South Florida Real Estate Update

It was an interesting week in real estate. My thought of the week to my prospective buyers is not to confuse National housing trends with local housing trends. I’ve heard the housing experts suggest that the National housing market will turn around in late “08”.
My focus in the housing market in Palm Beach County- and my thoughts are that this county is positioned to be ahead of that curve. I believe that we are within 8 months of month over month sales and dollar increases. If I had to guess how close to the bottom we are, I would say within 4%. The inventory level is high and the prices are depressed. Now is a good time to be a buyer. Should you wait to capture the remaining 4%? It’s a personal choice, but I think better overall values might be had while shopping in a slow market and working to strike a deal in which the seller gives the additional 4% or more.
That said, please understand I’m not saying sellers are going to get 96% of what their asking, I’m suggesting that like models will sell around 4% less. The sales #’s still suggest that a qualified buyer will be able to make a deal in the 88% range of asking maybe even less. How do this weeks #’s stack up?
· Inventory levels continued to decline but not through sales, through expired listings. More homes came off market than went on the market.
· Boca Raton Listings: 5548 single family homes on the market
· Boca Raton Single Family Contracts this week: 24- You can bet these people struck a great deal!
Those 24 people were able to write their best deal. If you’re serious about finding a new home at great price, now may be the best time.
Rental Update as of December 16-
As always I am using Boca Raton as my model for the current rental market in South Florida. Inventory and rentals have begun to stabilize this week with 50 rentals off market and 64 new ones on. I spent several days out with rental clients this past week and came to the conclusion that most of the older rental inventory is not worth renting. Boca inventory has held steady at around 1500 available rentals. It will be interesting to see where the numbers go after the first of the year. The one thing that is clearly evident- the home owners who purchased homes to flip are not throwing their homes on the market as cheap rentals. There’s certainly no inventory glut in the rental market. It’s also evident that these homes didn’t sell because they don’t represent good values to today’s buyers.



Please let me know if you have any questions.

Steven Schafer
Boca Executive Realty
561.541.9507