South Florida home prices continue slow growth
The good news: Home prices in South Florida are still going up.
The better news: The price jumps are slowing down.
That means the region’s middle and working class — which has been locked out of the housing boom as prices soar above wages— may see more affordable homes on the market in the next few years.
Home prices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties rose .4 percent in July compared to the previous month and were up 7.3 percent from July 2014, according to the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which were released Tuesday.
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When the local housing market was at its hottest in 2013 as it made up ground lost during the recession, prices jumped 2 percent per month and more. The gains have since slowed, in part because a strong dollar and plummeting currencies abroad have hurt the foreign buyers who drove the boom.
Cash home sales — a good proxy measure of foreign buyers — have fallen consistently since economies in Latin America, Europe and Asia ran into trouble.
The percentage of home sales in Miami-Dade that were cash sales dropped to 53.5 percent in June, down from 57.9 percent in June 2015, according to a separate report also released Tuesday by property analytics firm CoreLogic.
Annual home price growth in major U.S. metro areas
San Francisco - 10.4 percent
Denver - 10.3 percent
Dallas - 8.7 percent
Portland, Oregon - 8.5 percent
Miami - 7.3 percent
Seattle - 7.3 percent
Las Vegas - 6.3 percent
Los Angeles - 6.1 percent
Atlanta - 5.8 percent
Tampa - 5.5 percent
Source: S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 2:05 PM with the headline "South Florida home prices continue slow growth."