Florida Housing Market News October 2017 Compiled by Fast Florida House Sales

The housing market has been in the news more than ever in the last few weeks as Hurrican Irma splits the “experts” on whether the weather will have a positive, negative or neutral impact on house prices. Will the images of roofs being torn off, broadcast around the world, impact the number of people looking to buy in the state or will Florida continue to be a popular destination for house buyers? At Fast Florida House Sales, we have compiled a list of the views in the media.

Hurricane Irma won’t affect Florida real estate prices, says billionaire developer

The damage by Hurricane Irma in Florida is not as bad as it could have been and shouldn’t affect real estate prices, billionaire real estate developer Jeff Soffer told CNBC.

Irma, now a tropical storm, ripped roofs off homes and caused flooding and power outages across the state.

Soffer, CEO of the luxury real estate development and property management firm Turnberry Associates, said it’s predictable that these kinds of storms occur in the area.

“It’s just a way of life. It doesn’t happen that often, and the reality is that Florida’s very well prepared for this,” he said in an interview with “Power Lunch.”

“I don’t think real estate prices are going to get affected. Ultimately people want to be in Florida,” he added.

While Hurricane Andrew caused massive destruction in 1992, building codes have been updated. Therefore, structures have held up well in Irma’s wake, Soffer said.

That includes Miami’s iconic resort Fontainebleau, which is one of the luxury properties in Turnberry Associates’ portfolio.

The damage in the area has mostly been landscape debris and downed power lines, he said, certainly “nothing catastrophic.”

Soffer said Fontainebleau should open on Tuesday after the roads are cleared and people are allowed back into the area.

Shortage of listings pushing home prices higher in South Florida

A lackluster supply of available homes is slowing sales across South Florida — but the shortage of listings also keeps pushing prices higher as buyers have little choice but to pay more for what they want, according to Sun Sentinel reporter Paul Owers.

Sales of existing, single-family homes declined in August from a year earlier in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to figures released Wednesday by local Realtor boards.

It was the second consecutive annual decline in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties and the fifth in a row in Broward.

Across the three counties, buyers are finding fewer single-family listings in lower price ranges. In Broward, for instance, available homes priced from $200,000 to $249,999 dropped 14 percent in August from a year ago. Palm Beach County saw a 16 percent decline in that price range.

“What’s ailing the housing market and continues to weigh on overall sales is the inadequate levels of available inventory and the upward pressure it’s putting on prices in several parts of the country,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement. “Sales have been unable to break out because there are simply not enough homes for sale.”

The median price in Broward last month was $350,000, up 8 percent from a year ago, according to the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale. Palm Beach County’s median price also rose 8 percent, to $340,000.

Miami-Dade’s median was $337,500 as sellers enjoyed a 13 percent bump, according to the Miami Association of Realtors, although the board added that collection of the August data was affected by Hurricane Irma preparations and extended power outages.

Median prices have been on the rise in the tri-county region since 2012.

Douglas Rill, a broker with Century 21 America’s Choice in West Palm Beach, said he tells clients looking for homes that they have to be prepared to make offers at any moment.

“Buyers need to focus on ready, aim, fire,” Rill said. “They need to be on the starting line, already pre-qualified, ready to go every day.”

Rill said the market is stacked against buyers, so they need to find whatever edge they can.

He encouraged clients to make offers in the days before Irma hit because he figured other buyers would put their house-hunting on hold to deal with storm preparations.

“And it worked,” Rill said, pointing out that one of his buyers made an offer that was accepted on a single-family home in a 55-and-over community in Palm Beach Gardens.

Statewide, single-family sales inched up 1 percent, while the median price rose 7 percent to $240,000, according to the Florida Realtors trade group.

As for South Florida’s condominium market, which includes townhomes, sales declined in Broward and Miami-Dade counties but increased 5 percent from a year earlier in Palm Beach County.

Median condo prices rose in all three counties, hitting $156,000 in Broward, $175,000 in Palm Beach County and $225,000 in Miami-Dade.

The median means half the properties sold for more and half for less.

Jeffrey Levine, first vice president of the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale, said some buyers are setting their sights on townhomes as single-family affordability diminishes.

“That’s a price range that people can afford,” he said. “And we have a lot of new-construction townhomes coming on the market, which is helping.”

Levine said many condo mortgages require down payments of 20 to 25 percent, but townhome buyers typically can get 3 percent down financing from the Federal Housing Administration or 5 percent down from a conventional loan.

The Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale is a merger of the Realtor boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties.

The merger, approved by the National Association of Realtors on Aug. 30, creates the third-largest trade group in the country, after the Miami Association of Realtors and the Houston Association of Realtors.

Housing market at a regulatory crossroads

With home prices and sales continuing to rise across Southwest Florida, the state and the country, the real estate market appears set for a sunny future reports the Herald Tribune.

The talk in some quarters, though, brings up worries that another housing bubble could be developing, conceivably bursting into a runaway fire that scorches the economy again.

As unlikely as that is, some powerful political and business interests are bent on repealing some of the regulations on the financial sector that were adopted in the midst of widespread abuses in the banking and investment markets that beget the Great Recession.

September’s report by property data aggregator CoreLogic once again reflects a steady climb in housing prices. August figures compared with the same month last year show the national increase at 6.9 percent, Florida at 6.2 percent and Sarasota-Manatee at 3.9 percent. CoreLogic projects Florida’s home values will increase 6.6 percent over the next 12 months as the country’s rate rises by 4.7 percent. The company’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, said that during the past three years, CoreLogic’s national index shows annual price growth from 5 percent to 7 percent. Home values in Florida still stand at 18 percent below pre-recession peaks.

One potential sign of trouble in the report is CoreLogic’s analysis of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas: 34 percent have overvalued housing stock as of August 2017. Of the 50 largest, 46 percent have an overvalued housing stock. The analysis defines “an overvalued housing market as one in which home prices are at least 10 percent higher than the long-term, sustainable level … .”

The histories of the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s and the Great Recession should serve as lessons in disaster prevention, not a roadmap to replay. The similarities between the causes of the S&L crisis and the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2009 should not be startling but demonstrate that we do indeed repeat history.

The good news

Today, the national economy and housing market display strengths not in play before the recession. But if conditions change with deregulation, all bets are off.

Nationwide, the low inventory of properties on the market and the declining number of foreclosures and short sales — the latter a sign of healthier family finances — are driving median home prices higher as the law of supply and demand takes hold. At the end of July, the median price of single-family homes in Sarasota County increased 7.2 percent from the previous July to hit $260,000. Manatee County enjoyed a 7.1 percent jump to reach $300,000. Across both counties, the median price stood at $275,000 in August.

“Median prices have been rising, but it is driven by supply and demand, not artificial factors as seen in 2005 and 2006,” Xena Vallone, 2017 president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee, said in a statement. “The increase began in 2011 and has continued at a gradual, sustainable rate.”

Mortgage payment rates are improving, too. CoreLogic recently reported payments were late at least 30 days in June on only 3.3 percent of the mortgages in Sarasota and Manatee counties compared with 4.5 percent the previous year.

While escalating prices are the primary force impacting affordability, other factors look more promising, David M. Blitzer stated in an analysis of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. “The national unemployment rate is down, and the number of jobs created continues to grow at a robust pace, rising to close to 200,000 a month,” said Blitzer, the managing director and chair of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “Wages and salaries are increasing, maintaining a growth rate a bit ahead of inflation. Mortgage rates, up slightly since the end of 2016, are under 4 percent.”

Indeed, wage growth eclipsed home prices in Southwest Florida during 2017′s third quarter. However, homes continue to be less affordable than historic averages in Sarasota and Charlotte counties while Manatee County residences are more affordable, ATTOM Data Solutions reported in recent weeks.

The Census Bureau reports the median income for a typical American household rose above the previous high-water mark set in 1999. The new earnings record, adjusted for inflation, increased 3.2 percent from 2015 to 2016, reaching $59,039 and besting the old high of $58,665.

Housing market: 15 metro areas with the most flipped homes

The art of house-flipping is on the rise thanks to the popularity of reality TV shows like HGTV’s Flip or Flop.

If you’re handy with a toolbelt and don’t mind weeks of manual labor, you might be thinking, I can do that. Before you blow your life savings on buying that fixer-upper, though, it might help to know where people are flipping — and, more importantly, buying — homes in 2017.

Thanks to a recent study by ATTOM Data Solutions, USA Today compiled a list of the top 15 US metro areas with the most flipped homes in Q2 of 2017 and listed them by county data. The majority are in the state of Florida.

1. Phoenix

County: Maricopa

Metro area: Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz.

No. of homes flipped: 2,116

Average flipping profit: $54,787

2. Los Angeles

County: Los Angeles

Metro area: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif.

