Earlier this week we showed how the rising interest rates last spring started to impact the quantity of of traditional transactions closing in South Florida.  Here is a quick snapshot of how residential inventory is starting to rise as the pace sales begins to moderate. Meanwhile, there is still a steady rate of new foreclosures being filed on a monthly basis.

We combined the single family home inventory with the condo/townhouse inventory and there were 13,460 properties available for sale in February, up from 13,012 the previous month.  Broward County inventory looks like it hit bottom in April of 2013 with 9,966 properties listed for sale and has climbed 35% since then.  To put things into perspective, we haven’t seen this level of inventory in just over two years.

As for total closings, they reached 3,116 last May.  Keep in mind that there is a one-month lag between contract and closing and that is right before rates climbed higher.  The total monthly closings have dropped 31% since then and trickled down to 2,151 in February.

Foreclosures surpassed total sales for a few months from November 2013 to January 2014, but took a break in February. We already know they increased again in March, but we will wait to see the sales data for March before we drop the figures into our charts.  Either way, it is never a good sign for the real estate market when new foreclosure filings keep pace (or surpass) the total of all sales making it to the closing table in a given month.  There is still a massive shadow inventory of properties in foreclosure (roughly 60,000) scattered throughout Broward County and the pace of new filings will need to drop in order to reduce this overhang.  Feel free to click on the chart below to see any cities of interest.

 Just in case you didn’t see our chart of interest rates, take a look at the rate increases from May until June 2013, and that is one of the factors why sales have slowed and inventory is climbing once again.  Rates are still low on a historical basis, but even the slightest increase has a noticeable impact on the residential property market.