On to Next Quarter

Where last quarter, South Florida’s market hit something of a slump, likely in relation to winter, Douglas Elliman’s 2015 first quarter report showed clear signs of the market catching some of its lost steam, and leveraging that momentum into improved median sales prices and inventories, particularly in the luxury condo market.

“New development product that has closed has tended to be higher in quality than had been the norm in the past,” Miller said, explaining the appreciation of condos. He added: “Condo median sales price jumped 35.5 percent year-over-year for exactly that same reason. Single-family median sales price saw more normal price growth with a 7.3 percent rise in median sales price over the same period. New development is not having the same wide-scale influence in the market.”

One of the big revelations of Douglas Elliman’s report, Miller points out, is the increase in traditional financing. Where Miami is largely regarded as the cash king, bringing in all-cash purchases from around the globe, in 2015’s first quarter, 31.5 percent of all sales had conventional mortgage financing – a 4.7 percent increase from the same time last year.

“The normalization of credit is a challenge across all housing markets, so it is encouraging to see improvement,” he said.

However, Miller went on to say that it was, in fact, the number of sales rather than prices that he preferred to use as a housing barometer.

“The number of sales were elevated and continued to edge higher,” he said, citing a 12.6 percent year-over-year increase.

Moving forward from Q1, Miami is likely to continue growing in both sales and prices, but the city is now better directed in a position to accomplish a more long-term goal of normalization.