The Florida Association of Realtors (F.A.R.) has released the sales reports for the 1st quarter 2007. Below are the numbers for the three major metropolitan areas of South Florida. As you can see, the number of sales are down from the same time last year.
In the greater Fort Lauderdale area, single-family home prices seem to be holding steady while the prices of condos have decreased by about 6%. I believe the disparity is due to the numerous South Florida condo conversions, many of which had units that were purchased for the sole purpose of flipping to make a quick profit and by the time the closing on them took place some of those investors found themselves needing to sell the property at a break-even point, if not at a loss when the market shifted from a strong seller’s market to a buyer’s market. I believe this to be true in large part because I’ve noticed that many of the condos that are currently for rent are located in condo conversion communities, especially in certain cities where there were many apartment complexes that converted to condos.
In the greater Miami area, it seems that despite all the negative news reports about foreclosures increasing and the market softening, both single-family home values and condo values have actually increased 2% and 8%, respectively. Not bad considering all the “gloom and doom” articles I’ve read over the past year.
Meanwhile, in the greater West Palm Beach area (which includes Boca Raton), the median price of both single-family homes and condos have decreased by 4% since the same time last year. I believe one of the reasons for this is because Palm Beach County had the most new construction happening during the hot seller’s market. New construction generally sells for more than a similar property that’s a resale and when the market shifted, new home construction slowed.
*Median is the price at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.
Source: Florida Association of Realtors (F.A.R.)
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South Florida Real Estate Voice | Homes & Condos | South Florida Living 
May 18, 2007 at 12:53 am
What a pleasure to read, this is really a great analysis. Better than most I have seen! If I am reading this correctly, the West Palm community seems to be fairly stable between 2006 and 2007? Good work, consumers are lucky to have you doing this.
May 18, 2007 at 8:27 am
Thanks, Carole… and I’ve actually updated the post this morning to include additional analysis on my part. While the greater West Palm Beach area has experienced less of a change in the number of sales than the other two areas, it did experience a slight decrease in the median sales price.