The second quarter’s latest home prices are in.

The National Realtor Association has released the second quarter numbers for average home prices in the US.   Although we’re really only concerned with South Florida, we can still get an overview of the entire country.

Let’s begin by taking a look at what’s happening locally:

Houses

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL         $384,400         2.0%

Condos

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL         $367.000         0.0%

As you can see, even after all the hype about home values plummeting, South Florida still had a modest 2% gain. Obviously this could be better, but consider this and then take a look at the following:

• Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL       -15.0%
• Elmira, NY -17.9% any day.

In the Condo field, which in some areas is now recognized as a four letter word, we are actually tied.  No loss no gain but still much better than Syracuse, NY (-13.9%) and New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA (-15.3%).

The market in South Florida is still good; there are some troubled areas like the Condos on the Biscayne corridor and Downtown Miami that are doing worse than others but those are actually self proclaimed prophecies due to investors and speculators buying anything in sight with the hopes of turning them over for an astronomical profit.

Also, the Single Family homes in Miami Beach and some areas in Kendall and South Miami have been slow moving for several months now. However, if you’re in the market to buy something, some really good buys do exist.

Winter season is coming in a couple of months and with NO MAJOR hurricane (cross your fingers), upcoming events, holidays and some colder weather we can expect a really busy couple of months. So buyers get ready to rumble and sellers don’t throw in the towel just yet.  Realtors, put your running shoes on because you are about to get very busy quite soon.

John Hernandez

President

Real Estate Systems Integrators, Inc (RESI)