The Single Family Home market in December

_Quiet December wasn't so quiet after all, it turns out.

Real Estate newsletters bombard you with news about skyrocketing condo sales in Miami (who's buying?) but the market for houses was also rather lively for this time of the year. Too bad that my tools don't allow a seller origin analysis.

All the activity didn't translate into price changes though: listing as well as selling prices didn't move m-o-m, while y-o-y there was a 10 percent dent to be observed.

In the same time though, inventory dropped a hefty 24% (I added y-o-y changes behind the m-o-m changes to mix things up a bit for you). Again, supply and demand rules seem not to be applicable right now:

• Houses for sale: 19,784 (-1.2% / -24.4%)
• Inventory: 6.5 (-6.4% / -30.4%)
• Median list price: $303,800 (0.5% / -3.0%)
• Med. list price per sf: $143 (99.8% / -10.4%)
• Houses sold last mo: 3,065 (4.8% / 4.4%)
• Med. selling price: $196,000 (0% / -10.9%)
• Med. selling price per sf: $99 (0% / -10.5%)

_Table: single family home data per month’s end for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade (Florida) counties. Changes are month-over-month / year-over-year.
Chart: Single family home data Jan 2011 to Dec 2011. Red: median list price, green: median selling price, blue: inventory in months. – Data compiled from SEF-MLS

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