Audrey Ross is senior vice president of EWM Realty International and founder and chair of The Audrey Ross Team.

Every week, we ask a Miami real estate professional for their thoughts on the top three stories from the week before. This week, we spoke with Audrey Ross, senior vice president of EWM Realty International, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned South Florida affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. The founder and chair of The Audrey Ross Team, Audrey is a consistent top producer and has sold luxury real estate in South Florida for more than 30 years.

Miami Agent (MA): We recently reported that income inequality has grown in Miami since 1990; With the gap widening between the haves and the have-nots, how, if at all, as Miami’s real estate market been affected?

Audrey Ross (AR): Quite truly, even though there is certainly a widening gap in the income inequality in our country and in Miami especially since 1990, my part of the market has not been impacted. This socio-economical shift would affect the middle market more than the luxury market, which has been the staple of my real estate practice. The people who buy the properties that I generally list and sell are acting from discretion rather than need for the most part; thus, my sector of the real estate market has not been as affected.

MA: A recent report by the National Association of Realtors asserts that existing home sales in February dropped to the lowest rate since July 2012. Are existing homes struggling to sell in Miami? Why or why not?

AR: Again, in the luxury sector, the million dollar-plus homes, located in good locations, have been moving briskly. I do not see those homes ‘struggling to sell.” As in every market there are homes that are priced more than 10 percent above market, and certainly those continue to sit on the market, as they have historically. However, those homes that are priced to market with no more than a 5 percent “cushion for negotiation” tend to move rapidly. In some areas there is even sparse inventory, which would generally be less than 10 percent of the subdivision. In the overall market, an inventory with more than a six-month absorption rate would also tend to see homes “sit on the market or struggle to sell.” In many parts of our Miami market, we are seeing the market return to those normal levels.

MA: Home prices in Miami rose 0.7 percent from Dec. 2013 to Jan. 2014, the best increase in the nation, and rose 16.8 percent year-over-year in Jan. 2014, according to recent reports. Why are prices in Miami rising so strongly?

AR: Prices appear to be rising strongly now because there have been artificial lows in our market due to the abundance of foreclosures that occurred during the past four years, and also due to the rush of investors that have  come into our market as a result of those foreclosures. With the departure of those investors and the arrival of an abundance of buyer-users from all over the world, our prices have risen sharply. By any standard, our prices still look cheap to those coming from many other parts of the world.