A housing market on the mend, needing more houses
In South Florida, the buyers are back, for the right price. With values still depressed, sellers aren’t eager to enter the market.
By Douglas Hanks MiamiHerald
Housing sales figures
These figures for August 2012 reflect increases from August 2011:
Condo sales in Broward: up 2.4%; Total number of sales: 1,419
Condo sales in Miami-Dade: up 8% to 1,492
House sales in Broward: up 15% to 1,369
House sales in Miami-Dade: up 5% to 1,059
SOURCE: Miami Association of Realtors
South Florida’s housing market lacks a certain something: houses for sale.
Tight inventory levels continued to help boost prices this summer as buyers competed for the limited number of houses and condos on the market. Despite the modest bump over last year’s prices, homeowners are balking at putting their properties on the market until values recover more.
“They still feel they won’t get they want,’’ said Jason Smith, a broker with Keller Williams in Coral Gables. “They say, “If I hold off for two years, I’ll get what I want.’ ’’
Maybe. If South Florida home values continue rising at their current pace, it will be 2017 before they return to peaks hit in 2006, according to the latest results from the Case-Shiller real estate index. But numbers released Wednesday show the healing continues.
In Broward, the number of sales of single-family homes increased 15 percent in August from August 2011, and the median price increased 12.5 percent to $215,000. August sales of single-family houses in Miami-Dade increased 5 percent compared to a year ago, and the median prices was up 11 percent to $195,00, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.
That marked the ninth consecutive month of yearly price increases in Florida’s largest housing market, the first such streak since September 2006.
A recovering economy, looser credit and the attractiveness of depressed prices all led to the ongoing rebound. But a lack of real estate listings is boosting prices, too.
Inventory figures tracked by Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell show the 9,200 houses and condos for sale in Broward would last for 14 weeks under the current pace of about 2,500 units sold every 30 days. That’s far tighter than the 26 weeks of inventory on the market at the end of last summer.
In Miami-Dade, the inventory isn’t quite as tight; with about 11,400 houses and condos for sale, Miami-Dade’s current inventory would last for 18 weeks compared to 25 weeks a year ago.
A lack of affordable condos — and not the European financial crisis — continues to hold back sales for Brigitte Respaut Degrave, who pairs French buyers with real estate investments in the Miami area. “Two weeks ago, I met a buyer in France,’’ she said. “He wanted to spend $150,000. It ended up being $350,000 for what he wanted.”
For Degrave, Europe’s financial woes have been a boon. “The Europeans are afraid of the euro,’’ she said. “They want to diversify.”
Condo sales continue gaining steam in South Florida, although monthly numbers are typically more erratic than those related to single-family homes. The August Realtors report showed the volume of condo sales increased 8 percent in Miami-Dade and 2 percent in Broward from 12 months earlier. Prices were also up: 28 percent in Miami-Dade, to a median of $146,500, and 7 percent in Broward, to $86,000 .
The improved numbers belie the damage done to South Florida’s housing market that still hasn’t been erased. For instance, single-family sales in Miami-Dade remain down about 20 percent from past peaks hit in 2004, and values are off 47 percent across South Florida since the height of the housing bubble six years ago, according to the Realtors group and the Case-Shiller index.
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