The largest portion of the current southern Florida housing market continues to be distressed sales. Sales of homes under duress, such as short sales or foreclosures have long been blamed for low housing prices. With so few buyers on the market, it is difficult for homeowners to compete with the discounted prices offered by banks trying to off load seized properties or homeowners selling their home blow value in a short sale. This makes it nearly impossible to sell new homes at a profit, or for homeowners to sell their current properties without losing considerable money. While the number of houses sold are slowly started to rise, prices do not. The average coastal area home in Miami Dade area is down nearly 15 percent. Local real estate brokers insist focusing on the area as a whole does not give an accurate picture. By removing Broward county and lower income areas, which continue to suffer from high foreclosure rates, real estate experts say that the overall housing market in southern Florida is much healthier than it appears. In coastal areas such as Key Biscayne, housing prices are going up, not by much but they are recovering. Experts are hoping that localized recovery is a indication that the market in Miami is recovering, even if it is just a bit.

Other experts suggest looking at such localized numbers is a bad idea and could give the false sense of recovery to an area that is still in very bad shape. These real estate experts insist that the over all housing market is very intertwined and ignoring distressed sales close by is a huge mistake. These critics suggest that real estate agents are choosing to look at very limited data in an effort to create a false sense of security in buyers and pad their own bottom line.

Distressed sales, which include homes sold at discounted prices such as foreclosures and short sales, are still on the rise in southern Florida. They increased a full ten percent from 55 percent last to nearly 65 percent this year. Most experts believe that until distressed sales are under ten percent, the housing market will not be able to completely recover.

As real estate experts continue to argue over when and how the housing market will recover, most Americans are more worried about making their monthly mortgage payments and keep a roof over their heads. If you are experiencing difficulties making your payments each month, you need to contact a Miami foreclosure lawyer as soon as possible. Hiring Miami foreclosure lawyer does not necessarily mean you will lose your home, in fact there are several other options you need to consider before foreclosure. A Miami foreclosure lawyer can help you figure out if you are eligible for options such as refinancing, loan modification, short sale or deed-in-lieu. Before giving up on your dream home, contact a Miami foreclosure lawyer.

Links:

A report focusing on Miami-Dade coastal cities found that sale prices of non-distressed properties were flat from a year ago. By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, May 4th 2011