Ranking the Lower Keys on How Far Sale Prices Moved This Year: Marathon Is the One Going Backward

Across the twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026, median sale prices climbed in Summerland Key, Big Pine Key and Key West while Marathon alone pulled back, even as its sellers conceded less than a year earlier.

Rank the four Lower Keys markets by how far their median sale price moved this year, and three of them line up in the order most sellers would hope for. It is the fourth that breaks the pattern, and breaks it in the direction nobody wants.

The criterion is simple: the year-over-year change in median sale price, ZIP by ZIP, across the twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026. Ordered from the strongest move to the weakest, the list runs Summerland Key, Big Pine Key, Key West, and then, standing apart from the other three, Marathon.

Summerland Key sits at the top of the ranking, and by a wide margin. A year earlier, the median sale price there stood at about $876,500. This period it reached $1,100,000, the largest swing of any market in this report.

Big Pine Key holds the second spot. Its median sale price rose about 10% this period, landing at $767,500, the smallest dollar figure among the four markets but a solid gain in percentage terms.

Key West comes in third. Its median sale price rose 7% this period, closing at $963,000, a steadier pace than its neighbors to the west but a gain all the same.

Then there is Marathon, which the ranking places dead last, and not by a narrow margin. Marathon's median sale price fell about 8% this period, settling at $1,007,500, down from about $1,090,000 a year earlier. Every other market in this report moved up. Marathon alone moved down.

Here is the part of the Marathon story that complicates a simple reading. While its median sale price fell, the average sale-to-list ratio in Marathon actually rose, up by about 1 percentage point compared with a year earlier. Sellers there are closing at a lower number, but they are giving up less distance between what they asked and what they got. A falling price and a firmer negotiating position are not the combination a market in retreat is supposed to produce.

That combination is worth sitting with for a moment. A falling median typically travels with sellers conceding more, not less, as they compete to attract offers. Marathon's sellers appear to be holding their line on price even as the overall number for the market slides, which points to fewer, better-matched transactions rather than a market where every seller is cutting to move a home.

Across the four ZIPs together, 291 homes changed hands this period, down slightly from 295 a year earlier. The overall pace of closings held roughly steady even as the price story split sharply by ZIP, which is the clearest sign this is a story about value, not about buyers disappearing from the Lower Keys altogether.

For anyone who owns in Summerland Key, Big Pine Key, or Key West, this period rewarded patience. Pricing has room to reflect what the last year actually did to values in those three markets, and a seller weighing a listing there is working from a stronger base than the one that existed a year ago.

For anyone with a stake in Marathon, the read is different and more careful. A lower median does not mean every home is worth less. It means the mix of what sold, and at what price, shifted enough to pull the middle of the market down, even as the sellers who did close held their ground on terms. Marathon also carries the most supply on hand of the four markets relative to its pace of sales, which is worth keeping in view for anyone pricing a listing there this fall.

What is worth watching from here is whether Marathon's median keeps drifting or steadies out over the next reporting period, and whether that firmer sale-to-list ratio holds if more listings come to market. A single period that breaks from three strong neighbors could be a pause. Two in a row would be something else, and this report will say so plainly when it knows.

This update is drawn from MLS sold data covering the twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026, for Key West, Summerland Key, Big Pine Key, and Marathon.

Jimmy Lane