Update June 23, 2013 The luxury condo
market in South Florida has too much inventory according to a new report and that means for the luxury condo market it is
a buyers' market. Despite a 29 percent spike in the number of luxury condo resales - with an asking price of at least $1 million - transacting in South Florida in the first three months of 2013, the tri-county region of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach is faced with a challenging level of inventory available for purchase, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. Buyers acquired more than 310 luxury condos in South Florida in the first
three months of 2013 compared to less than 245 condos during the same period in 2012, according to an analysis by the licensed
Florida brokerage CVR Realty™. In same January through March period of previous years, buyers acquired
about 222 luxury condo resales in 2011 and less than 190 units in 2010, according to an analysis based on Florida Realtors association data. Despite the increased transaction velocity for luxury
residences, the South Florida condo market has about 15 months of inventory available for resale, according to the report. On a county-by-county basis, the South Florida luxury condo resale inventory breaks down to 15.8 months
of supply in Miami-Dade, 15.2 months of supply in Broward, and 12 months of supply in Palm Beach, according to the report. Contrast this with the overall South Florida condo resale market - regardless of asking price - that
stands at 4.6 months of inventory available for purchase, according to the report. Industry watchers contend a healthy real estate market should have about six months of available inventory. Any inventory
levels higher that six months represent a buyer's market while any inventory levels lower that six months signify a seller's
market. Update September 20, 2012 There are still 3,400
condominiums in South Florida that were never sold since the condo building boom crash hit in 2007. Here is a market-by-market
breakdown on the number of unsold "boom condos" according to CondoVulture.com which tracks the South Florida real
estate market: Greater Downtown Miami .................................................
22,200 units built and 1,300 remain unsold.Sunny Isles Beach .............................................................. 6,300 units built and 400 remain unsold.South Beach, Miami ............................................................ 5,600 units built and
less than 650 remain unsold.Downtown Ft. Lauderdale and the Beach
........................ 5,250 units built and less than 200 remain unsold.Hollywood and Hallandale Beach ...................................... 5,000 units built and less than 5 remain
unsold.Downtown West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Island ... 3,400
units built and nearly 560 remain unsold.Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach ......................................
1,050 units built and about 300 remain unsold.
Update July 6, 2012 Banks, mortgage
companies and lenders started more than 12,200 foreclosure actions in the tri-county South
Florida region during April, May and June of 2012. That represents a 70 percent increase in filings
on a year-over-year basis compared to the same second quarter period in 2011. The information was provided
by CondoVultures.com which tracks real estate trends in the South Florida market. CondoVultures.com also reports
that lenders have filed almost 22,500 notices of default during the first six months of this year in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, which
make up the tri-county South Florida market. The notices of default are the first step in the repossession process.
About 14,000 notices of default were filed during he same January through June period in 2011, according to Condo Vultures.
Update June 10, 2012 The Florida real
estate market is bracing itself for a new hit caused by the drop in value of the Euro because of the weakness of the European
market, and the drop in value of the Real which is the currency of Brazil. Condo buyers from Brazil have had a big impact
on the South Florida condo market. The real estate experts at CondoVultures.com say that Brazil's currency is down in
value by 23-percent from a year ago. The Real hasn't been this low in six years. The condo market in South Florida
including Miami Beach has a history of being dependent on foreign investors.
Update April 29, 2012 Is another construction
boom coming to South Florida? It certainly looks that way according to CondoVultures.com which tracks the South Florida
housing market. In a new report, CondoVultures.com says that "developers are proposing
three new unrelated projects in the neighborhoods of South Beach and Middle Beach that combined would create hundreds of new
residential units in Miami Beach at a time when the coastal South Florida condo market is showing signs of recovering from
the dramatic real estate crash that began in 2007." CondoVultures.com also reports that none of the projects has obtained final government approval for
the construction so details could change. "The three newly proposed projects follow the announcement of 30 new condo towers with more than 6,200 units that
are already being planned for the South Florida coastal market of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties," according
to CondoVultures.com.
Update March 4, 2012 I saw some new information
today about rentals in the South Florida area including Palm Beach County. The report said that
the median (mid-price) rental rate for "a residential property located in the coastal West Palm Beach and Palm
Beach Island market decreased by 11 percent in 2011 on a year-over-year basis compared to 2010." That was
the latest information according to CondoVultures.com. The report went on
to say that "tenants paid a median lease price of $1.51 per square foot per month in 2011 compared to $1.69 per square
foot in 2010 and $1.18 per square foot in 2009." This report has several implications. As we know, many markets around the country have
been slammed by foreclosures, but usually when foreclosures increase there is also an increase in demand for rentals as homeowners
lose their properties and need a replacement home. So, it is unusual that rents would drop unless it means that there
is an overall drop in demand for housing in the area?
