South Florida Real Estate On The Rise
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - When longtime realtor Hazel Goldman listed a two bedroom South Miami house recently, she was surprised to see what happened just six days later.
It was sold.
That's been the new norm for many in South Florida as real estate is coming back in a big way.
Tuesday real estate tracking site Zillow.com announced the bottom of the market nationwide has finally arrived. It happened in February according to their data.
The national average price of a home is now just shy of $150,000, exactly what it was eight years ago.
"We are not at the bottom. We were at the bottom a year ago." Goldman said.
She is talking about South Florida where the bounce back has been astonishing. MLS data crunched by CBS4 shows the bottom happened in South Florida around April 2011.
Around the time the bottom was hitting CBS4 did a story on hot properties. Properties that realtors called the best deals for the money.
CBS4's David Sutta interviewed Michael Brodie who had just purchased a home in Pinecrest.
"What's your favorite thing?" Sutta asked him. Brodie smiled big and answered "The deal. Don't put that in my wife will kill me."
Fourteen months since the interview his five bedroom Pinecrest home is worth $300,000 more than he paid.
"It's all about timing," he quipped back then. When reached today he said they are just as happy. "We have had to do a fair amount of work, but overall it is a great house, in the perfect location." he said.
Timing was everything in the real estate downturn. Homes became 50 percent off or more. In Downtown Miami $290,000 condo moved for $75,000. This was just a year ago.
"It's something that you would have never imagined during the boom. Never. Never. Never." Peter Zalewski of CondoVultures.com said. He's right. And you may not see it ever again.
At South Florida's bottom, the median home price was $100,000. Today it's $136,000. That's a 36 percent increase in just a year. Goldman reminded us, "remember, we took a very dramatic fall."
Still the comeback, 36 percent, makes Miami the second hottest comeback city in the country behind Phoenix. Goldman believes the reason for our quick resurgence it is actually quite basic: location.
"If you could go to a map of the US and circle places where you might want to live. This is one of them because our weather is so great," Goldman said.
Other national trends that Zillow is highlighting are that rents are going up and foreclosure filings are going down. What does it all mean? They believe it may lead to the housing recovery moving from the shape of a V, a slow recovery to that of a U. A quick shot up. Time will tell how fast the recovery moves.
