Miami Real Estate Trends: How The Housing Market Will Fare in 2008

The real estate picture in the city of Miami, Florida can be summed up with two words by most housing market analysts as one big "condo mess."

According to the latest results from the Urban Land Institute's Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2008 survey, a host of 24-hour cities are still considered to be staying above the rest, and among these area New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago, together with some southern California cities and Seattle.

Miami held its overall survey ranking however because the area's other housing market sectors have remained quite stable at present. Because most housing developers here focused their sights into the condo segment and neglected other property types, office prospects remain pretty good, like for example the city's warehouse market is one of the best in the nation. Constant trade and commerce links with Latin American countries help to add more weight, and tourism remains strong. However, the issues that continue to burden Miami are transportation, the threat of hurricanes, taxes, and water.

How Other Metro Areas Fared When It Comes To Housing Market Prospects

The Emerging Trends survey has noted that investment prospects continue to be good for urban centers that are located in coastal cities, followed by interior gateways such as Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas. The positive factors for these areas are high immigration flows and large international airports, major shipping ports, and/or export-import hubs. Other metropolitan areas fared based on investment and development prospects, and were rated to be from "Abysmal" to "Fair" to "Excellent".

Among the more noticeable movements from the recent report were Boston, San Jose, and Seattle, which moved up considerably substantially along with most Florida markets, except Miami, which stayed basically on the same level. The cities of Las Vegas, and Atlanta were downgraded as well. The ratings also includes categories for investment prospects for all property types from industrial to hotel, retail, apartments and homebuilding.

The major winner in the survey was New York, and although the city had always been ranked at or near the top of every Emerging Trends' listings, New York has moved up way above its closest U.S. competitors. According to the institute, “New York's fundamentals are out of the ballpark right now, and Wall Street is a huge factor in New York's ascendancy and a derailment of the stock market could deeply effect the city's real estate market”.

What's Up For Miami's Condo's Markets

City officials in Miami note that at present, 15 condo projects, which represent around 1,900 units, have been officially pulled from the slow market. However, housing market analysts view that the numbers are much higher when you consider the rest of Florida’s overbuilt condo market.

According to housing officials, Miami’s building boom, which was considered the the biggest in the city’s history, is however far from over, as a lot of construction cranes continue to dominate the city's skyline, as they have for years.

The metropolis alone has more than 77,000 units, in nearly 300 projects, under construction or in planning. However, the sad news is that, the “for sale” signs are not the only warnings of a fading market. In addition, the statewide sales of existing condos dropped 31 percent in October from the same month last year, according to the Florida Association of Realtors, and median prices also dropped by 2 percent.