Signs of a Housing Slump...

[tombarnes]

Levitt Corp. in Trouble?

The Levitt Corporation, the same company which built Levittown on Long Island and countless other housing developments, may be in deep trouble. This is but one warning sign in an increasing trend in South Florida that the market may indeed be correcting itself. The population trends still point in an upward direction, but one cannot say that this is necessarily good for an area which could probably do with fewer people as a whole. I'm not going anti-growth here (at least not completely), but South Florida needs to face its future with its eyes open. Why plow straight into the Everglades with more subdivisions when the demand is weakening? Intelligent growth and planning are desperately needed in South Florida. I'm not sure that the leaders down here are not proverbially lying on a chaise longue with orange slices over their eyes.

The Sun-Sentinel

[Wild Style]

i have to disagree with one thing said, that is the upward population trend. In a piece done on npr.org and another article on miami herald both have said the number of people leaving south florida each year far out pace the numbers coming in. the npr.org piece quoted a city official who quoted some study they (the city of miami) conducted. The information the miami official quoted not only spoke for dade county but for broward and palm beach as well.

[Julez]

Well Miami was the fastest growing city in the state from 2005 to 2006 and its been steadily growing the last couple of years, the counties as whole are also still growing in population, but there are cities like Hialeah and Pembroke Pines that are losing population but at the same time you have Homestead which was the fastest growing city in the country of its size, so I think its more of a leveling out, more people are moving to the core and some are leaving congested cities(Hialeah, Pembroke Pines) and moving to cities like Homestead (sprawl ) . Threres definetly people leaving but the population is still growing and people will never stop moving here be it from New York, south america ,europe or just about any other place. But to get into the topic about growing and how to grow, there are surely some nuts that would love to expand the UDB and expand our roadways to gobble up traffic, but there are also some people with some sense and hopefully wont allow the expansion of the line and start doing something about Public Transportation which sucks as a whole in ALL of Florida!

[tombarnes]

It's funny to imagine a housing slump when one sees construction cranes in so many places. The ready answer is that the cranes belong to projects conceived in the midst of the housing boom that are going forward anyway. People are moving around, but as you say, it seems to be more of a shift than an exodus at this point. Fort Lauderdale (and So. Florida in general) can't always count upon legions of snowbirds to fill its gleaming condo palaces, but they still seem to stream inward. There are a number of high-profile projects in Broward County which haven't broken ground yet and may never see the light of day, but for all of those, I still see more being brought forward in discussion. Whether the current housing slump will be semi-permanent is debatable, though I feel that a correction is due.

As we have noted before, transportation, better jobs (jobs which pay more than $10 and hour would be a start) and new thinking are in order. Broward County doesn't seem to be ready for this. Is Dade? I'll confess that I know little about the leadership of Palm Beach County. If anyone could fill me in, I'd love to learn more.

[Wild Style]

this is from a article on the miami herald

There are always people moving in and out of South Florida, which overall continues to grow. But in the last year - too recent to appear on radars like federal Census data - experts are seeing powerful anecdotal evidence of an outbound migration trend.

[Julez]

Well I was talking about the Census figures that came out two months ago and Miami was in fact the fastest growing city in the state over one year and Homestead the fastest growing city of its size in the country. Miramar I believe actually lost a small amount of its population. And again im not denying that people are leaving South Florida its a fact that I think we all know.

And about transportation, I think outside of Dade no other county is thinking right about transportation and infrastructure. Dade already has Metro-Rail it being god awful and the people mover and the busways and everything its still trying to extend. The MIC is already under construction which will connect the rest of the system to the airport for once! The northern extension of the system also has federal funding already but its really taking a long time. The east-west line, kendall line, and baylink are also in planning and trying to get federal funding as well. Miami also has the streetcar system which will most likely be a sure thing in the next couple of years. broward had a small stinch with an east-west line but that quickly died. Palm Beach also had a small tiny stich of an idea about a rail line but that was just a thought of the local media but absoulutely nothing happened with that!

Tri-Rail is also planning on expanding more north and south and is already the third fastest growing rail systems in the country.

But South Florida really needed more transportation and infrastructure ten years ago and needs it now more than ever since nothing was done in virtually 20 years except for expansions of expressways and widening of roads and we all know how well that worked out.

[Wild Style]

Juelz

to be fair Broward tried to pass that penny tax to start building out a system and the populace shot that down with both barrels. How does Miami getting the funding besides federal funds to build out these projects? What ever they are doing the lames in Broward need to follow suit.

How much coverage will the dade train system have? You know I truly believe the federal govt should make it mandatory for all metro areas to have a train system. I think they should provide some funding and I think they should take the civil engineers from NYC who help to build out NYC's train system. They should then go from metro area to metro area across the states and assist them in building out stellar systems that suit their environment.

[Julez]

^^^Thats what I meant by stinch since it ws quickly killed.

[Wild Style]

Great read from Miami Herald. Two analyst speak their minds on what they think is going to happen in the long term with the housing market down here

link 1

link 2

[tombarnes]

I think that both of them have valid points. My instinct tells me that Cannon may be more on the mark with his feeling that international money may save the market here from total failure. Prices have been absurd, but they are readjusting to more realistic levels. If the builders will slow down a bit, the market may be able to readjust without catastrophe. That said, there must be a slowing of the current pace of building before the existing and potential markets have a chance to absorb the high levels of new inventory. I think the remark about the baby boomers is an interesting point to note. We are still a few years away from the possible effects of the retirement of said generation, but it will commence sooner rather than later. Florida had best be prepared before it overbuilds again in another speculative wave. Let it be said again that there is no shortage of money in South Florida.

[tombarnes]

Mixed-Use Projects Seeing Delays

The current housing market is dictating the delay or canecellation of a number of mixed-use projects from Plantation to Davie and throughout South Florida in general. While I heartily approve of the idea of such projects, their viability is clearly an issue which now needs to be evaluated more carefully. The idea that these projects limit, rather than promote, sprawl is also one to be questioned with intensity. What are everyone's thoughts about the validity of, say, a Downtown Davie or similar projects. Would it not be better, in some respects, to concentrate efforts upon the existing downtowns- everywhere from Palm Beach through Hollywood and down, than to build "fake downtowns" which are merely centerpieces for housing tracts? Thoughts?

The Sun-Sentinel