Florida Housing market Thread (real estate, condos, rental)

[lostbuyer]

Cruising Down From The Peak In Florida

The Florida realtors report on June sales. “Despite favorable mortgage interest rates, strong job growth and other positive economic conditions, statewide sales of existing single-family homes in Florida totaled 12,954 in June and were closer to activity levels in June 2002, prior to the housing boom years, than June 2006 figures when 18,607 homes sold for a 30 percent decrease in the year-to-year comparison, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”

“Florida’s median sales price for existing single-family homes last month was $243,200; a year ago, it was $256,200 for a 5 percent decrease.”

“The Sarasota-Bradenton MSA reported the median sales price for homes was $292,700; it was $326,800 in June 2006 for a 10 percent decrease. The existing condo median sales price in June was $256,300; a year ago, it was $287,500 for an 11 percent decrease.”

“‘Several factors are influencing the market in the Sarasota-Bradenton area,’ says May Aston, president of the Manatee Association of Realtors. ‘Inventory is plentiful, and sellers have adjusted their price expectations, which helps make homes more affordable again.’”

The Sun Sentinel. “Breathe deeply, hot-under-the-collar home sellers. South Florida’s housing slump continued in June, hitting the 18-month mark. Analysts who had predicted improvement this year now are pointing to the second half of 2008 or later.”

“Sales of existing homes in Broward County tumbled 22 percent last month, to 674 from 861, FAR said Wednesday.”

“Many sellers are finding interest to be tepid, even as they cut prices. June Bechthold and Allan Sacks have been trying to sell their two-bedroom home near the water in Deerfield Beach since January. They originally asked $434,900 but have since dropped the price to what they hope is an eye-catching $387,387.”

“The couple has had only one offer, and it was too low. ‘We’re not trying to get top dollar,’ said Bechthold. ‘We’re just going to hang in there.’”

“The number of homes and condominiums for sale in Broward has stabilized recently at about 47,000, according to Keyes Co. That figure still is more than triple the number from two years ago.”

“Meanwhile, the existing condo market took a hit in June. Sales plummeted 35 percent, to 595 from 910 a year ago. The median price fell $18,200, to $194,100 from $212,300. Existing condos in Broward may have been hurt by the deals developers are giving buyers of new units, analysts say.”

The Miami Herald. “South Florida homes continue to sit on the market, waiting for buyers, while more and more are being put up for sale. Market watchers cautioned prices can’t hold much longer given stagnant sales and ballooning inventory.”

“‘We are at the early to middle stage of the market correction,’ said economist J. Antonio Villamil of the Washington Economics Group. ‘The thing that moves initially is sales volume decline and inventory increasing. Eventually, prices will move down too.’”

“‘It’ll be a couple-year process,’ he said. ‘For those caught on the wrong side of this, there will be blood n the floor.’”
“For now, the median price of a single-family house in June was $371,600 in Miami-Dade, a drop of 2 percent from June 2006 and 7 percent from May.”

“Reflecting the lack of sales, the inventory of unsold homes continued rising. Owners of more than 77,000 single-family houses and condos have listed properties for sale. A year ago that number was just over 50,000.”

“Jack Winston of Miami’s Goodkin Consulting said he surveyed downtown Miami’s condo market and concluded the market will need five to seven years to digest all of the units under construction and be ready for new development.”

“‘Right now, people selling homes still have not adjusted their thinking to what the reality is. The sooner prices start to come down, the sooner this market returns,’ said Winston.”

The News Press. “Sales of existing single-family homes in Lee County are down 37 percent for the first six months of 2007 compared to the same period a year ago.”

“The number of sales could pick up if more prospective sellers would lower their prices to match the market, said Trae Zipperer, an agent in Fort Myers who specializes in waterfront homes.”

“‘We are still seeing a significant gap between sellers’ expectations of value and where the market actually is,’ Zipperer said. ‘The values are what they are and as long as the seller can come to grips with that, there are buyers who are looking to be in this market.’”

“Fort Myers resident Lisa Norman, a first-time home buyer who had been scanning listings for property for her mother, paid about $150,000 for a two-bedroom unit that had sold for about $243,000 in November 2005. ‘I just kind of walked into it,’ Norman said.”

“The Realtor who handled the transaction, Fiona Finn in Fort Myers, said buyers are there if sellers are really looking to sell at a competitive price. Owners who hoped for a quick sale for big profits are pulling properties off the market, she said. ‘I think we are seeing a weeding out of overpriced homes,’ Finn said.”

