Expert: Florida Housing To Bottom By Mid-2010

National real estate consultant Jack McCabe, one of the first analysts to predict South Florida’s housing bubble and bust, projects that the Florida housing market is within a year of hitting bottom.

McCabe, president and chief executive of McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Fla., estimates residential values are within 15 percent of their lowest levels, and he expects the remaining price drop to occur in the next four quarters.

“I think 2009 is going to be the toughest year of this downturn for the state of Florida,” McCabe said in an exclusive video interview with CondoVultures.com. “I really see next year – about mid-2010 – that, I think, we are finally going to reach the bottom, or what everybody has been calling the bottom.”

The hour-long McCabe video interview where he discusses Florida’s past, present, and future with Peter Zalewski, a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based real estate consultancy Condo Vultures®, is available in its entirety in the White Papers section of CondoVultures.com.McCabe disagrees with some on Wall Street that Florida residential pricing will still fall an additional 35 percent in the upcoming months.

“I don’t think it is going to be that severe,” McCabe said. “I think the worst is behind us, but I still believe we have another 10 to 15 percent drop because of the unemployment and the foreclosures depressing prices, and the amount of inventory we have yet to absorb.”

The bottom may be within McCabe’s sight but he doesn’t expect Florida prices to appreciate in the foreseeable future.

“I don’t think it is going to be a V-shape recovery,” McCabe said. “I think this is going to be more like an L shape [recovery]. We are going to see prices remain along that bottom potentially into 2012 before we see any type of appreciation at all. “When we do, it is going to be more in line with historical trends of about six percent [appreciation] a year. We have a ways to go yet.”

Peter Zalewski of Condo Vultures® can be reached at 800-750-0517 or by email at peter@condovultures.com Don't forget to sign up for our weekly Market Intelligence Report™ for detailed condo reports. Looking for a property at a deep discount? You are encouraged to take a peek at the Vultures Database™. Our new books, the Official Condo Buyers Guide to Miami™ and Miami's Great Condo Crash: A Chronicle of the Boom and Bust™ are now available. Want to see every foreclosure filed in South Florida since 2007? Check out our Foreclosure Database™.

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