cityofaventurablog.com
There has been an injection of some much-needed good news in the otherwise gloomy South Florida real estate market in the last 24 hours, but what's the outlook for Aventura? We reached out to local real estate agents to get their take, and while they pointed to a few signs that the city is recovering, they also indicated that sales in the last month have been slow, and that prices are falling. From what they said, the Aventura real estate market isn't out of the woods yet, nor will it be any time soon. First, the good news. On Tuesday the Herald reported: -- South Florida home prices improved in May, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller 20-city housing index. -- The downtown Miami condo market is on an upswing. Sales of downtown Miami condos accelerated during the first half of this year, the inventory of empty new condos on the market is declining, and prices are on the rise, all according to a study released by the Miami Downtown Development Authority. The three real estate agents who were quick to respond to emails sent last night -- Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Vivian Toppe, and Jonathan Lief -- all agreed that the market in Aventura can be difficult to assess because most of the residences are condos, and the trends can be different from building to building. Similarly, Hegedus-Garcia made the point that the Standard & Poor index isn't a good guide, because it lumps together large metro areas while there are drastic differences from neighborhood to neighborhood. When it comes to Aventura, here's what these three agents had to say: Ines Hegedus-Garcia: I can tell you that Aventura is lagging a bit behind when it comes to a recuperating market. If you take a look at the monthly real estate market reports I do for the Aventura area, you will see that there is still quite a large percentage of distressed sales (meaning short sales and foreclosures) listed for sale - making up about 25% of the sales inventory. In the last few months, the amount of distressed inventory has remained the same, but we can expect this number to start decreasing in the next 4-6 months if it follows some of Miami's "recuperating" areas. Also note that of the currently pending contracts, or condos under contract, about 65% of those are distressed sales (that number has also remained steady in the last few months).
Jonathan Lief: Single family homes in Aventura, for which there is an extremely small supply have gone up significantly in price, however the condo market in Aventura still has tremendous downward pressure on it due to short sales, foreclosures and auctions. In fact, if not for the Banks bidding against investors in order to protect their high mortgages, prices would come down even further. The end of the first time home buyers tax incentive has definitely slowed down the market this month. In conclusion, a remark by a potential buyer from Brazil typifies the market when he said, "Everyone in Brazil knows that Miami is for sale. Why is this condo priced so high?"
Vivian Toppe:
For condominium sales in Aventura, the price per square foot is rising but at a slow pace. We had the best month of the year in April of 2010 at an average price per square foot at $225, but since the tax credit from the government for first time home buyers ceased, prices and sales in the following months had a downward trend, which you can see the graph below. The month of June closed off with an average price per square foot of $195. The overall trend shows a slight rise since the beginning of the year which started in January 2010 with an average price per square foot of $182.