Update December 29, 2011 On the surface,
real estate in South Florida including Miami and Ft. Lauderdale improveed significantly during 2011. There was not only
a lot of new construction in the Miami Beach and downtown Miami area, but South Florida’s
condo and townhouse resale transactions are up by 12 percent in 2011. Some of the increase in sales is because
that prices continued to fall because of the foreclosure problem, shortsales, and because developers and banks can't hold
out for higher prices. There
has also been an increase in cash transaction by bargain hunters who see prices now in South Florida as being just right
to make a purchase. The
real estate consultants at www.CondoVultures.com are reporting that a mid-priced resale condominium unit or townhouse in 2011 in South Florida is now $78 per square foot
and that's a 63% discount from 2006 which CondoVultures.com says was the last year of the real estate boom in South Florida.
The consultants also report that buyers have been purchasing an average of 138 condos and townhouses per day during 2011 in
the three South Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. The sales rate in 2010 was 123 units per day
and before the crash (this goes back to 2006) the sales rate was just 86 condominimums and townhouse units per day. Since 2006, the mid-point price for a South Florida condo and townhouse has dropped year after
year from $202 per square foot to $78 per square foot now. It still might
be awhile before anyone can call the market healthy again. There are some 24,000 condominiums and townhouses on the
resale market now, and the asking prices are averaging about $40 per square foot the recent selling prices per square foot.
And CondoVultures.com reports that at the current sales pace, there is still a six-months supply of condos and townhouses
on the resale inventory.
Update
November 23, 2011 The number of homes for sale in South Florida decreased by 58% since the Thanksgiving
holiday week of 2008, which is considered to be the symbolic start of the busy winter
tourism season, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. Nearly 108,000 residential properties were on the resale market in the tricounty
South Florida region on Nov. 24, 2008 but some three years later, the number of condos,
townhouses, and single-family houses on the resale market in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties shrunk to fewer
than 45,000 residences as of Nov. 21, 2011, according to analysis by the licensed Florida brokerage CVR Realty™. The number of pending sales in the tri-county region has increased significantly in the three years as well and the
condo and townhouse markets have shown the greatest strength. The condo and
townhouse resale inventory is down nearly 60 percent to less than 24,500 units, according to the report. And the report
says that the reduction of the inventory as well as sales of newly constructed units is raising thoughts of a new construction
boom.
Update September 16, 2011 Could we
be seeing a new downtown Miami, waterfront condo-hotel project with a casino in 2014 and will there be a second casino in
downtown Miami also? CondoVultures (www.condovultures.com), the Miami real estate outfit, has just put out a report about a Malaysian casino operator, Genting, with plans to
build a giant hotel-condo-retail-casino project in downtown Miami which will be convenient not only to local residents but
also to tourists coming through the airport and cruise ship port. The report from
Condo Vultures says, in part, "the proposed Resorts World Miami project - for which the
land has already been acquired for at least $236 million - calls for a casino component combined with retail, restaurants,
and convention center space." There could be as many as 5,200 hotel rooms plus 1,000 condominium units. In early 2012 the Florida legislature will take up proposals to allow
three casinos in South Florida with two in the Miami area and one in the Ft. Lauderdale area. There is Indian gaming
currently in Florida.
Update September 8, 2011 Builders
build, and that's the bottom line on the South Florida real estate market from the research team at CondoVultures.com in their
latest report. The real estate firm reports that another 1,350 new highrise condo units are being planned even though
5,400 units in the South Florida coastal market are still unsold. In all, six new condo towers are being built in the
tri-county coastal area. According to the analysts the builders are hoping that those in the market for resales will
instead buy new construction. Actually, this same strategy is also being used by builders in the Las Vegas market which
is also burdened by a big inventory of homes for sale and real-estate-owned bank foreclosures. And it makes sense because
a lot of new, young buyers do prefer to buy new homes as opposed to "used homes." This phenomenon has been
present in the real estate market for decades. Even though
the developers of the new 1,350 new units are targeting buyers who might be looking at resales, there are still some 5,400
unsold new condos in this part of South Florida.
