Today's Local Real Estate News (We're # 1!)

Channel 10 is reporting a dubious distinction, “A real estate analyst for Forbes.com on Thursday explained why he ranked Miami the No. 1 riskiest real estate market in the country. He blamed the unflattering ranking on escalating insurance costs, a high number of adjustable rate mortgages, unaffordable housing prices and high vacancy rates.”

Of course, Channel 10 needed to balance its report with the Pollyanna views of local Realtor®, Ronald Shuffield, president of EWM Realty. “Shuffield said he's convinced the slow down is only temporary. He said Miami is still a hot spot for prospective buyers across the country and globe.”

This is the same Shuffield who predicted back in Second Quarter of 2005 that, “As the demand increases for homes and the supply of developable land decreases, South Florida values are going to rise. It’s that simple.” I guess it was so simple that Shuffield completely missed the 20% decrease in median prices since he made his projection.

Bloomberg provided a particularly devastating assessment of the South Florida condo market: “The oversupply will force prices down as much as 30 percent, the worst decline since the 1970s, and help push Florida's economy into recession as early as October, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Moody's Economy.com, who owns a home in Vero Beach, Florida.”

“’Florida is the epicenter for all the problems that exist in the housing industry,’ said Lewis Goodkin, president of Goodkin Consulting Corp. and a property adviser in Miami for the past 30 years, who also foresees a recession. ‘The problems we have now are unprecedented and a lot of people will get burnt.’”

“Thirty-seven new high-rise condos and 20,000 new units are being built in Miami's 1,040-acre downtown, where sales fell almost 50 percent in May, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The new units will join the 22,924 existing condos in Miami-Dade County that were for sale in April, according to Jack McCabe, chief executive officer of McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Florida. That's the most unsold units since McCabe began tracking sales in 2002.”

The Palm Beach Post reported that unemployment is rising due to the housing bust: “Palm Beach County unemployment rose to 4.1 percent in June from 3.3 percent in May, the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation said today.”

“One culprit: Layoffs in the housing sector. In one example of that trend, DiVosta Building Corp. has laid off 430 workers in Palm Beach Gardens since December.”

“The state's construction industry shed 18,000 jobs over the past year, state officials said, marking the first time since 1992 that the state has experienced four consecutive months of year-over-year declines in construction jobs.”

And, just when you think we have used up our final nails in the housing coffin, The Miami Herald is reporting that property insurers are looking for more rate increases: “Now, in just the past two months, nearly two dozen companies have filed for rate increases ranging from 9 percent to 95 percent.”

“To make matters worse, the state's largest private insurance company, State Farm, now says it won't renew 50,000 policies along Florida's coasts next year. ‘Someone has a lot of explaining to do,’ said Rep. Dan Gelber, a Democrat from Miami Beach and the House minority leader. ’We have to be on these guys 24/7.’”