South Florida Home Sales, 1st Quarter 2015

March brought the Big Thaw – single family houses sales in Southeast Florida, in the area between Stuart and Homestead, increased substantially in March.

With that, the last month capped a first quarter that started characteristically slow in January and ended with 4.6 months inventory in March – which in turn trumped the very active December with 4.8 months inventory (read: at the current pace of sales, the market would be wiped clean in 4.8 months. Healthy is approx. 6 months).

Southeast Florida single family home data, Mar 2013 - Mar 2015. Red = List price, Green = Selling price, Blue = Inventory (months). Source: Kaiser Assoc. via SEF-MLS

All the activity brought an increase in the March median list price in the Tricounty area of 9.5 percent year over year, to $425,000.

Actual selling prices reached $282,200 at the end of the quarter, exceeding the December selling prices by nearly $10,000 and 7.8 percent y-o-y.

Note however the “disconnect” between what sellers are asking and what buyers are willing to pay. The index I created to measure this crucial information reached 151 percent in March, a massive 11 percent points above December and also the last three quarters of 2014.

So does that mean prices for SFH will continue to increase?

Right now it looks like it.

But especially May and June, traditionally the months with the most closings (likely tied in with the end of the school year), will tell a better story. And who knows what political and economic developments summer and autumn will bring?

Leaving you somehow dangling in mid-air without a better forecast, the only thing I can do for now is to wish you a fine weekend!

South Florida Housing Market in September

Happy Friday – and don't forget US Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend, so set your clocks back one hour Sunday morning at 02:00 am (or Saturday before you go to sleep).

Rewind to September, when home sellers must have been smelling something in the air. Asking prices across all three counties increased – and promptly widened the gap between what sellers expect and what buyers are willing to fork over. Though Broward County was the most modest, it still showed a gap score of 154*.

And buyers were not impressed.

Despite moderate increases in selling prices year-over-year (three to seven percent), on a monthly basis selling prices dropped a bit, and so did the number of houses that actually changed hands.

The same goes for the asking prices of those homes which sold. Consequently, inventory – in the graph below the blue curve – is up again.

Shows again: realistic sellers in difficult markets can make things happen; unrealistic ones sit around or pay, as a client of mine called it last week, the "stupidity tax".

Chart and graph for single family home sales in Southeast Florida for the month of September:

South Florida home sales September 2011-2012, Source: SEF-MLS, ©tckaiser/modernsouthflorida.com

If you were in the market in September – as a buyer, seller or professional – what was your experience?

__________
(*100 being complete pricing agreement between sellers and buyers).

The South Florida Housing market in July; Happy Labor Day Weekend!

The South Florida market for single family homes in July was lame, for lack of a better word, probably because of the brooding heat: slightly lower asking and selling prices, with a finally stable inventory on a low level. This is still baffling, as low inventory should lead to higher prices, but mostly it just doesn't.

Mostly means exceptions, and in some market segments there are plenty of them: waterfront condos, modern waterfront homes in all price ranges, especially in the luxury segment above $2m, and affordable homes in good location all experience increases, some massively so. This month alone, several buyers I work with missed out because they were not prepared to accept the price increases or believed they had a better understanding of the market than professional market participants do.

Overall however, it is quiet, and August will not be much different I believe. The numbers and the graph for July:

Until next time, I hope you will enjoy a relaxed Labor Day weekend!

South Florida House Market in June

Single family home data in June continue along the same line as in previous months, with decreasing inventory – relative as well as absolute – and increasing prices, on a monthly as well as annual basis.

Especially Broward county shows the lowest monthly inventory since this website began recording relative inventory. (January 2008).

Prices: slight overall increases in Palm Beach County, absolute as well as per sf under air, but with a very high disconnect score of 178 between sellers' and buyers' price expectations. 

In Broward, asking prices didn't move, but median selling prices went up a notch, while selling price per sf decreased a bit. Interesting: the seller/buyer price disconnect is the lowest of the counties observed, at 138 points and shrinking.  

Miami-Dade, with a disconnect as high as in Palm Beach county, showed slightly higher asking prices but lower selling prices, probably due to buyers (or lenders?) shying away from unrealistic asking prices. 

The numbers:

and the chart:

South Florida home sales June 2011-2012 ©tckaiser/modernsouthflorida.com

- Have a nice weekend, and until next time.