Are housing prices going down yet? (Miami, Orlando: mortgage, relocate, real estate)

[Joe S]

Prices seem to be holding in the Central Florida area. There are a lot of motivated sellers who's houses have been on the market a long time. I have seen several sellers accept much lower offers. If you like a house and its been on the market for a while make an offer for what you think the house is worth. Your realtor can help you to determine the current market value of a house or condo. I think prices will slide a little as we go into spring and summer when the selling season heats up and start to raise again as the current inventory starts to go down. The experts are saying the market should start to stablize the latter part of the year. Find a good realtor and follow their direction. Good luck.

[mcbadhair]

tell me who is going to buy these houses that are $250,000 because most people can't afford this price unless its under $200,000 with salaries in FL. They over built and the investor bought the properties and now most people will just rent until prices go lower. How is all this inventory going to clear out, it will take a couple of years to do that. The classic supply and demand too many houses prices go down when most of the 1,000 and 1,000 of for sale houses are bought up again will go back up. Who bought the homes in the first place investor not families. Investors left and lots of empty homes meaning your going to need lots more people to move here or population explotion to lower the inventory level. Just use logic, prices are not going up any time soon, so stop wishing, that time is over!

[Jammie]

I just did my weekly check on condos in central Fl. Recently I've seen where they are auctioning houses again. Then I saw several that said, "Price Slashed." A few weeks later those same homes would say,"Motivated seller, make an offer." Since I've been watching a few areas and been keeping track of certain homes, it does appear that things haven't picked up at all in the housing market. I know it's sad for some owners who feel trapped in their house now.

[Joe S]

I heard on the news today that there is a 16 month inventory of houses on the market. We have been in a sellers market for 15 years and a buyers market for a year. We could be in a buyers market for a short tiime or we could be in it for years. Houses sell for what a buyer is willing to pay for it. When the builders and sellers can no longer sell their houses at current prices then you will see prices come down. When lenders can't make loans you will then see mortgage programs more favorable to first time buyers and people with little to put down. As better Jobs move in the area and a more professional work force is in demand wages should start to raise. These trents take a long time. There is no magic pill to speed these things up. Orlando grow to fast and there is a lot of catching up to be done.

[jbravo]

Joe S
There's a 13 months supply of homes in the Orlando market! Are you for real?
I can list dozens of sources that predict a 7% decline in prices in 07 with FURTHER declines in 08. "Time to Buy" propaganda will not change this. By the bye, I own real estate and am selling my house. I am asking 30K less than what I could have gotten in days/weeks on Oct 05. I'm not complaining, I've made money and plan to make more in RE. If you challenge this post I plan to list dozens, repeat dozens, of sources. Starting with what Fannie May said TWO days ago right here in the builder's association meeting in Central Fl, oh, and I forgot, the spokesman for the builder's association agreed! Then I shall list Toll Brothers projections for 07 and write-offs for 06. I dare you, common, write that what I wrote is inaccurate.

[Floridian to relocate]

jbravo what you are saying is houses will go down 15%in the next two years .what crap how can anyone say that .if they can see the futre they should play the lotto . tell me what will happen if we have a bad hurricane season like 05 and hundreds of house are lost so they can say all they like only time will tell. i think the prices are some what level now orlando is still cheap for a big city it is turning into look at the prices in ny la and many other areas . orlando is just catching up to other places . the next thing that has to go up in orlando are wages if you rent or own it is still very expencive to be in orlando

[jbravo]

"the next thing that has to go up in orlando are wages if you rent or own it is still very expencive [sic] to be in orlando"

thank you for making my point.

As far as seeing the future. A lot of people do. And they make good money doing so. I bought heavily in 1999-2001 in South Fl. and sold everything by Oct 2004 and made a killing. I then bought the house I live in Central Fl (bought real cheap at 178K in 05. I actually rented for 5 months) and one lot I bought in 06 because I liked it (at 02 price). I foresee that prices have some ways to go down before reaching bottom. It's simple, really, quite simple, if you believe that the market has bottomed out, or is about to, then you should buy and it will be you and not me that will make the money.

