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Some experts question if the growth is sustainable.
“The big question is, how long is it going to last?” said McCabe, the Broward-based housing analyst. “There are some people who believe that we may see these price increases for the next three to five years – and then interest rates are going to sky rocket, the hedge funds will start selling off their acquisitions, and we may have something similar to last decades. This could be the start of another bubble.”
City officials, however, are focused on another start: the official start of the budget season.
Miami saw its property values jump 4.1 percent to $32.6 billion from $31.3 billion. That’s a little bit more than city budget managers were expecting.
In Homestead, property values dipped to $1.795 billion from $1.8 billion, disappointing City Manager George Gretsas.
“To tell you the truth, I think most people thought it would increase,” Gretsas said. “We were hoping for a slight bump.”
He added: “It is what it is. We’ll just have to keep tightening our belts until we weather the storm.”
Gimenez, the Miami-Dade County mayor, said he believed the countywide figure had gone up in the past five months. The estimate was based on January figures.
“We think next year will probably be a better year,” he said. “But for now, we have to work with what we’ve got.”
Earlier in the week, Lopez-Cantera posted the assessed values for individual properties to the property appraiser’s website.
Historically, the information wasn’t available until August. Lopez-Cantera made the change to make it easier for residents to contest assessments, he said.
Miami Herald staff writers Patricia Borns, Howard Cohen, Patricia Mazzei and Jonathan Simmons contributed to this report.
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