Although the Fort Lauderdale area residential inventory has been increasing gradually each month, it took a pause from climbing in December.  That is very typical, since most people would rather not show their properties over the holidays unless it is a distressed sale.  Our first chart shows the housing and condo/townhouse inventory for Broward County.

You will  notice from the chart that the existing inventory for condo/townhouse properties and single-family homes took a brief pause from the gradual increases we witnessed over the previous several months.  The available inventory in the condo market ticked-up just slightly to 7,171 units, up from 7,153 in November.  As for single-family homes, the inventory dipped to 5,042 in December, down from 5,090 houses on the market in November.

As for prices, let’s take a look.

In December, the average sale price of a house in Broward County was $338, 712, which is down slightly from $338,955 in November.  Condo/townhouse properties had an average sale price of $172,077 in December, up from $168,893 in November.

What types of deals are closing?

Out of 1,300 closing in December and here is a breakdown of the numbers:

• Traditional sales increased to 918 closings, which accounted for just over 70% of all closings.
• REO sales increased to 150 closings, up from 132 in November and they accounted for 13% of all closings.
• Short sales increased from 159 in November to 225 in December and accounted for just over 17% of all closings.

As for condo / townhouse properties, here is a snapshot.

There were 1,340 closings in the Broward County condo/townhouse market in December and here is the breakdown:

• 1,000 traditional sales accounted for 75% of all closings
• 183 Foreclosure / REO sales accounted for 14% of all closings
• 157 short sales accounted for 11% of all closings in December

We will continue to update the South Florida market data as we receive it, so stay tuned!