In December, nearly half of the homes for sale in Miami sold at a loss, a 4% increase from the previous year and a troubling sign for anyone with a Miami real estate property on the market. Zillow.com released data on Wednesday by, evaluated sales by region, county and ZIP code.
The data also measured negative equity in home loans by region. About 41% of South Florida borrowers owed more on their mortgages than what their Miami real estate property was worth, at the end of December. Making it a small improvement over the 46% seen earlier in the fall.
In December, statewide, 47% of the Miami homes for sale sold at a loss, nearly equal to the 48% in South Florida, which includes Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties.
Amy Bohutinsky, vice president of communications for Zillow said, “this shows how deeply home values have fallen in South Florida since the peak of the market. It is certainly a disturbing number as far as what is happening to home sellers.”
A Florida International University professor and real estate economist, Ken Johnson, said he's not surprised by the December statistics. He said, they reflect how inflated prices had become during the boom.
Also, high foreclosure rates naturally lead to lower sale prices as banks try to unload Miami real estate properties in their inventory. Last year, more than 500,000 Florida homes received some type of foreclosure notice.
Johnson said about the Zillow study, “this is the market clearing,” “its bad medicine and we either swallow it a little at a time or a lot at a time. This is a lot.”
Contributed by MLR Realty
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