 2025 is that the island single-family home market normalized to a considerable extent, settling into a steady, fairly balanced give and take between buyers and sellers – and prices held!

Talley says she expects “continued relative stability with modest upward [price] pressure [in 2026], if the overall economy and interest rates remain favorable.”