The volume of South Florida home sales continued its historic upward trend in June while prices showed a mix of results driven by investors’ appetite for all-cash deals on distressed properties.
Is the real-estate bucket half full or half empty midway through 2011? It all depends on which view of the market you happen to be taking.
For real estate agents and investors, happy days are here again, as both cash in on the rapid sales pace and international appetite for low-priced properties.
For homeowners and those looking to become homeowners, times are less certain , as home values across the market remain far below their peaks. For homeowners, the stubbornly declining values add insult to injury, as a 55 percent decline from 2006 values has left a landscape of underwater mortgages and foreclosures.
Potential buyers see the low prices as enticing, but tight credit, aggressive cash investors and a rapidly declining supply of available homes can make finding the right buy more and more difficult. Still, some buyers, like North Miami chef Hornel Joseph, are navigating the market to find bargains.
“I saw that the market was down, and now is a good time to buy a home,“ said Joseph, who recently purchased a four-bedroom in North Miami for $150,000. “We got a good deal.”
In Miami-Dade County, resales of single-family homes reached 923, up 35 percent from June 2010 and up 5.5 percent from May, according to data released Wednesday by the Miami Association of Realtors. Condo sales equaled 1,136, up 54 percent from June 2010 and down slightly from May.
Real estate agents sold 1,274 single-family homes in Broward County in June, a 6 percent increase from the year before. Month-over-month, the sales increase was 11.6 percent. In the condo market, Broward saw year-over-year sales increase 7 percent to 1,511. Compared to May, sales slipped 1.7 percent.
Prices were down in Miami-Dade, with the median-priced single-family home price dropping 9 percent to $185,400. Things looked better in Broward, where prices for single-family homes jumped 26 percent to $196,000.
Real estate agents
Agents say they have not been this busy since 2006, when speculators and flippers flooded the market and real estate commissions hit record highs.
If the current sales pace continues through December, 2011 will set a record for the number of homes trading hands in a year. There have been 12,369 home and condo sales through the first six months of 2011, up 79.3 percent from last year and the highest January-to-June total on record.
Mike Pappas, who owns South Florida-based Keyes Realty, said he sees no sign of a slowdown after the busy spring selling season. June was the strongest month for the company in as long as he can remember, and the interest from international investors has kept his offices buzzing.
“We’ve been running hard since March,” he said. “We haven’t had four months like that since 2006.”
Inventory levels have declined rapidly since last year, and the number of homes for sale stands at about 30,000, down from 45,000 last June.
“I’m confident that we’re out of the bust, and on our way to a recovery,” said Pappas.
Investors
Real estate investors are enjoying this market just about as much as local agents. Both individual investors — many from outside of the country — and multibillion dollar investment firms have swarmed to South Florida’s distressed housing scene, looking for steals. In many cases, they’ve found them in the copious foreclosure market.
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