The #1 Miami Real Estate Website

Miami & Miami Beach Condo Trends – July 2009

July 28, 2009 by Lucas Lechuga
I collected the following figures last Thursday night on July 23, 2009.  It has been about six months since I last published inventory numbers for condos in Miami-Dade County.  The last Miami & Miami Beach Condo Trends post was published on January 19, 2009.

As many of you read earlier today, the Case-Shiller price index rose on a month-to-month basis for the first time in 3 years.  13 of the 20 cities in the index showed month-over-month price gains in May when compared with April 2009.  However, Miami was not one of the 13 cities to show an improvement in prices.  Home prices in Miami saw a decrease of .8 percent during that period.

There may not have been an increase in home prices in Miami but the figures below show a major improvement in the number of closed condo sales in the previous six months when compared to the closed condo sales in the six months prior to January 2009.  For example, there were 3,551 closed condo sales in the six months leading up to January 2009 compared to the 5,007 closed condo sales that occurred within the past six months.  That's an increase of 41 percent.  The number of closed condo sales in Miami improved approximately 39 percent while closed condo sales in Miami Beach increased about 20 percent. As a result, the condo supply numbers for each showed considerable improvements as well.

View the entire workbook for this month's Miami & Miami Beach Condo Trends.  The various spreadsheets and graphs are found at the bottom.

Below, you will find the Miami-Dade County condo inventory and supply figures for July 2009:



Dade County condo inventory spreadsheet July 2009

Dade Available Condos Graph
Dade Closed Condos Graph

The following statistics encompass only those condos located throughout Miami (not other areas of Dade County such as Miami Beach, Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach, etc.):



Miami condo inventory spreadsheet July 2009

Miami Available Condos Graph
Miami Closed Condos Graph

The following statistics encompass only those condos located throughout Miami Beach:



Miami Beach condo inventory spreadsheet July 2009

Miami Beach Available Condos Graph
Miami Beach Closed Condos Graph

This has been a very atypical year for real estate sales in South Florida.  In most years, the vast majority of closed condo sales occur in the Winter months when snowbirds flock to Florida to shop for a vacation home to escape the dreaded cold.  However, this past Winter season was unusually slow due to a number of reasons such as the paralyzing fear in the economy and a lack of financing.  After the first 3 months of the year, I personally felt that 2009 was shaping up to be my worst year in real estate.  However, at the beginning of April, business began to show life again.  In fact, activity has drastically improved to the point where 2009 could end up being one of my best years.  I personally feel that the Miami condo market is within 2-3 months of reaching the bottom.  That's in no way saying that prices will begin to increase soon after.  The overall market needs to move sideways for at least the next 12-24 months before we see any significant increase in sales prices.

196
Leave a Reply

196 Comment threads
0 Thread replies
0 Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
44 Comment authors
newest oldest most voted

Isn’t the condo/housing market really bifurcated at the jumbo loan cutoff amount which I think is about 500K?

It seems the bulk of any good news is in the lower to middle spectrum.

AJ
Joe

First of all, great work, Lucas. Much appreciated. These numbers look better than I would have expected, but I’m still not sure there’s much good news in there for the market. Miami still has 22 months of inventory and Miami Beach has 28 months, and I’d bet those numbers really are at least 30 and 35, if all investor-held units were on the market (i.e., if there was no “shadow inventory” of which Renter Tom often speaks). Further, the lack of action on units priced at $500,000 or higher seems like real estate Armageddon has hit Miami. The market has… Read more »

AJ

Seems like a rich peoples problem and going to be like that for a long time.
Middle & Upper Middle class props (under 500k) are doing ok and may recover sooner.
So if you are in the market for a prop over 1 mil, then you can afford to wait and get your pick for the best price possible.

Joe

Well, those “rich people’s” property taxes comprise a large chunk of Miami-Dade’s budget, so it’s not just a “rich people’s problem.” With every dollar in price that those high-end condos fall, everyone else has to pick up the slack.

