Despite Strong Price Gains, South Florida Home Values Fall Short Of Peak Levels

Several counties in the Miami market are still reeling from the housing bubble.

The Sun Sentinel reports that median property values in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties are all at least $55,000 short of their peak values last decade. Trulia recently found that less than 3 percent of homes in Broward County have reached their pre-recession peaks, and that the county is one of the 10 metros nationwide with the lowest levels of home value recovery.

Easy credit and fast-rising prices fueled a housing boom in South Florida between 2000 and 2005, but the market collapsed late in the decade and reached rock bottom in 2011.

“It may come as a shock that so few homes have recovered in South Florida because prices have risen strongly since the end of the recession,” said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for Trulia. “On the other hand, South Florida was one of the epicenters of the housing bubble. Prices fell so far that it’s going to take a while to recover.”

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