Miami & Miami Beach Condo Trends – January 2009
January 19, 2009 by Lucas Lechuga
Below, you will find the Miami-Dade County condo inventory and supply figures for January 2008:
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.):
The following statistics encompass only those condos located throughout Miami Beach:
I hadn't previously used a 6 month average to calculate the months and years of supply figures so it's pretty meaningless to compare this month's update to previous ones. However, here is the last update published in October 2008 if you'd like to compare the raw numbers.
Not to be a party pooper, but if there are 3551 condos sold in Miami dade but 30,000 foreclosures in that same time frame, a lot of the supply is in the form of shadow inventory. Just wait until the banks unload once they’re recapitalized or the Florida hoa laws change this year
Mark, is there talk of banks being held responsible for paying HOA fees on foreclosed properties?
Lucas – Excellent job again! Well done. Your data and site are second to none for the Miami condo scene.
HGTV just had an episode of “Property Virgins” where a 20 year old lady just bought a condo in Brickell area. Developer list was $250K and she got it for $235K. Total emotional buy…….she actually didn’t even see the actual unit she is buying despite being told that the model has a terrace while hers would have a only a balcony. She didn’t even consult here family even though she is only 20! She specializes in “investments” yet did little due diligence…..sucker. Too bad, how sad. Would like to know which building that was though… She should have first rented in the building to test the waters…. Why the rush???
LOL….I just saw that too! I was trying to figure out what building it was in as well, Plaza maybe?
Advice from the Smart Money.
Don’t forget about the thousands upon thousands of Condo’s that have yet to hit the market.
$125.00 is the mark.
The Smart Money
ACE…..you might be a little HIGH there $125.00 is LQQKIN a little HIGH right now.
DJ – I saw that it was on the show was on the beach in nice weather so decided to watch it for a few minutes then the host lady said it was in Miami….so watched the entire thing. Tonight was the first airing so it was taped very recently. Oooooooo, down to $235K from $250K…….big whoop. Nice amenities but I didn’t catch if she mentioned the HOA fee on the one she bought (she mentioned the other two)…..or the fact that in a new building those would go up…. a 20 year old with almost a quarter million one bedroom condo doesn’t make sense as an investment to me….not with what looked like two towers of hundreds of condos each all competing their way to lower prices. Total emotional buy from what they showed…..total. The host lady did caution her that she hadn’t consulted her family, etc……if only, if only she had been reading this blog she would have known that she could rent for half the price of owning to “try out” the building before deciding to make such a large financial commitment. Did you catch when the buyer’s friend let it slip that the buyer was possibly looking or at least interested in working for a different company then the one the buyer is currently working for??? If her boss sees that, then she’ll move up on the chopping block list…..thanks girlfriend! LOL At that point it will be just another foreclosure……
Yeah I caught the whole thing too. The other two condos she looked at sucked, so she definately picked the best of the bunch. Like you said though, it was pretty foolish of her to buy a condo sight unseen after “thinking about it” for only a few minutes. She accepted the devlopers counter-offer in the lobby of the building right after she came down from the unit. I guess that’s an impulsive 20 year old for you. I also think the show was probably taped very recently; I’d assume within the last few months, so that would be somewhat indicative of the current market, meaning she paid way too much. I’m assuming the condo was about 900 sq. feet (that’s probably being generous), so she still paid over $260 sq. foot for a cookie cutter Brickel shoe box with a shitty city view. Pretty funny what her friend said about her job. I was trying to figure out WTF she actually did. They said she was an “investment specialist” or something like that for an investment banking firm, whatever that means.
I think she must have been buying for a PORNO movie location.First of all she should have consulted with LUCAS.Good luck to her .
Mortgage Collateral Bears an Interest Rate Risk:
While ability to pay and willingness to pay are judged for each individual, the collateral value of a property cannot be appraised outside of the future economic and interest environment for the country as a whole. From a collateral perspective, it does not matter whether the borrower is paying a 4% or 12% interest rate, what matters is that interest rates will surely be a lot higher than 4% in 5 years.
The flat 20% down rule seems as outdated as the rest of Wall Street’s failed financial models. To coin the conservative phrase, we have had quite an activist Fed over the last 4 decades, especially in the last 20 years. Bernanke may appear to be a black swan, but he is just the long tail of former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan’s dragon.