Another New York Times article. This one entitled “As Prices Plummet, Condo Sales in Miami Perk Up”. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/29miami.html

Jamie

Interesting article from the NYT, Lucas. We have reached the point of capitulation in Miami, or are very close to it. I’ve been a nay-sayer on most of my few posts on this blog, but when prices hit below $200/SF I will be nosing around. It’s interesting to read posts from two years ago saying that prices will fall below or will never fall below $200/SF, or that vulture investors will sweep in, or not (the vultures were too smart.) I suspect the rest of 2009 will be a good year for realtors who have properly-priced-properties. I totally agree with… Read more »

Charles

The highend market is not just hurting in Miami.

elvis in miami

look at the stats of $1M+ sold in Miami Dade county and you get 2.9% of the total sales. Now look at the number of available properties at $1M+ and you get 8.3% of the total available. I always pick on the higher end prices as it is easier to see the inflation there. I see this as even if people with more money start buying condos, the prices need to come down closer to what is selling. I think it is great the market is starting to recover, I just hope people realize that we cannot see the large… Read more »

DJ

As I’ve said before, when prices reach a low enough level, people will start buying again. It’s inevitable. Contrary to what many on here have said, people do still have money, and there are a lot of people with money watching this market intently. Once the price on anything drops enough to start being attractive, someone will come in and buy. It won’t happen over-night, but I think we’re starting to see the early stages of it.

Joe

Re: Lucas and post #6, congrats on being quoted in the NY Times. However, that article is all kinds of ugly for the Miami market. I can’t believe how a lot of the people in that article (and others) are trying to polish a turd here and pretend things are looking up. For one thing, the NYT article says just 31 out of 1,646 units at Icon Brickell have sold. 31 out of 1,646!! For another, the NYT article says just 31% of the condos in downtown Miami are owner-occupied. That’s a god-awful percentage by any standard, and it essentially… Read more »

elvis in miami

Charles, I am not in the market, but don’t you need 20-30% down on most anything these days?

elvis in miami

I forgot to mention earlier that in Met 1 the developer has started leasing out units. Any other buildings doing the same?

Charles

This is stating the obvious – homes in the upper end are not moving very well anywhere in the country. One of the reasons is that Jumbo loans are very diificult to get and at much higher interest rates than conforming loans – at least 200 basis points difference, requiring 20% to 30% down, etc.

DJ

Elvis, lots of the buildings here are now leasing.

Hugo P

Lucas… again, great data. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but your comments at the beginning are a bit misleading as it is using NON SEASONALLY ADJUSTED data. If you look at he C-S SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA, you will see that Miami actually saw a drop of 1.38%. It is important to highlight that the monthly % drop is getting smaller, which are signs that recovery might not be that far away, but we are definitely not there yet. I agree with Joe (#11). Plenty of bad things and your data just reinforces that. Let’s take the units… Read more »

Renter Tom

What is interesting as the Great Deleveraging continues, country clubs, golf clubs, and other shared interest luxury real estate goes BK. It is happening all across the country, just wish newspapers would do a comprehensive story on what has been going on as members drop out, dues go unpaid, and these things get foreclosed upon…..just like the shared interest in condos, same thing really. It makes me think that debt is bad enough, but shared debt is far far worse. Here is one example:

AJ

Joe,
I do agree regarding the rich paying a lot of prop taxes in Miami for their skyboxes. I guess that is the price to pay for living 4 to a floor or entering into your flat directly from a lift.

Wild Bill

If the banks put there all foreclosed units on the market today the numbers would be horrible. If the flippers and bulk buyers listed all their stuck units today the number would be even worse.
What happens when these interest only loans change over to principal and interest? Nobody wants to refinance negative equity homes

Watch what happens when property taxes go up.
Nice push to get people into homes before the next property tax increases and the return of higher interest rates.

