Today we are going to look at some charts of the existing inventory, transaction types and sale prices of condo properties in the Greater Fort Lauderdale area.  The first chart shows the median sale prices of condo/townhouse sales through the month of June.

Here is a breakdown of the median prices for each transaction type:

• In June, the median sale price for a traditional sale rose to $148,500, up from $140,000 in may
• The median foreclosure sale price climbed to $87,000, up from $84,000 in May
• The median short sale price was $111,000, up from $110,000 in May

As for the available inventory for sale, the number of condo/townhouse properties on the market in Broward County dropped slightly to 7,899 units, down from 7,946 in May.  Inventory is still up 34% from the recent low of 5.877 available units set back in April 2013.

What types of deals are closing?

There were 1,496 closed sales in the month of June.  Here is the breakdown by transaction type:

• 1,153 or 77% of all sales were traditional transactions
• 257 or 17% of all transactions were foreclosure sales, up from 240 the previous month
• 86 transactions or 6% of all closings were short sales, down from 106 in May

How about foreclosure filings?  Yes, there are still plenty of them.  As a matter of fact, there were 851 new filings in the month of June, almost double the amount of filings in May.

Shadow inventory of condo / townhouse properties in some stage of foreclosure?  There were 14,399 of them when we counted earlier this month.

What are the chances of reducing the shadow inventory of properties in foreclosure?  Not very good if the pace of new filings continues to dwarf the pace of distressed sales.  With 851 new foreclosure filings and only 343 distressed sales in the month of June, it doesn’t look like the massive amount of foreclosures will be reduced anytime soon.  The “housing recovery” touted in the media for the past few years is nothing but smoke in mirrors and this problem will eventually resurface.  Don’t believe the hype!