Miami Homeownership Rates Improve Due To Economic Growth And Growing Inventory Of Homes, According To Latest Ten-X Market Report

"Miami is outpacing the national real estate market in several areas, but not all of them are positive," said Ten-X Executive Vice President Rick Sharga. "The region's inventory of homes is up over 12 percent compared to last year, which gives buyers more options to choose from. But increasingly, the homes that are available are more expensive – Miami home prices rose about twice as fast as the national average. Fortunately, strong employment and wage growth are helping to keep homes relatively affordable."

Miami Homeownership Remains Low

Homeownership in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach metro, which has lagged behind the national average since 2009, measured 59.3 percent during the quarter, up 40 bps from a year ago but still roughly 400 bps lower than the national homeownership rate.

Miami Home Sales Hovering at a High Level

Though existing-home sales are down slightly year-over-year, they remain at a high seasonally adjusted rate (SAAR) of more than 60,000, some 23.5 percent below their bubble peak. The inventory of homes for sale during the quarter was 43,993, up 12.4 percent from a year ago, while the average time a home for sale sat on the market climbed to a seasonally adjusted 85 days – up 35.5 percent year-over-year. Home construction – housing permits, starts and completions – was subdued compared to prior cycles.

Miami Home Prices Still Soaring

Home price appreciation for the third quarter continued to outpace the national average, as it has done for more than four years, pushing the median existing home price in Miami to $255,372, an 11.1 percent year-over-year increase. While prices reached another cyclical high this quarter, they remained roughly 15 percent below Miami's 2007 peak, suggesting further room for price gains.

Affordability levels for home purchases in Miami, meanwhile, have been on the decline since peaking in 2012. While the single-family index remained above 100, home buying in Miami has been slightly less affordable than apartment renting for more than a year now, which could become a concern if the gap continues to widen.   

Economic and Demographic Fundamentals

Miami's economic expansion continued during the third quarter of 2016, albeit at a slower pace as job growth has gradually cooled over the past two years. Though growth has slowed from the upper-3 percent range seen in late 2014, metro employment is nevertheless at an all-time high and up 1.4 percent year-over year, with education/healthcare, professional/business services, retail trade, and leisure/hospitality sectors accounting for 55 percent of all jobs. Local unemployment has fallen some 60 bps over the past year to 5.5 percent, trending slightly above the US rate.

Though still ahead of the national average, Miami's population growth cooled in 2015 to 0.9 percent as the metro added 24,214 residents. This marked Miami's fourth consecutive year of population growth deceleration. Also worth consideration is the fact that the broader Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach MSA's population is among the oldest of the 51 metro areas covered by Ten-X Research. The area has an above-average concentration of residents above the age of 65, and a below-average percentage of residents between the ages of 25 and 44, typically the prime home-buying years.

About Ten-X

Ten-X is the nation's leading online real estate transaction marketplace and the parent to Ten-X Homes, Ten-X Commercial and Auction.com. To date, the company has sold 260,000+ residential and commercial properties totaling more than $43 billion. Leveraging desktop and mobile technology, Ten-X allows people to safely and easily complete real estate transactions online. Ten-X is headquartered in Irvine and Silicon Valley, Calif., and has offices in key markets nationwide. Investors in the company include CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and Stone Point Capital. For more information, visit Ten-X.com.

SOURCE Ten-X

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