Housing Recovery: Sell Now Or Your Capital Will Be Trapped
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly09/rates-capital-trap07-09.html

AJ

A request for all those living in OMNI-Pace, Edgewater, Midtown, Wynnwood: There is a meeting on Monday August 3rd at La Provence French Bakery on Biscayne Blvd at 22nd street to talk and answer questions about new, major Biscayne Blvd construction planned starting next month. A DOT rep will be there too. It is a major project of significant importance for us living in this area as it is supposed to transform the already nice looking Biscayne Blvd into an extraordinary thoroughfare. There is one point though that required to be raised. A waterfront walkway that has been planned for… Read more »

AJ

Wild Bill, So what is wrong in controlling the markets? It has been happening since man started trading since the early times. If China, India, South Korea and Japan start off loading their Dollar holdings all at once, our greenback would not even be worth as a toilet paper. So they are releasing it a bit by bit and slowly reducing their exposure to dollar by denominating their Foreign currency reserves into gold, euros, SDR and other instruments. I applaud the banks for controlling the flow of foreclosure. Only anarchists who want a wholesale destruction of this economy would want… Read more »

Renter Tom

AJ #21 – Wrong. The sooner we get to a clearing price, the better it is for everyone. The analogy to holding US Dollars is wrong….they hold debt with specific maturity dates. There are others out there that would buy up the debt albeit at probably a higher interest rate.

Kramer

Lucas Whats missing here of course are graphs and charts similar to the ones posted on all of your previous reports. The true gauge or measure of how healthy the market is – would be the ratio of closings on Miami New Condos that started closings on or after the financial crisis of about October 08. You can slice and dice the above numbers all you want but they are irrelevant without the number of closings at the following buildings: 1 – Icon Brickell 2 – Everglades On The Bay 3 – Infinity 4 – Axis 5 – Epic 6… Read more »

DJ

RT, what do you think would happen to these banks if they dumped all the foreclosures onto the market at once?

They’d all collapse, just like the local housing market would. I really don’t see how that would be good for anyone.

Renter Tom

DJ – The banks have dug their own graves. Many are already insolvent regardless of whether they start to unload their properties or not…that is the reality they are pretending to avoid. The banks should have unloaded properties from the beginning instead of holding back and now they have tons of properties…they dig their own graves. So what. A market clearing price IS the real market price…why wait, why pretend?

Wild Bill

Banks don’t pay condominium maintenance fees. Banks only pay property taxes. A bank owned unit is the same a vacant unit. A building will not have a balanced budget unless they have special assessments to make up for the vacant unit. Real estate should not be looked at as an investment. The sole purpose of the board is to protect and maintain the building and to make sure they collect the funds to do that. They should not care if a unit sells for a dollar, they need somebody to pay the maintenance fees on the vacant unit. Every condo… Read more »

MCO

hey guys..always read this blog, but decided to join this time..Lucas, congrats on your great website!
does anyone have any input on this info from the NYT article?
ONLY 31 UNITS SOLD AT ICON BRICKELL???
When I was there to see the property, their agent told me that tower I was almost fully occupied and that tower II was going to be much more expensive!
Of course, I didn´t buy that, but only 31 units??
Prices there have been dramatically reduced, but it seems they still have a long way to fall!!

Wild Bill

A state website should host records of condominium yearly budgets. Bank and prospective buyers should have easy view of them. Banks want to know about reserve figures. Seems only logical that when a budget is passed it should be posted on a official website where everybody can look it up. Scan your condo budget for the last few years you will see how money is shuffled from one line item to the next. A ponzi scheme that will soon run its course. That’s why many buildings are declaring bankruptcy. Time ran out, couldn’t get new suckers in fast enough to… Read more »

AJ

Wild Bill,
I don’t understand “Every condo in Florida should have to upload a PDF file of their yearly budget. This state is a joke.
New buyers are walking into a minefield.”
Can you elaborate on this?

makes me think

Well I can see for some people no amount of data will convince them. Many of these are the same people still waiting for the S&P Index to hit 450 so they can start investing. Bottom line is that earlier this year things looked bleak, really bleak and many people were scared. Today, things look better much better there is hope where there was none 5 months ago. Markets are not were we would like them but the death spiral has stoped and it looks like the economy is digging it’s way back to some normalicy. What get me upset… Read more »

makes me think

Oh, yeah! I’m off to Costa Rica and Nicaragua while you guys wait for property tax hikes, lower condo prices, collapse of the dollar, Dow 3500, the Great Deleveraging and the US economy to implode . Please be sure to shoot me an email when it happens.

