Last year was very telling for Miami Beach real estate in terms of how the market actually performed versus how people think it performed.  Everyone has an opinion on where the market was, is, or where it’s going, but the current evidence speaks for itself. Read on, and you’ll find some surprises. As for the future, even a shiny crystal ball isn’t sufficiently predictive (and EVEN I don’t have one).

I’ve comprehensively tracked condo sales in Miami Beach’s SoFi (South of 5th) neighborhood, which includes:  Apogee South Beach, Continuum North, Continuum South, Portofino Tower, South Pointe Tower, Murano at Portofino, Yacht Club, Murano Grande, and ICON South Beach, since I began this blog in 2007. The data in this post is based on info from the Southeast Florida Regional (SEFR) MLS and from the associations participating in the SEFR for the period 1/1/2008 through 12/31/2008.

If we were to believe EVERY media story, our perception would be one of complete devastation.  Let’s look at the “devastation” for 2008.  Note that there hasn’t been much change since my last market stats post in November.

Miami Beach Condo Sellers: Are You “Chasing Down the Market?”

If you’re an owner of Miami Beach real estate and would like to sell your house or condo, this is the most important graph for you.  In a market that’s in decline, pricing your property against your competition’s list price is deadly.  Heck, at this point, pricing your property against the most recent sale(s) isn’t good enough either.

The key – and the hardest part – is to know where the market is RIGHT NOW.  This takes the help of a well-connected and informed real estate professional. Hopefully, your agent (if you have one) has great relationships with other top local agents.  In a declining market, the goal is to stay ahead of the market. To accomplish that, I rely mainly on information from transactions happening NOW that will close in one to three months.

For the graph above, the rule of thumb is that up to approximately 10% of the total number of condominiums in each building could be available for sale at any given time without concern.  It’s too early to judge Apogee South Beach and Continuum North because it’s typical for new buildings to open with a lot of inventory.  In a normal market, a building usually “rights” itself within a year or so; then the inventory is in a normal range.

Wow. Wow. Wow!  Apogee is pretty impressive.  From a stats post on 9/2007, you can see that every one of these buildings in the index has declined in $PSF, except for Continuum South.  There’s more interesting news on the way about SoFi/South of 5th – the neighborhood in South Beach that continues to defy ALL trends, but I’ll save that for my very next post.

Okay – let’s get to some eye candy.  I love to end my posts by giving you a little reward for reading all the way through:

Continue Browsing Miami Beach Luxury Condos Here

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