Through the month of March, the housing market was feeling no pain.  It may take a few months for the massive move in mortgage rates to hit prices.  As for transaction volume, it should continue to slow due to lack of inventory.  During the month of March, the average sale prices of single-family homes in South Florida bounced back slightly to $926,914.  Condo prices moved higher to $572,739, as lack of houses keeps moving buyers to the condo market.

Here is a look at the residential inventory in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County.  There were only 5,682 houses and 8,835 condo properties listed for sale on the market in March.  That is a total of 14,517 available properties and their are probably 3X as many real estate agents in the area.  What are they all doing?

Transaction volume was feeling no pain and popped nicely last month with a total of 10,931 deals closed.  There was a big climb in the number of condo sales.  In February there were 4,617 condos sold and 6,389 in March.  As for houses, 3,442 sold in February and 14,542 in March.

Mortgage rates are moving higher and will soon inflict some pain on this market.  The problem is that everyone has been lulled to sleep since the last crisis with easy money.  Now everything will have to reprice.  Housing affordability was a problem before the move in rates and will now get worse until real estate prices start to drop.  Don’t worry, it will happen.  If you haven’t already seen, mortgage applications have started to slow.

This real estate market outlook covers real estate activity in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County, Florida.  Here are just a few of the cities in each of these three markets:

• Miami-Dade – Aventura, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Sunny Isles Beach, North Miami, Homestead, Doral, Miami Lakes, Downtown Miami, Brickell and Key Biscayne.

• Broward – Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood, Hallandale, Weston, Parkland, Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, Plantation, Cooper City, Davie, Coral Springs, Sea Ranch Lakes, Lauderdale by the Sea and Lighthouse Point.

• Palm Beach – Delray Beach, Highland Beach, Jupiter, Palm Beach Island, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton, Highland Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Wellington and Lake Worth.