The South Florida Housing Market in February

_"Use your mentality, wake up to reality..."

Lyrics from Cole Porter's famous "I've got you under my skin", written in 1936, came to my mind this month. I admit that I have Nicole Henry's lovely version of that song constantly in my ears and on iTunes. To me, uptempo–and perhaps the great American Songbook–just seems to be her forte.

So, is Nicole singing to or even for home buyers? 

I doubt it. But the February numbers for single family homes (condos, coops and townhouses not included) should get prospective buyers thinking of Cole Porter.

In essence, more or less stable asking prices and (year-over-year) slightly soft selling prices created a very very active market in February–with dramatically falling inventory (may I say "dramatically" when it's 50 percent or more?) and a hefty spike in the number of sold houses.

As always, the table is accompanied by a lovely graphic:

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Coming back to Nicole Henry and her Cole Porter interpretation: time for buyers to wake up. True, not every buyer is flexible in his or her plans, but those who are should get off the benches. Now.

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Table: Single family home data per month’s end for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade (Florida) counties. Chart: Single family home data Mar 2011 to Feb 2012. Red: median list price, green: median selling price, blue: inventory in months. – Data compiled from SEF-MLS. Also published at http://www.TheModernistAngle.com._

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