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N MIAMI CONDO NEWS — All About Condo Living in the Magic City — Edited by Heinz Dinter, PhD |
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Miami-Dade in top five for adding new construction August 22, 2006 • New Census figures show Miami-Dade County was fifth in the nation for the number of new housing units added in a 12-month period. The building boom has landed Miami-Dade County on the list of top five counties in the nation for adding the most new housing units, according to estimates released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005, Miami-Dade added more than 20,000 units, jumping from 10 on the national list to five. It’s an unprecedented boom, bigger than any single-year total of new units added in the past 25 years, records show. In the boom of the early 1980s, the county produced about 17,000 units a year, at the most. But even with that spike in construction, many in Miami-Dade are still having a hard time finding affordable homes to buy in a housing crunch that government officials and activists are calling a crisis. “Figures show that 28 percent of new construction nationally was bought by speculators in 2005,” said Lewis Goodkin, a Miami-based real estate analyst. “The top three markets for speculative condo sales were South Florida, Las Vegas and San Diego. That’s caused prices to spiral, and many find themselves priced out.” The Census estimates do not break down the total units by single-family homes, condos and apartments. In Broward, about two-thirds of new construction was single-family homes and town houses in the early part of the decade, the rest being garden apartments and high-rises. Miami-Dade County could not provide a similar breakdown. But Goodkin said the trend in recent years has seen much more construction in the high-end luxury housing market. Biscayne Boulevard north from downtown has become a construction zone, with gleaming towers of $400,000 and $500,000 condos rising above the bay. In Fort Lauderdale, luxury towers have risen in downtown Fort Lauderdale. And the neighborhoods that ring downtown, such as Victoria Park, have seen modest homes torn down and replaced by $400,000 and up townhomes and McMansions that sell for $400,000 and up. Broward County, which has dwindling stores of vacant land, added about 8,000 units from July 2004 to July 2005. That’s down from almost 14,000 in 2000. It placed 35th nationally among counties after ranking as high as 15th earlier in the decade. Florida added more new units than any other state, according to the Census. A lot of that new housing in Miami-Dade and Broward is out of the reach of the majority of people, Goodkin said. “It’s even more difficult here because the job growth in South Florida has been overwhelmingly in lower-income positions,” he said. He and others believe the region must begin to provide housing that the workforce can afford. “Providing that affordable housing is the No. 1 challenge for us to face,” said Michael Y. Cannon, a real estate analyst. “If we don’t address it, our economy is going to get hurt.” Options such as living in Homestead or other places farther out from the work centers, where new homes have been priced lower even during the boom, is becoming less desirable because of the climbing cost of commuting, he said. The Census estimates housing units using building permits, assuming that permits issued the previous year will result in housing units. Changes in housing are then used to estimate population. Such estimates are prone to error if builders get permits but decide not to build, which could result in an inflated estimates, or if municipalities fail to report building permits to the federal government, which results in undercounting. Earlier this year, fast-growing areas of Miami-Dade, such as Doral, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes and Sunny Isles Beach, complained that their populations were underestimated by the Census because of insufficient information about building. About 10,000 new housing units were missed, most likely because of faulty reporting, the county concluded. Cannon questions the numbers, but he agrees there is no disputing the South Florida building boom. Or the need to address workforce housing. “The three-bedroom house with the pool for $175,000 that people remember their parents buying here is no longer available. It’s selling for $300,000 now,” he said. “We have to address building affordable housing close to where people work.” Goodkin said home buyers are going to have to get used to owning garden apartment units, like they do in other large metropolitan cities. And developers are going to have to switch gears from building luxury condos to building affordable apartments. The market may begin to correct itself, analysts say. People keep moving to South Florida, and so demand for new construction will continue to be there. But the high-end market is slowing down and the middle-income market is underserved. “Hopefully what you will see is the developers adjust and start to build more affordable projects as the market slows down,” said Cannon. Source: www.MiamiHerald.com
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