Renter Tom

makes me think – You’re such a player you….congrats if you’re looking for positive feedback (sarcasm). Your misplaced optimism will get slapped down. Do you think the debt has just magically gone away? The federal govt needs to issue $3T in debt of which $1T is rollover debt and $2T in new debt instruments. Incomes are down across the board but debt service is at an all time high. Stocks will take a second dip this year…I am putting my money where my mouth is on that one. According to the National Association of Realtors (CNBC graphic), the June 2008… Read more »

makes me think

RT, it doesn’t matter, you read too many negative blogs.
$3T in debt, Wow! That’s too big a number for little o’l me to worry about. Since I can’t write a check for it and I can’t do anything about it, I’ll let you worry about it for me. In the mean time I’ll be in Central America. Shoot me an email when you have the problem solved.

MCO

anyone on icon brickell?is it really true only 31 units have been sold?
if that info is true, what will happen when more high end condos such as paramount and marquis hit the market ?
One thing is for sure…No way paramount bay developers will be able to sell a 2bd for over 1M as originally planned!

dr. gonzo

The market has certainly changed in the last 90 days. This much is certain. Partly due to the fact tat FNMA is buying loans so liquidity is back and developers and lenders are facing reality so prices have dropped. Take Avenue for example, closing over 150 units in 60 days. They are absolutely plowing through their remaining inventory. I mean, in a time period of 90-180 days there were only 115 closings in all of Brickell! Its hard to believe prices will continue to drop much further if closings continue at this pace. Even more so that the winter snow… Read more »

makes me think

RT, you don’t have to tell me. I’m the guy trying to buy these foreclosed property. I’m not the guy on this blog reading about the economy I’m the one transacting in this economy, putting my money where my mouth is. I know one thing, if the economy get’s as bad as you say, I’ll have my choice of several homes (free and clear) to live in with enough land to grow my vegs and raise chickens with the shotgun to protect what’s mine. Don’t mean to be smug but i have more important things to worry about.

AJ

MMT, Your posts are hilarious. Funny thing is they are so true. Why split hairs over things such as the national debt that you have no control over? Anyway make sure you grow organic chickens, I will buy some from you, oh no, wait a minute, America will become an apocalyptic wasteland due to a total economic meltdown and there wont be any dollars anymore. I will barter some goats I plan to raise in the land that I own in Hernando and Citrus counties. For protection I will have minefields around the perimeter.

AJ

Wild Bill,
How is that a bad thing? I think it is the best thing the arse back Floriduh has done for while. When condo budgets are out in the open, there is a lesser chance to scam and skim. I hope all other states follow suit.
For once Florida leads in this issue instead of pioneer states like Cali or NY.
(OK when is the workplace smoking ban going to be effected in Florida? After the entire rest of the World does it?)

southbeachsand

Wild Bill is right. Buying a condo is like buying into a business with 300 strangers you have never met, with various levels of credit scores. So many buyers buy into a building “blind” not knowing what type of financial traps await them. I pity the fools who buy in now, and get slapped with a nice $3000 special assessment in Nov/Dec to make up for the shortfall. I know of one South Beach building that regularly has special assessments at the end of the year. Dues are low every month compared to nearby buildings, and thats what potential buying… Read more »

Kramer

MMT
Opinions like yours are like assholes – everybody has one. And yeah enjoy Honduras or whatever on yer visit south – I hear its lovely there this time of year!

