Fortune magazine says South Florida home prices could drop another 30% in 2010

Fortune magazine says South Florida home prices could drop another 30% in 2010

In a recent article released in their December 2009 issue, Forbes Magazine and Economy.com both say that home prices in South Florida (especially Palm Beach and Broward Counties) could drop by as much as 30% from current values for 2010.

Forbes Magazine recently released their 2010 housing outlook, and quite honestly this could come as a big punch in the gut for many people who believe the markets are improving and are often heard saying that ”prices will come back” and this is big cause for concern to many of the Realtors and Mortgage Professionals that we speak to on a daily basis.

The magazine article quotes Mark Zandi from Moody’s Economy.com and he says that “foreclosures will continue to play a major role in the downturn” and that “prices will fall by another 5 or 10 percent nationally but by as much as 33% in Miami.  The report from Moody’s continues to say that we should expect prices to fall by anohter24% in Palm Beach County and 30% in Broward County.

In my opinion these continued falls in value will not only be as a result of the foreclosures that are yet to come but also as a result of the many homes that have been foreclosed and taken back by the lenders which the lenders have still yet to release to market.  Many of my sources further report that several major banks are actually “sitting on” properties that they have taken back in foreclosure in an effort to temper the markets.

So for now we need to wait and see . . . but based on this information I do not expect the worst is behind us here in South Florida.

Joe Sloboda