Coral Gables Watch

To the City Commission: Why Property Values in Coral Gable Won’t Come Back Soon

See the extended note and analysis by Rebecca Wilder in the widely read economics blog Angry Bear. This evidence should cause some worries to the city commissioners who expect the return of the real estate market and property values in the coming years to cover the city’s deficits, capital investments and ever increasing pension liabilities. This will certainly mean serious revenue short falls and another round of millage and fee increases for taxpayers. At some point these trends may take on political meaning to the commission members who hold out for the growth-at-any-cost budget.

Housing demand is being propped up by government subsidies and low mortgage rates, and the level of supply is held back by low prices. Right now, the housing market is a complicated hodgepodge of policy, foreclosures, and very weary potential home-buyers.

Home sales are stabilizing; home building is stabilizing; and home prices (might be) stabilizing – the chart…to the illustrates a positive trend in sales away from distressed and first-time home-buyers, the targets of policy, according to the NAR. But what would the housing market look like if the massive policy expired this year? Not good, and it will [emphasis added].