Florida Mortgage Broker: In Miami, More Homes, Less Affordability

Key West Florida mortgage broker Melanie Crocker sums up the past year’s housing market this way: “It’s been tough.”

She’s not kidding.

Both prices and sales fell considerably in 2006 in Monroe County, where the standoff between buyers and sellers has already given way to a down market.

The median price for a single-family home went down 11 percent, settling at $625,000, according to a Miami Herald survey comparing sales in the second half of 2006 to the same period a year earlier. Florida condo prices were off even more, dropping by 17 percent to $440,000.

Things were especially bad in Key West, where prices for single-family homes dropped 37 percent to $395,000. Condo prices fell 19 percent to $440,000.

The downturn comes after prices in the Keys soared into orbit. In past few years, investors and vacation buyers bid prices up so high that few residents could actually live there; and most Florida home mortgage loan borrowers stayed away.
Hospitals ran short of nurses, and hotels had to offer shelter for their employees. Companies searched for workers willing to drive south from Homestead and Florida City.

Now, lower prices may come as a relief to Keys residents priced out by the boom.

But they’re not rushing to buy just yet. Sales of houses in 2006 were down 38 percent from a year earlier. For condos, it was 47 percent.

”There were no buyers because they wanted to see the prices adjust,” says Crocker. “Now that has happened, and we are starting to see a little more activity. Though people are still wondering if we have hit bottom or not.’