By the bye, I did not say 15%, maybe, but I did not say it.

Lastly, if you bought in 05 or 06 at the height of the bubble, your screwed.

[jbravo]

The Orlando Sentinel. “The industry still faces challenges brought on in part by overbuilding in 2004-05, when real estate speculators were among those snapping up houses, a phenomenon that resulted in hundreds of thousands of homes sitting unsold across the U.S., said Seiders.”

“‘There is a seriously large inventory,’ Seiders said, now that demand from investors has cooled and the market is struggling to return to more normal supply-and-demand levels. He said the industry overbuilt by about 400,000 units nationwide over a period of several years, though that number now is being whittled down.”

“Other economists who spoke Wednesday forecast that a rebound wasn’t likely to occur until later this year, and it could be a weak recovery because of high home prices.”

“‘Affordability is at the heart of what drives housing demand,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant that helps provide liquidity for the $8 trillion home-loan market. ‘House prices have shot up so much over the past five years, it will take time for affordability measures to gradually improve.’”

“He said the industry still faces ‘a rocky road.’”

The Palm Beach Post. “Home prices will continue to slide for the rest of 2007, Berson said. For 2007, home price appreciation ‘is likely to move modestly negative,’ said Berson of Fannie Mae.”

“‘We’re not at the trough yet for single-family home sales,’ Nothaft said, noting that home prices will have to fall further to burn through the current high levels of housing inventory.”

“That’s not what the more than 100,000 home builders, Realtors and other industry representatives attending the four-day show at the Orange County Convention Center wanted to hear. But most acknowledge that today’s near-record level of homes follows a five-year run-up in home prices, fueled by low mortgage rates and investor dollars.”

“Nowhere was that more true than in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. The median price of an existing single-family home in Palm Beach County soared to a peak of $421,500 in November 2005, plunged to $365,600 in October 2006 and ended the year at $368,200, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”

“Median single-family home prices for the year in Palm Beach County posted a 10 percent annual decline from 2005.”

“The local condo market, however, ‘is not out of the woods yet,’ Berson cautioned. ‘There’s been a huge swell in price weakness in condos,’ he said. ‘The falloff was bigger in condos because they’re more like a commodity.’”

“Seiders of the builders association placed some of the blame for falling home prices directly on builders’ shoulders. ‘I told Congress we overbuilt the market by 400,000 units,’ he said.”

“Berson agreed. ‘Inventory overhang (unsold homes on the market) is causing price weakness,’ Berson said. ‘If builders had anticipated that, we wouldn’t see these price declines.’”

“The record backlog of unsold inventory nationwide is causing sellers major headaches, he said. ‘It means having two houses for sale on your block at the same time when you put yours on the market, which causes you to lower your price,’ Berson said.”

“Even though new-home builders have slashed prices and offered everything from upgraded appliances to free closing costs, they need to keep aggressively selling, Seiders said. ‘Because of builder giveaways, margins have taken it on the chin,’ he said.”

“Half of the builders surveyed said they cut prices in the fourth quarter of 2006, and 80 percent made non-price incentives, such as buying down interest rates, Seiders said. But builders need to do more, he said. ‘Builders have gotta keep up sales efforts and gotta keep inventory going down. The vacant units for sale are critical.’”

[Floridasunshine]

Prices are coming down, in Lakeland, In my subdivision , the last 6 brand new homes 2 of which are model homes with extras, are sellilng at unbelieveable prices, 60 thousand below the market in this area, the builder wants to move on apparently. We found this out yesterday.
Lakeland has always been alot more reasonable than tampa, sarasota, but has slowly been catching up over past 18mos.

[firemed]

Prices are down alot and still dropping, I had a friend tell me zellow was paid not to list the south florida prices. I just tryed to check and it won't show the price. Things must be real bad.