No. of homes flipped: 1,404

Average flipping profit: $135,000

3. Las Vegas

County: Clark

Metro area: Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nev.

No. of homes flipped: 1,207

Average flipping profit: $55,600

4. Chicago

County: Cook

Metro area: Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Ill.-Ind.-Wisc.

No. of homes flipped: 922

Average flipping profit: $95,000

5. Fort Lauderdale

County: Broward

Metro area: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 863

Average flipping profit: $75,000

6. Miami

County: Miami-Dade

Metro area: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 794

Average flipping profit: $80,000

7. Palm Beach, Florida.

County: Palm Beach

Metro area: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 681

Average flipping profit: $69,200

8. Tampa

County: Pinellas

Metro area: Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 642

Average flipping profit: $69,900

9. Riverside, Calif.

County: Riverside

Metro area: Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.

No. of homes flipped: 631

Average flipping profit: $75,500

10. San Diego

County: San Diego

Metro area: San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif.

No. of homes flipped: 604

Average flipping profit: $85,000

11. Clearwater, Florida.

County: Hillsborough

Metro area: Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 604

Average flipping profit: $60,000

12. Ontario, Calif.

County: San Bernardino

Metro area: Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.

No. of homes flipped: 551

Average flipping profit: $75,500

13. Houston

County: Harris

Metro area: Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas

No. of homes flipped: 546

Average flipping profit: $48,888

14. Orlando

County: Orange

Metro area: Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida.

No. of homes flipped: 528

Average flipping profit: $64,000

15. St. Louis

County: Saint Louis

Metro area: St. Louis, Mo.-Ill.

No. of homes flipped: 526

Average flipping profit: $47,000

What can we make of the Florida House Market at the End of 2017?

Fast Florida House Sales, buy any house, in any condition. We value homes every day of the week and believe we have a good idea of how the housing market is performing.

Did hurricane Irma damage the housing market? While it is clear that perhaps this was one too many storms for some people who had flooding, roof damage, and even trees falling on the house, the infrequency of storms, coupled with preparation that the state of Florida and emergency services took means that Florida still remains a popular state, if not the most popular state to buy a property.

Is the shortage of homes in Florida an issue? Depending on your circumstances it could be. If you are looking to buy a home in Florida, the shortage of good property means that prices are rising. Whilst the rising values are pricing many buyers out of the market, there are still a few buyers willing to pay over the valuation to get the property, meaning house prices will continue to rise.

If you are looking to buy a home in Florida, the shortage of good property means that prices are rising. Whilst the rising values are pricing many buyers out of the market, there are still a few buyers willing to pay over the valuation to get the property, meaning house prices will continue to rise.

If you are looking to buy, but the area or house you would like has seen house prices rise – you may have to lower your sights. This may mean paying more for a home that in the long-run may not be the home you want to stay in forever and may be difficult to sell.

If you are selling, the market is strong, but maybe getting “too strong”. If you are selling a home at this time, there is a shortage of supply and demand is high. However, the demand is pushing prices beyond what many people can afford. If you can find a cash buyer for your home, you are in a sought after location and ready to sell immediately – now is the time, in case, as some experts predict, the market takes a downturn.

If you are selling a property where the location is not the most sought after or the housing market has already pushed prices over what buyers are willing to pay, then you have a decision to make. Do you keep praying for a home buyer that will pay the inflated price or do you slightly lower your asking price and get a buyer from the pool of people who are looking to buy, who have been priced out of the market? Only you can decide this. Depending on how important it is to move now, how much equity there is in the property and if you believe the market will continue rising or take a downturn.

How can fast Florida House Sales help?

We buy houses. We have cash buyers waiting to buy your property. We buy any house, in any condition. Ugly houses, houses that are being flipped, houses in the prime market and houses that will not sell. If your local property market has risen to a level that buyers have moved on – we can help. If your local housing market is good, but buyers are hard to find we can help. If you need to sell your home fast – we can help.

We make selling your house as easy as a telephone call. Call our team and we will send a Senior Home Valuer to evaluate your home. Within 24 hours we aim to get you a fair offer on your house. Once you accept, we will get the legal process rolling and you could have sold your house, and have the money in the bank, by this time next week. The best of all is that you can save on Realtor fees and administration fees.

Looking to sell your home fast, or still looking for someone to buy your house? Call Fast Florida House Sales on 941-870-9910