A number of Florida cities bucked the national trend of declining home prices and showed increases in the prices of existing homes for sale in Florida the second quarter, based on reports from the National Association of Realtors and from Fiserv.
Of the 151 metro residential real estate markets monitored by NAR, only 41 areas posted increases in existing home prices in the April-June quarter compared to the same quarter in 2010 and some of these areas are in Florida. These are:
- Cape Coral-Fort Myers — 17.9 percent increase
- Tallahassee — 3.9 percent increase
While a number of metro areas around the country experienced double-digit rates of home price decreases, the following Florida cities posted single digit rates of price drops.
- Jacksonville — 3.5 percent drop
- Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach — 4.1 percent drop
- Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent — 6.7 percent drop
- Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville — 7.3 percent drop
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater — 8.3 percent drop
The metro areas in Florida that experienced double-digit house price decreases in the second quarter were the following:
- Orlando — 10.4 percent drop
- Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach — 13.0 percent drop
- Gainesville — 12.5 percent drop
- Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice — 15.0 percent drop
- Ocala — 16.8 percent drop
Fiserv also identified one Florida metro area as of the five best housing markets in the U.S. for the next two years, based on data from the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency and from the Case-Shiller indexes. Fiserv stated that home prices in the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville area will increase by more than 18 percent in the next couple of years. In the first quarter of 2011, the median home price in the Palm Bay area was $120,000.
Based on the NAR chart, the median price of existing single-family homes in the Melbourne area in the second quarter was $108,700, down by more than seven percent from the $117,300 median in the same quarter in 2010. These are the median prices for existing homes for sale in Florida areas in the second quarter:
- Cape Coral-Fort Myers — $110,900
- Tallahassee — $147,800
- Jacksonville — $134,200
- Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach — $112,200
- Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent — $133,500
- Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville — $108,700
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater — $129,600
From the list, it can be observed that the metro areas which have been able to fight the battering of the housing market are the ones where prices were above $108,000 in the second quarter. Back in 2008, when the residential market was still enjoying the boom, existing home prices in these metro areas ranged from $152,600 to $179,900.
During the boom, residential properties in the Miami, Orlando and Sarasota metro areas were among the costliest homes for sale in Florida. Inflationary pricing and overbuilding of condos, however, hurt these markets.
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