If you’ve been watching the news for the past couple of years, you already know that Florida was one of the hardest hit states when the housing bubble burst. The prices of homes dropped, foreclosure rates jumped, and many people had to move out of the state to find work since the unemployment rates hit record highs – a scary 12%!
In Ft. Lauderdale, home prices have continued to drop since 2006. In fact, the prices have fallen by as much as 50% since then. However, more than 28% of that drop actually happened in 2009 alone, which has experts worried. Sure, people that are able to buy a house now might move to the state to get a great deal, but what about those homeowners wanting to sell?
Many people in Florida are tied to the construction industry, which all but dried up when the housing market went bust. Construction was at a standstill for years and only seems to be picking up now, five years later. Much of the work that has been slowly rolling in is commercial construction, not homes – so people aren’t even moving to the area.
Experts believe that the prices of the almost 700,000 homes in Ft. Lauderdale are going to drop even more – an astounding 11.1% sometime between 2011 and 2012. These same experts are saying prices could fall even more – by 8.7% – by the second quarter of 2013. Right now, the median home price is $196,000 (55th highest in the nation) and the median family income is at $58,800.
Jon Huser.