DJ – All they said was that she was a “Miami investment specialist”…. I pressed the record button the DVR when they said Miami. I take it that she is just an “investment specialist” who lives in Miami, not that she invests in or specializes in Miami investments. She clearly was very much “in love” with the unit. Emotional buy. I will say from experience, you can usually tell within the first minute if the place is a no go, but need to see the whole thing in order to see if it is a go. Two very nice and lovely young ladies (the buyer and her friend)…..I do congratulate her that she had saved up money and was “frugal” in that she says she spends “no money” and saves. However, with the HOA ever increasing, high property taxes, and a new condo association that needs to establish itself (might even still be in developers hands)….. She should have just rented to try it out. I would hate to see her hating the place and not be able to sell the place because she would be under water trying to resell it soon. What was their obsession with hating carpet??????? The last two each had decent carpet……easy to change later.
Funny I watched that episode as well. I think the building was Plaza as DJ said. I certainly give credit to a 20 year old saving to buy a place of her own. However, she should have rented for a while!
Click Broker – With the fed govt (thanks Broke Obama) poised to add trillions and trillions and trillions to the national debt, there won’t be enough money to lend to businesses and citizens for things like cars, education, etc. causing interest rates to rise. Recent article on Southwest Airlines experiencing this problem and is detailed in this article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/19/business/debt.1-410735.php
And they were one of the lucky ones to actually get financing…… Seriously, the “fix” (which can’t be spent out of the problem since this is not a business/economic cycle recession) will only place a greater debt burden directly on US citizens and indirectly through much higher costs to borrow for citizens and businesses, effectively taxing them in the mid to long term….. So sad. Obama’s spending will push the national debt to the brink in an attempt to create a false demand…. Oh well.
What can force banks to unload their inventory.
It looks like they want to keep foreclosures in the books, get bailed out by the government, keep all in the books again until they can sell at a better price or something.
Not sure if what I am saying is making a lot of sense to you experts. But I hardly find low market prices in Miami. Prices are still very high vs. true value or vs. renting.
I am a potential buyer, I am willing to buy cash up to 250k. I can’t find foreclosure deals yet. This sucks, I hate banks.
RT.
You have no idea what your talking about.
Go to the St Louis Fed site.
Your just being ignorant, the banks have money, they are hoarding it (just like you and I)
rolofer,
You have to remember that banks don’t really own much of the inventory any more. In many cases they did not hold the loans but resold them to either Fannie and Freddie or to the investment banks (in the case of subprime, alt-A and jumbo) and then those mortgages were securitized. The bank that originated the loan still has the obligation to service it, including resolving the foreclosure process. But their motivations as the loan servicer are quite different than when they used to be loan owners. Of course some of the same banks then went and purchased these mortgage backed securities. And so we have a huge mess of cross holdings with banks owning securities, which consist of mortgages being serviced by other banks, and servicing mortgages that are owned piecemeal by a pool of investors, which includes a large number of other banks.
Muir: I agree that the banks are hoarding. And they should be (from the rational agent perspective) since they need to cover further writedowns that they will have to take later in the year. I don’t really understand the argument being made by the government and some pundits that the banks “must lend”. Part of the current economic mess is that the banks lent too much and are over-leveraged. If we want the banks to be solvent then they need to reduce their leverage and we can’t hold a gun to their head to force them to lend. The demand for improved balance sheets and aggressive lending activity are just contradictory.
I saw that Property Virgins episode, I coudn’t believe she made a decision that quickly. That made be suspect that this was probably filmed early last year before things had got really crazy. Could the unit be 2703 in Vue at Brickell, it sold for $235,000 and was originally for sale for $249,900 and had 1,069 sq ft. This was March 20th though.
I just had a look at Lucas’s info in recent sales. Thanks for all your hard work Lucas, this is the best resource out there for Miami condos.
No, that unit on the show was not at Vue. It was at Plaza on Brickell & it is in the B line which is about 750 square feet.
Sorry Muir – You are completely wrong in your understanding. Banks need available credit or cash right ow…. no credit so they need cash…..not hoarding just trying to keep their balance sheets in order instead of being insolvent. Where are the credit worthy borrowers in this environment of uncertainty where even SouthWest Airlines has to issue debt at 10.5%??? Again, not hoarding at all…..if I were a bank I would be cautious too. The fed govt is sopping up all the world’s savings that is out there……. Treasuries rates are low simply because of the fear and uncertainty too……the govt will have to pay more for debt in the future and that deferred tax on U.S. citizens will be a killer in the global economy. Wait and see, wait and see.
Alan – Thanks. It appears the episode was fairly recent. At least since 7/1….
Thanks Alan, I thought the Vue was a bit old since it looked like they were talking about new constuction but that was the only one that fitted that profile.
I bet she wishes she’d waited now. With the money she’s lost, she could have bought as many stainless steel appliances and as much travertine flooring as her heart could desire.
First president to screw up on the oath of office….nice…. Now let’s spend trillions and distort the housing market for the next decade.
“if I were a bank I would be cautious too. ”
There you have it.
