Florida’s been looking for some good news for their housing market, and maybe this is it. For the first time, there are predictions that say Florida housing is ready to take off, and that would be good news for both buyers and sellers.
One study that came out said that in the first quarter of 2010, internet searches for homes for sale were up 32% from last year. Although that doesn’t necessarily translate into sales, it does show that there might be interest in buyers looking for new and existing homes.
In another study, the online real estate company Move Inc stated that interest in residential real estate is up 300% from last March. They also stated that more than 17.2% of potential homebuyers say they plan on buying a home in the near future, compared to 5.6% last year at this time. And another statistic from, Experian Hitwise Insight Index, the global intelligence service run by Experian, started that interest in mortgages is up 43%, and in Florida the search term “homes for sale in Florida” is up 73%.
Some of this is backed up in real numbers. Pending home sales in the Miami-Dade area were up 6.6% in April compared, and in Broward County home sales were up 4.3% compared to March. Compared to last year, those percentages are 71% and 64%. And, for buyers, home prices are still falling, though the pace is slowing down, so even though the federal tax credit is gone, it’s still a buyer’s market overall.
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Mitch writes on real estate, finance, and many other things.