Oh, the media. I remember in back as early as 2004 the media starting predicting that the bottom would be falling out just about now. Dire predictions. Horrible repercussions. Doom and more gloom.
I’ve never been an optimist. Why? Because I’m a businessman. I was always a realist. I told another colleague as early back as 2003 that it was “over.” She laughed, and laughed hard! She went on to say, “this is South Beach. Other areas my decline but NEVER South Beach. Everyone in the world wants South Beach real estate!” I winked at her and said, “It’s over.”
In 2005 it was over (the media went from boom times to the great depression in one year). The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Miami Herald –this story was like crack to those publications. They couldn’t get enough. I was interviewed scads (uncountable) of times.
I noticed those stories end the beginning of this year. I’ve said many times before that I believe the media was hell-bent on making the story, as opposed to reporting the story. Scary, huh? It was never as bad as the media reported it to be no matter what number or predictions Jack McCabe fed the media.
Surprising Early Signs of a Miami Real Estate Recovery Stabilization
Here’s the latest hot-off-the-press stats for MIami Beach condos. As you can see, the numbers are NOT sinking, as predicted by many. A couple of interesting things to note: Our slowest months, here in Miami, are from August to December. Also, the pending sales are consistently higher than the number of condos sold.
During the period of speculation (of the media and real estate analysts) from 2005-2007, many people quoted that there were 50-60k units coming online in Miami. As the real numbers are revealed, it seems that a lot of the information that the media and analysts were using was wrong. In an article from tomorrow’s Miami Herald
”It’s not as big as we all thought it would be,” said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach real estate analyst…”
Florida Real Estate Being Viewed as “A+”
It’s too much for me to handle. I have a little annoying question that keeps bugging me: I did my own personal “quick and dirty” just over a year-and-a-half ago and came up with about 22,000 condo units coming to market in the next 18 months, why couldn’t Jack do that and make his predictions on that number? It was easy enough for me.
More on South Florida real estate here
UPDATE: I woke up this morning to a lovely comment from Jack McCabe filled with insults and innuendos (about me and others). I won’t publish the comment because of the aforementioned content which is in violation of the South Beach Condo Blog comment policy. What I will do, in another post, is address some of the questions that were posed to me and comment on some of his responses.
Categories: Market Statistics, Real Estate News
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Kevin - you’ve got a great blog. Interesting post. I cringed when I heard Cramer base his entire analysis on stock analogies. He is notorious for not understanding the housing market. Viewing housing like stocks - THAT was the problem to begin with.
The chart presented shows seasonal growth. Can you show a 2 year? I’ll bet sales levels are lower this year versus last year. Also, if there are 22,000 units slated to enter the market (per the Miami Herald article) and the market absorbs 3k per year (a wild guess), thats 7+ years to absorb.
I hear South Beach is very different from downtown Miami though and is doing better than greater Miami. No? We see that segmentation in NYC. Manhattan shows the most strength.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Jonathan
Thank you for your compliment. The Trendgraphix reports go back 15 months but I will try to get my hands on an old chart to compare.
Those condos are in the downtown area of Miami. There really isn’t a residential living component to Miami. But, I guess that will have to change now that the buildings are all just about up.
South Beach/Miami Beach are very different from Miami proper. I have a building much like 15 CPW that defies all logic. The foreclosures/short-sale stuff is not from sub-prime stuff it is from mortgauge fraud.
It’s not going to be pretty but Miami was the first one in the “new” real estate market; so we’ve been “in this” for over three years.
It will be very interesting to see how the summer months unfold. I have my “predictions” but usually keep them to myself.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
A while ago this blogsite had a post about the worsening financial condition of Carlos Justo and his firm, Sol Sotheby’s. Anybody have an update to this? Seems to be that he leveraged himself way too heavily and got himself in some bad stuff.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Like your blog. Appreciate your honesty. Few points about this data. 1) Need to look at about 5 years 2) Showing volume without average or median price is not very helpful. Could be increased volume at discount prices. Or maybe not. But that’s a key data point. Finally, I looked at OFHEO data for Miami MSA past 40 years. Interesting points: 1) Avg annual growth of 5.5% through 1997. 2) From 97 to 2007 avg growth of 10%. Back of the envelope calculation that extrapolates the region’s home prices from 1997 based on 5.5% historical growth puts the region at 35% overpriced according to latest quarter’s median price data. Is the Beach that different from the rest of the Miami region? That’s the question, I guess.