Search four different real estate sites for the same village on the Loxahatchee River this month and you will get four different stories. One reports Tequesta's median home price at $495,000, up 32 percent from a year ago. Another puts the same median at $799,900 in January. A third calls it $665,000, down more than a quarter year over year. A fourth, pulled from last September, reports $595,000, also down sharply.
These are not four neighborhoods. They are four attempts to describe one small village between Jupiter and the Martin County line, and they cannot agree on whether prices went up or down.
The disagreement is not a math error. It is what happens when a housing market is small enough that a single closing can move the headline number, and diverse enough that the homes closing this month may have almost nothing in common with the homes that closed last month.
What Four Snapshots Actually Show
| Source | Reported median | Direction reported | Period covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes.com | $495,000 | up 32% year over year | most recent reported figure |
| Movoto | $799,900 | 107 sales, down from 137 the year prior | January 2026 |
| A flat-fee listing platform | $665,000 | down 28.5% year over year | April 2026 |
| Redfin | $595,000 | down 26.5% year over year | September 2025 |
Part of the spread is geography. Movoto's count of 107 sales in a single month is far larger than what a village of roughly 6,000 residents typically produces, which suggests that figure is pulling from a wider ZIP code footprint than the Village of Tequesta's actual boundary. Redfin's count for that September 2025 snapshot was seven closed sales, down from eleven the year before, a number small enough that a single unusual transaction can swing the median double digits in either direction.
Days on market tell the same story. Redfin's September 2025 snapshot showed homes selling in 34 days that month. Movoto's January 2026 figure was 86 days. A separate listing tracker's mid-September snapshot showed an average of 74 days across current listings. Three real numbers, three real periods, three different answers, because each one is measuring a different slice of a market too thin to hold still.
Two Housing Stocks Behind One Number
The bigger issue is not sample size alone. It is that "Tequesta" contains two housing markets that behave nothing alike.
On one side sits the waterfront and golf-adjacent single-family stock: communities like Bay Harbor, Anchorage Point, River Ridge, and the homes around Jupiter Hills, where the appeal is a private dock, an elevated fairway lot, or genuine Intracoastal frontage. One waterfront specialist's June 2026 tally counted only eight to twelve such properties available at any given time, and estimated the premium these homes command over comparable inland properties at 40 to 60 percent. When one of these sells, it can single-handedly drag a monthly median upward.
On the other side sits Tequesta's older beachfront condo stock, much of it built in the 1960s along Beach Road, plus lower-maintenance waterfront condo living in communities like Sandpointe Bay and Tequesta Cove. These buildings are not aging quietly. Village records show a 1968 building at 1500 Beach Road, originally called Blowing Rocks, approved for a full teardown-and-rebuild into a nine-story, 21-unit condominium now known as Sea Glass. A block away at 250 Beach Road, a 1967 building once called the Regency Condominiums was approved in 2023 for redevelopment into a ten-story, 34-unit building with a pool and expanded amenities. At 300 Beach Road, a building formerly known as Savoy, and before that Island House Southeast, was approved for a similar ten-story rebuild. Inland, newer supply is also entering the mix, including a 69-unit townhome project called the Reserve at Tequesta on US Highway 1, approved in 2021.
When a unit in one of these older buildings sells today, it is either priced to reflect the building's pending assessments and uncertain future, or it is a freshly delivered unit inside a building that has already been rebuilt. Neither price point resembles a "typical" Tequesta condo, and both are common enough right now to show up in any given month's sales.
The Law Behind the Rebuilds
The reason so many of these buildings are being fully redeveloped rather than simply repaired traces back to state law passed after the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside. Florida Statute 553.899 requires condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or taller to undergo a milestone inspection once they reach 30 years from their certificate of occupancy, or 25 years if the building sits within three miles of the coastline, and again every ten years after that. Tequesta's own building department administers this locally and describes the two-phase process on its website: a visual inspection first, followed by a deeper structural assessment if the inspector finds signs of substantial deterioration.
For a coastal village where several buildings are approaching or past that 25-year coastal trigger, the practical result is straightforward. Some associations choose full redevelopment over a phased repair and reserve-funding cycle. Either path changes what a unit in that building is worth, and either path can land in the same month's sales data as a completely unrelated waterfront estate closing on the Loxahatchee.
Reading the Number Correctly
If you are comparing Tequesta against Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, or any other Palm Beach County waterfront town using a headline median price, that number is telling you less than it appears to. A few better questions to ask before you rely on any single figure:
- Which segment does this comp set actually reflect: waterfront single-family, golf-adjacent, or beachfront condo?
- If it is a condo, has the building completed its milestone inspection, and is there a pending or completed Structural Integrity Reserve Study?
- How does this specific listing compare to others in the same building or the same street, rather than to a village-wide average built from a handful of unrelated sales?
- Is the number you are looking at a sold price from last month, or current asking prices across active inventory, which tend to move less erratically simply because there are more of them?
That last distinction matters. As of mid-September 2026, one listing tracker showed roughly 80 active Tequesta listings with a median list price near $712,000, while a separate MLS count put active inventory at 91 properties on the market as of September 13, 2026. Neither of those numbers will swing 30 percent because one unusual sale closed. If you want a figure to actually anchor a decision on, current inventory is a steadier read than last month's median of seven sales.
A Couple of Questions Worth Asking Before You Compare Towns
Is Tequesta a buyer's market or a seller's market right now? It depends on which Tequesta you mean. Waterfront single-family inventory stays tight, often in the single digits, which keeps sellers in a strong position there. The broader village, including inland and condo inventory, has grown to roughly 90 active listings this month, giving buyers in that segment more room to negotiate and more time to look.
How do I check whether a specific Tequesta condo building has completed its milestone inspection? The Village of Tequesta's building department requires the inspecting engineer or architect to file the report directly with the village, and current law requires the association to post the report on its own website as well. Asking your agent to pull that record before you write an offer is a reasonable and increasingly standard step.
A median price is a useful shorthand almost everywhere except in a village small enough that a single sale can carry the whole month. In Tequesta, the number worth trusting is not the one on the homepage. It is the one built from comparable homes in the same building, the same street, and the same segment as the one you are actually considering.
If you are weighing Tequesta against another Palm Beach or Martin County waterfront community and want someone to walk through what a specific address, building, or block is really worth, Stacey Carey can help you read the comps that matter instead of the headline that doesn't. Let's Connect.