In a nutshell.
RT,
The Chief Justice screwed up on the oath of office not the President
RT, Roberts flubbed the oath, not Obama.
WASHINGTON – It was merely a formality and it’s probably a few phrases that both Barack Obama and Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts have practiced several times, but the leader of the Supreme Court may have been just a tad nervous when he got one word of the presidential oath of office a little out of order.
Obama smiled slightly when he realized that Roberts, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, misplaced the word “faithfully” during the oath. but the new president joined in the fun and repeated it the way Roberts initially administered it. (Lest we forget, in the Senate Obama voted against confirming Roberts to the high court. Last week Obama met with him and the other Supreme Court justices during a courtesy call.)
RT,
Can’t help it.
CNBC just reported data by FED (actually is St louis, though they didn’t say it)
Title “Banks hoarding cash” they showed the graph (that I saw 2 days ago)
It’s like a viagra graph.
I’m sorry but it seems even CNBC (which is usually 3-6 months behind the curb) is ahead of you on this one.
It’s nice when one gets to use phrases the MSM does.
Meant to say “before MSM does.”
EVERGLADES ON THE BAY
Anyone in here who purchased a unit at Everglades On The Bay and wishes to be interviewed with your opinion and experience by an investigative reporter from a major local newspaper, please e-mail me at, [email protected]
Lucas,
Any ETA on when the North Bay Village condos are gonna be added? Thanks.
clark
it’s obvious you will do do whatever it takes, ruin as many people’s lives, so long as you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way
-derek
Wow…RT went silent when his Obama comment was immediately proven to be totally, completely incorrect. But we all know RT’s ego can’t handle the notion that he is ever wrong about anything.
Jcrimes
I am not the journalist or a journalist and dont work for any newspaper or ever have but trying to find out if others feel they have been given false or misleading information by a developer. Whats wrong with that?
Clark
lighten up…i just felt like dropping some zoolander in an otherwise mundane day.
Well it seemed to me that both the President and the Chief Justice messed up. First Obama started to speak while Roberts was still speaking, then Roberts clearly stumbled. So whats the point? Back to Miami Condos…
Petronius /Jan 20, 2009 at 9:35 am
“Muir: I agree that the banks are hoarding. And they should be (from the rational agent perspective) since they need to cover further writedowns that they will have to take later in the year. I don’t really understand the argument being made by the government and some pundits that the banks “must lend”. Part of the current economic mess is that the banks lent too much and are over-leveraged. If we want the banks to be solvent then they need to reduce their leverage and we can’t hold a gun to their head to force them to lend. The demand for improved balance sheets and aggressive lending activity are just contradictory.”
–
agreed 100%
Gables,
Re: 55 Merrick
I was offered a rental in Dec for $2000/month. Outside facing unit at pool level with a 1600+ sqft patio. (not a misprint)
Advertised rental for this unit was $2400
There is a unit at 357 Almeria for $1550 (this is the lowest I’ve ever seen in this building)
Rents are dropping, fast.
There is quite a gap between advertised price and what they are willing to rent for.
You asked Lucas, but I thought I’d share this.
Any info about Cite on the bay – condos? Problems, maintenance, ? How much should it be a fair price per sqft? thanks Building looks clean and nice.
Muir,
Thanks for the info on 55 Merrick. I do like the building, but it has been overpriced rental and sales since it opened-but rentals have been moving down. There are a couple of luxury condos on Ponce which recently opened or will open soon, which are comparable to 55 Merrick. Curious to see how they affect pricing in the coming year. Increased supply coupled with decreased demand.
Petronius said: I don’t really understand the argument being made by the government and some pundits that the banks “must lend”.
The argument is that congress voted to give banks money because they were told there was a “credit crisis”, namely that creditworthy borrowers couldn’t get commercial loans to finance daily activities and that the crisis would lead to a financial and economic collapse.
Congress didn’t intend to just shore up the banks’ balance sheets.
I think congress and taxpayers are beginning to understand that they may have been misled.
I just heard that unit #3302 at the Waverly sold for $652K. How is that possible? I understand that’s the best line in the building but for a condo where the average sale price last year was about $375-400K, and where the last 01/02 line units have sold for an average of $550K , the sale price for #3302 seems atypical if not fishy. What happened? Only Mr Waverly can make sense of this one. Please 😉
Can anyone provide a good rule of thumb for 1-2 bedroom condos in the Hollywood/Halindale, Florida areas? Here is what I am trying to find. What is the average sales price/real market value decline on these type of condos since the height of the market? Any good reference points would be appreciated. I am trying to buy a condo in this area. It seems like sellers are still dreaming about sales prices.
[…] 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. […]