When will housing affordability improve? Spoiler alert: it will take time
Inflation is slowing and job growth has surged, but many Americans still feel the burden of expensive housing — fueled in part by high demand, low inventory and mortgage rates. U.S. home prices rose 5.5% over the past year as of December 2023 and are expected to rise 2.8% year over year through December 2024, according to CoreLogic, an information company on consumers and businesses. (Source: Florida Phoenix)
How Short-Term Rental Regulations Could Impact the South Florida Market
According to AirDNA, a short-term rental data analytics company, as of December, there were more than 22,000 listings available in Miami-Dade County, a 19% increase from 2019. The county of Broward saw a 71% increase from 2019, with more than 17,700 listings available that same month. “We would be hard-pressed to find a market that has absorbed or adopted the concept of short-term rentals more than Southeast Florida,” said Ken H. Johnson, a real estate economist and professor at Florida Atlantic University. (Source: NBCMiami)
Million-dollar home sales were rare around Pensacola. Now they are everywhere.
After Jennifer McKeown-Putney left Pensacola, Florida, in 2021, all she could think about was going back. Located in the far west of the Florida Panhandle and along Pensacola Bay, the city is the site of America’s first multi-year European settlement, established more than 400 years ago, according to the University of West Florida. Its metropolitan area is made up of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties and includes the community of Pensacola Beach and the small town of Gulf Breeze, which have frontage on the bay, the Santa Rosa Sound and the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
Solar boom: Polk County among Florida hotbeds for large-scale solar plants
Each year, a Florida land conference is hosted by Lakeland-based commercial real estate broker Dean Saunders for updates on various land use trends and charts of large land deals in Polk County and across Florida. And for nearly 10 years, the conference has shown astronomical growth in one type of land sale: large agricultural acreages sold for solar energy production. (Source: The big book)
Buying in Florida? Second homes are not the same as an “investment property”
Over the past two years, thousands of buyers from “up north” have purchased homes and condos in Florida with varying ideas on how to use the property. Some intend to settle here full-time, others want to be seasonal residents until they eventually become full-time residents, and some want to own property that they can offering visitors and snowbirds as short-term rentals. Landlords should have accurate information about the difference between second homes and investment properties. (Source: Islanders News)
$75 million
Pumpkin Key, a 26-acre private island off the coast of Key Largo, was recently listed for $75 million. (Source: The real deal)
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› Cash home sales in Naples reached almost 60%
The number of homes purchased for cash in the last half of 2023 and first month of 2024 saw a “significant increase,” according to a new report. Naples real estate agent Mike Rodriguez of Coldwell Banker Realty compiled the report using Attom. Data. Rodriguez says the data is for the semester ending Jan. 31.
› Disney’s affordable housing project fails through zoning board
Disney’s proposed affordable housing project won limited support from the Orange County Planning and Zoning Board last Thursday as neighbors’ objections dampened enthusiasm for below-market housing which was desperately needed.
› Deeper water in the shipping canal helps spur industrial real estate boom in Jacksonville
Size matters. That was the theme of Jaxport’s State of the Port presentation at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront on Thursday. With the completion of the deepening of the St. Johns River, Jaxport is focused on increasing its containerized and bulk cargo capacity, port officials said.
› Investors are buying cheaper homes at a record pace — and some markets have their attention
Most of the homes purchased by investors — about 68.6% during the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Redfin — are single-family homes. Condominiums represent the second largest share of properties purchased, at 19.2%, followed by townhouses at 7.1% and multi-family properties at 5.1%.
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