30% Appreciation in South Florida Real Estate in Five Years

That is the prediction from Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors. Speaking at the 2008 Real Estate Congress & Expo in Coral Gables, Yun said

''Looking out five years from now, the Miami region is in a position to gain strongly among some of the wealthy baby boomers in the United States who are retiring."

He also commented that there is a pent up buyer demand, particularly from foreign investors, and that our region has started to stabilize. The Miami Herald published an in-depth article that I highly recommend. What I found interesting, though, were the negative comments to the article and to Lawrence Yun's forecast.

In March of this year, I attended a seminar given by Dr. Henry Fishkind. Dr. Fishkind is a well respected Florida economist who served on Governor's Bush's Council of Economic Advisors from 2001 - 2003. He too spoke about pent up buyer demand and many of the same positive indicators as Lawrence Yun. Dr. Fishkind also predicts that 2008 is the year our real estate market will bottom out. Population growth (yes, we are still growing) and other factors will deplete housing inventory over the next few years, and we will again see home values appreciating.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that what goes down will come back up. During the boom years, I shook my head in puzzlement at the prevelant attitude that the housing appreciation was endless. Today, it appears that the same people seem to believe the depreciation will last forever, too. It won't.

I do not think that we are out of the storm just yet. Forecosure filings increased again in May. Inventory is still high. That pent up buyer demand that both economists spoke of hasn't yet flooded the market. But it will happen. The sun really will come up tomorrow.