Window Shopper

intersting article from the NY Times, with Lucas being quoted, great job, July 29, 2009 Square Feet As Prices Plummet, Condo Sales in Miami Perk Up By TERRY PRISTIN Despite a vast oversupply of new condos in downtown Miami, sales have been brisk lately at 1060 Brickell Avenue, a twin-tower development with 570 units in the heart of the upscale Brickell neighborhood. The reason? Prices have been cut in half, to about $200 a square foot. “We reset the prices at a sharp discount, and the units are flying off the shelves,” said Gary Barnett, the president of the Extell… Read more »

Renter Tom

Just to show you how bad the real estate market is even for single family homes”

In the second quarter of 2009 (that’s three months!) “builders started construction on a mere seven new single-family homes in Miami-Dade County”

Like I said, actual new home starts will be telling……… 🙂

Richard

At the $64 sq. ft. price we saw last week the inventory would shrink to near zero overnight. Absolute auction sales also clear inventory instantly. Only 1-2 percent of households earn over $250,000 which is what is needed to support a million dollar condo. Buyers in California now get a form disclosing exactly what their dollar share is for unfunded reserves prior to closing.

AJ

How sweet is this news? Dozens charged in $40 million mortgage-fraud scheme Forty-one people were involved in a $40 million mortgage-fraud scheme, the acting U.S. attorney said. Federal prosecutors say 41 people have been charged in the latest round of South Florida mortgage fraud schemes. The charges stem from six separate cases involving about $41 million in fraudulent mortgages. Some cases involve fraud at nearly every level of the transaction, from purchasers to lenders to title companies. Acting Miami U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman says an anti-fraud initiative in South Florida has resulted in charges against 218 people since 2007. The… Read more »

MCO

Hey Lucas,

Since no one seems to have any info on the ” only 31 units sold at icon brickell” as quoted on the NYT article, could you elaborate on this? Any insider’s indo? Thanks

Drew

This is an amusing article- ——————– Downtown Fort Myers condo has 32 stories, and one lonely tale Condo can get spooky for tower’s only family DICK HOGAN [email protected] Victor Vangelakos lives in a luxury condominium tower on the Caloosahatchee River. He never has to worry about the neighbors making too much noise. There are no neighbors. Vangelakos, 45, his wife Cathy and their three children are the only residents in the 32-story Oasis I condo on the east edge of downtown Fort Myers. The 45-year-old Weehawken, N.J., firefighter bought the condo from Miami-based The Related Group for $430,000 and closed… Read more »

Kramer

DREW

Ho-Hum another firefighter retires while still in his forties Im gonna cash in my kids college saving plan and and then payoff somebody to get him in Miami-Dade fire-police union when he turns 18. He should be able to retire when he is 42 yrs old and collect his $100,000. pension for the rest of his life. Sweet!

Kramer

MCO
Your question about closing rates at Icon Brickell ( and Epic -Everglades – Infinity – etc. ) is the most important question being asked here. The answer is DEAD SILENCE. Lucas for over two years has provided closing rates on monthly or bi-monthly basis as each new building downtown started closings. Very disappointing.

Drew

Kramer>
Its b/c ICON was supposed to be the Crown Jewel from TRG and it is turned out to be the biggest Miami residential real estate debacle ever and I can only assume Jorge Perez is so humiliated, embarassed and perplexed that he has threatened Lucas, et al that any negative publicity by Realtors will be met with crippling litigation or kidnapping.

jcrimes

Drew
the trials and tribulations of ICON are well documented. there are no closings to report of. and i don’t think jorge is humiliated. he’s doing much better than a lot of other folks in this downturn. the end game is he will turn over the keys to the project to his lenders and get a managment fee going forward. not a bad deal.

btw, the girls in the sales office for icon are top notch. catalina and her crunchy perm hair harkens back to 80s music video hot.

For Real Estate
Related Needs And Inquiries

please complete the form below

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.