“Peggy Hummel, CEO of the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach, said the association’s statistics show 11,916 single family homes currently listed. In Charlotte County, prices were down 10 percent from $222,300 to $199,000 and sales were off 33 percent from 323 to 218.”

The Naples News. “‘There’s been a big drop, sure, but we’re still cruising down from the peak year of 2005, so the figures are a bit skewed,’ said Robert Konst, broker in Fort Myers. ‘The percentages themselves are skewed. The history of real estate in Florida was forever changed in 2005, so we’re going to see the numbers keep dropping off year after year until 2005 is far enough away that it no longer plays a part.’”

“‘What we’re seeing is a stabilizing of the market,’ he said. ‘It’s actually steadying and the numbers are becoming more realistic. The numbers were dramatically skewed going up, and they’re going to be dramatically skewed going down.’”

“Jerry Mosely, general manager of Barbee and Son Inc. in Fort Myers, agrees. ‘Personally, I feel like the market’s leveling out nicely,’ he said. ‘It’s going to drop little by little until we get away from the outrageous price increases we’ve seen over the past several years, but after that it’s going to be just fine.’”

“‘Developers are substantially cutting prices now, and they’re also increasing their commissions to the Realtors,’ he said. ‘They’re really doing everything they can to entice the buyers back.’”

From Florida Today. “The median resale price for single-family homes sold by Realtors in Brevard County was $198,000 in June, down $34,800 from June 2006, FAR reported Wednesday. That’s a 15 percent drop, the largest year-over-year percentage decrease in any of the 20 Florida metropolitan areas tracked by the association.”

“The number of single-family homes sold by Realtors in Brevard County fell 21 percent, compared with June 2006.”

The Orlando Sentinel. “Orlando Realtors reported their June sales numbers earlier this month, down 43 percent year-over-year in the four-county metro area, Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties.”
“‘A lot of this is just psychology,’ said Mike Kelley, sales manager in the Orlando office of HomeBanc Mortgage Corp, of the sales slowdown. ‘People are concerned and kind of sitting on the fence.’”

“But if buyers wait to see whether prices continue to fall, Kelley said, it could cost them because mortgage interest rates have been creeping up and the value of their own home for sale could continue to slide.”

“HomeBanc Corp., the Atlanta-based parent of HomeBanc Mortgage, said in its first-quarter report that it lost $23.8 million, down from a $500,000 profit in the same period a year ago. The mortgage company’s mortgage loan originations fell 13 percent when compared with the same quarter in 2006, and the rate of decline for its Florida loans was almost twice as steep, 25 percent.”

The News Journal. “Existing-home sales in Volusia and Flagler counties fell 29 percent in June compared with the same month a year ago, with the median sales price dropping 10 percent over the same period to $197,100, the FAR reported.”

“‘It’s a tough market and I’m feeling it firsthand,’ said Terri Ossi, who has been trying to sell her Ormond Beach house for several months. She has dropped her asking price from $349,000 to $335,000. ‘Someone asked me what I was going to do if I don’t sell my house,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay the mortgage. What else can you do?’”

“‘We are close to where the market was a few years ago and there’s a continued downward pressure on the prices to bring them back down to a reasonable level,’ said Mark Dougherty, executive director of the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors. ‘It’s a great time to buy.’”

The Palm Beach Post. “Single-family home sales in Palm Beach County plunged 19 percent in June, to 764 from 947 a year ago, the FAR said. The median price fell 7 percent, to $377,900 from $405,500 in June 2006, the associaton said.”

“In the Treasure Coast, single-family home sales in June fell 38 percent, to 316 from 513 in June 2006, FAR said. The median price of a single-family home fell 8 percent, to $237,100 from $257,500 a year ago, FAR said.”

“In Palm Beach County, sales of existing single-family homes fell 19 percent when compared with June 2006, and the median price took a tumble to $377,900 from $405,500. It was the first significant drop, 7 percent, in home prices since the market started cooling off from its unprecedented run-up two years ago.”

“The median price of an existing single-family home in Martin and St. Lucie counties fell 8 percent as sellers realized they needed to lower prices to see the sales close. The median price fell to $237,100 from $257,500.”

“‘We’re seeing a market that has been cut in half in sales and quadrupled in inventory,’ said Jack McCabe, president of McCabe Research and Consulting in Deerfield Beach. ‘We haven’t reached bottom yet, not by a long shot.’”“The decline in housing prices in the Treasure Coast follows the dramatic run-up two years ago, when speculators grabbed everything on the market.”

