Now that 2015 is in the books, it is time to take a look at the South Florida residential market data including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County.  Our first chart today breaks down the single-family home sales by transaction type.  The median sale prices in December were as follows:

• Traditional sales – $320,000
• Foreclosure sales – $228,600
• Short sales – $200,000

Notice the steady uptrend of the foreclosure sales (red line) over the past two years.  It certainly appears that distressed properties in the single-family segment of the market are finally making progress through the court system and reaching the market.

Now let’s take a look at the condo market in South Florida.  Median prices haven’t moved much in the past year in the condo market.  Even more interesting is that short sales are still being completed after the expiration of the mortgage debt forgiveness act.  In the month of December, the median sale prices were as follows:

• Traditional sales – $175,000
• Foreclosure sales – $116,397
• Short sales – $130,000

As for the average sale price in South Florida, houses climbed to $464,123 in December, up from $429,306 in December of 2014.  Condo prices ended 2015 at $252,454, down slightly from $271,958 in December 2014.

How about inventory?  There was a total of 46,183 residential properties available for sale in the tri-county market in December.  This is just a slight decline from 46,264 properties listed for sale in December 2014.

As for new residential mortgage foreclosure filings for houses and condo properties, both Miami-Dade and Broward County saw an increase in the month of December.  We always say that one month does not make a trend, so we will continue to monitor these filings into 2016.  As for the new filings:

• Miami-Dade County had 761 new filings in December, compared to 361 in November
• Broward County had 405 new filings, up from 351 in November
• Palm Beach County had 124 new filings in December, down from 161 in November

For additional perspective on the distressed property market in South Florida, we have included the next chart of distressed property sales and new foreclosure filings.  This chart shows the pace short sales and foreclosure transactions (combined as distressed sales) in the blue line, as they compare to new mortgage foreclosure filings.  Obviously you don’t want the pace of new filings to surpass the pace of sales.  Distressed property sales will continue to play a role in the South Florida real estate market for a few more years and it is important for the market to have the ability to absorb them.