If you're selling a house in Panama City Beach and the showing activity isn't what you expected, here's the honest answer: you're competing with 580 other listings, and the buyer who's looking for your house is only going to tour about eight of them. In early 2022 there were 120 homes for sale in this market. As of July 2026 there are 580 — up 383% in four years, from my own MLS pull. Getting showings now is about being one of the eight. Here's how. (Or watch a 6-minute video.)
How much competition am I actually facing?
Think about 383% for a second. Nearly five times as many homes for sale as just a couple of years ago. Buyers have a lot of choices right now — but a buyer with 580 options doesn't tour 580 homes. They don't even look at 580 homes online. They set a search, they see what falls inside it, and they pick a handful to walk through.
That's the part most sellers miss. Price is what you end up negotiating at the end. It is not what gets you seen at the beginning. If your price puts you outside the band that your buyer is searching in, you're not losing the negotiation — you never entered it.
Are buyers lowballing everything right now?
No — and the numbers say so. In May, 86.3% of Panama City Beach sales closed below the asking price. That sounds rough until you see the other number: the median asking-to-sales-price ratio was 96.2%. Put those together and here's what's actually happening: yes, most homes are negotiating down, but on average sellers are only giving up about 3.8%.
Buyers are negotiating. They're not looting. You'll see a low offer from an investor type here and there, but a buyer who seriously intends to live in the house — or spend real time in it — is just negotiating on the thing they've already decided they want. The offers I'm seeing on well-priced properties are not obscene. And the ones that are staged, marketed and priced correctly are getting to contract in a median of about 68 days.
What actually gets a home on the buyer's short list?
Three things, and none of them are complicated.
The right price band. The buyer searching for your home is looking in a fairly tight window. Make sure you actually appear where you're supposed to appear. This is the single most important concept in this market.
Photos that are amazing. Not good — amazing. They have to be. The first few photos are doing almost all of the work of getting you onto that tour list of eight.
Availability and condition. Don't wait to have the house ready to show — make it available, even when it's inconvenient, and make the condition as good as you can get it. I watched one owner take a full week before photos: moved furniture, repainted, took things off the walls, decluttered, depersonalized. Another is putting in new floors and new paint before listing. Sometimes you don't have much to do. But your agent should be walking you through exactly what your house needs, room by room — and if that conversation never happened, that might be your answer.
If you're wondering where your house would actually land in today's market, start with my home valuation tool and I'll give you a straight answer.
FAQ
Next month I'll be publishing specific neighborhood analyses. If you want yours included, call or text me at 850-290-0417 and tell me which neighborhood.