“‘We’ve seen the highest run-up in inflated values,’ McCabe said. ‘We have in the Treasure Coast - and across the country - the highest historical inventory for existing homes, new homes, single-family and multifamily.’”

From TC Palm. “The association said members in the Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie MSA, which includes Stuart, sold 316 existing single-family homes in June, down 38 percent from the 513 purchased by home buyers a year earlier. The median price for an existing single-family home in the area dropped 8 percent, to $237,100, in June compared with $257,500 during the same period last year.”

“‘We’ve reached a plateau and for the prices to only drop 8 percent, I see that as reasonable,’ said Don Santos, past president of the Treasure Coast Builders Association. ‘The exuberance of 2005 has died down. And being down 38 percent isn’t so bad because in the past we’ve seen sales drop 40 or 50 percent in some cases.’”

“The West Palm Beach-Boca Raton area saw 764 sales of existing homes, down 19 percent from the 947 recorded during the same period last year. Prices dropped 7 percent to $377,900 from $405,500 last year.”

“Home sales in the Melbourne-Palm Bay area decreased 21 percent from 629 to 497 units sold. The median sales price declined 15 percent to $198,000 from the $232,800 recorded during the same period last year.”

“Jennifer Atkisson-Lovett, president of the Realtors Association of Martin County, described the report as a positive sign for the local housing market. ‘We were pleased to see that Martin County fared much better than the state and (Treasure Coast) MSA,’ said Atkisson-Lovett.”

[magellan]

Originally Posted by JimKing

Exactly, we have no way of knowing the true numbers as these kick backs can not be quantified accurately. What we do know is the anecdotal evidence that we hear.

Honestly, getting the White House in 2008 may be the ultimate booby prize. There isn't much to do except to let the credit bubble unwind, as nasty as that will be.

Ha! No kidding. I think it might go down as the lousiest four years in a long time, no matter who takes it.

Interesting too, in addition to appraisals, is the ramifications of foreclosures on the market. As the skyrocketing number of foreclosure resales begin to rack up on the market, which are pretty much guaranteed to be below market value, then they begin to drag down other resales and appraisals. Next thing you know, people become very quickly upside down on their homes, especially the people who cashed in their home equity to pay for boats, cars, student loans and debt consolidation (not everyone who did this is in trouble btw, so don't anyone jump down my throat ).

The one thing I find humorous is that "experts" will say "yes, sales are down, but the average home sales price keeps going up", as if that's a good thing. Much lower prices are the only thing that will bring the market back.

[lostbuyer]

check out the first article on top,very good.Doctor Housing Bubble Blog

[JimKing]

Originally Posted by lostbuyer

check out the first article on top,very good.Doctor Housing Bubble Blog

Great article, great website. I can only think that the few posters left on this board that continue to poo poo the seriousness of this mess, especially long term for Florida are either:

1. Trying desperately to sell a house or houses

2. Just trying to get a rise out of people

3. Insane

Hang on tight folks, this is going to be a doozy.

[lostbuyer]

"We are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression"


-Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Mortgage CEO, July 2007
"As I try to walk through what happened there and could a lot of this have been foreseen ... nobody saw this coming," Mozilo said


Angelo, Angelo, Angelo...


Have you never read a bubble blog? Have you missed the thousands and thousands of articles on the housing bubble and crash? Have you or any of your employees never taken an Econ 101 course? Have you never left your office and seen the sea of for sale signs? Have you never seen the countrywideforeclosures page?


Angelo - HP calls bullsh*t. You saw this coming. Your minions saw this coming. And you sold hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of your stock as fast as you could.


Why? Because you saw this coming.


And you might want to look outside in the parking lot. That's probably the Securities and Exchange Commission coming too...
(article from housing panic.com)

[JimKing]

Wow, Angelo says no one saw it coming? It is playing out exactly like the housing blogs predicted. And your right, his selling of all those shares before making these statements is sure to get scrutiny.

And not that any of us are claiming to be brilliant here....this storyline is as old as man and money.

[SKB]

This is a GREAT read from April 2004. Notice how everything that was said is now coming to a theatre near YOU!!!!!!!

"There Goes the Neighborhood" by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

[SKB]

The Dow's three-day loss of nearly 470 points!!!!

Market Dispatches - MSN Money

[rich renter]

New Home Sales Down Substantially -- OrlandoSentinel.com

national new home figures. no figures for florida but one can safely assume floridas figures will be amongst the worst in the us.

[firemed]

But while the overall numbers certainly look bad on paper, they don’t tell the whole story of the current state of the real estate market, If it looks like a pig, It is a pig !

Lee home sales down another 37 percent from a year ago