Update July 9, 2011 Lenders started 51% fewer
foreclosure actions in the tri-county South Florida region in the second quarter of 2011 on a year-over-year basis compared
to the same three-month period in 2010, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. The real estate firm said that lenders filed nearly 7,200 notices of default - the first step in the repossession process - between April and June
of 2011 in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties after filing nearly 14,800 actions a year earlier in the second quarter
of 2010.
Update June 10, 2011 Nearly
6,800 condominium units, and that's about 14 percent of the total new inventory of condos in the tri-County South Florida
market built during the real estate boom years, are still not sold as of March 31, 2011. The report comes from the real estate company CondoVultures.com. And CondoVultures says the figure would be much higher if about 8,000 units had not been sold
in bulk deals to investment groups that plan to resell them later when the market improves. CondVultures also reports that developers during the boom years created nearly
250 projects with 49,000 units since 2003 in the seven largest condo markets east of Interstate 95 in Miami-Dade, Broward,
and Palm Beach counties. Right now, CondoVultures says
that condos are selling at a pace of about 200 a month and at that rate it will take about three years to sell off the inventory.
Update June 8, 2011 A supply of more
than 18 years of new condo units created during the South Florida real estate boom remains unsold in the coastal Boca Raton
/ Deerfield Beach market as of March 31, according to a new report from the website www.CondoVultures.com which tracks the real estate market in South Florida. The
report says that buyers acquired five developer units in the coastal Boca Raton / Deerfield Beach market between January and
March of 2011, leaving more than 375 units still unsold from the real estate boom. The real estate boom in this region
started in 2003. But those sales during the first quarter represents a drop of 72% from the first quarter of 2010.
But we are actually talking about a small number of sales here as 18 condo units were sold during the first quarter of 2010.
What is interesting is that it would take 75 quarters -- some 18 years
-- of sales at the current pace before all of the new condos built during the boom years are sold out. CondoVultures.com
says the biggest problem in this market is that developers are not cutting prices to move their unsold inventory.
Update April 13, 2011 The number
of bank repossessions in South Florida decreased in the first 90 days of 2011 and that meant the first quarterly drop since
the real estate crash started in 2007 according to CondoVultures.com which tracks the real estate industry and provides buyer
and seller information in the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Comparing repossessions in the first
quarter of 2011 to 2010, there was a 2% drop. Still during the quarter, some 9-thousand properties were seized
by the banks and lenders. CondoVultures.com also reports that in the Ft. Lauderdale area foreclosure filings during
the first three months of 2011 were down by 65% from the first quarter of 2010. Still, banks did start foreclosure actions
on 3,200 properties in the Ft. Lauderdale area during the first three months of 2011.
Update January 26, 2011 Banks
repossessed nearly 20,400 properties in Greater Fort Lauderdale in 2010, representing a 34 percent increase on a year-over-year
basis compared to 2009, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com and nearly 7,400 condominium units - some 15 percent
of the total new inventory - created near the coast in the tricounty South Florida region during the real estate boom are
still not sold as of Dec. 31, 2010.
Update January 12, 2011 The real
estate marketing and information company www.CondoVultures.com is reporting that foreclosure filings in the South Florida market in 2010 dropped by 41% from the number in 2009. This
isn't because the market improved -- rather it is because of the investigations into allegations that banks illegally foreclosed
on properties without proper notifications and without following proper procedures. Meanwhile
in 2010, CondoVultures.com reports that more than 9-thousand condos were sold by banks at a loss. Meanwhile, it appears
that with all of the families and residents losing homes, that there are more renters. And as a result, in some areas
of South Florida rents have jumped 13% according to industry reports. For information
about the real estate services of Condo Vultures you can call 800-750-0517 or go to their website www.condovultures.com for information. Meanwhile the Florida Association of Realtors on January 3rd reported
that Sales of existing condominiums in Florida rose 11 percent in November, with a total of 5,411 condos sold statewide compared
to 4,860 units sold in November 2009. The Florida statewide existing condo median
sales price was $88,200 in November of 2010; in November 2009, it was $104,500 for a 16 percent decrease year to year.
However, November’s statewide existing condo median price was, month-to-month, 7 percent higher than the statewide existing
condo median of $82,400 in October.
Meanwhile, in the year-to-year comparison for existing home sales, a total
of 11,900 single-family existing homes sold statewide in November compared to 13,961 homes sold in November 2009 for a decrease
of 15 percent.
Florida’s median existing-home sales price in November was $132,700; a year earlier, it was
$139,300 for a decrease of 5 percent. The median is the midpoint; half the homes sold for more, half for less.
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