South Florida home prices, consumer confidence edge u

South Florida home prices and consumer confidence have inched up, but clouds still loom.


BY JIM WYSS
jwyss@miamiherald.com

Florida's consumer confidence and home prices both inched up for the first time in months, amid signs that the real estate market is stabilizing and hopes that the worst of the recession may be behind us.
Home prices in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area rose by 0.5 percent from May to June, their first month-to-month increase since December 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, which doesn't include condo sales. Compared to last June, however, prices were still down by 23 percent.
In addition, Florida's Consumer Confidence Index, which measures the way households feel about the economy and their personal finances, rose from 67 to 70 between July and August, according to the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida.
``There has been an improvement, but it's relatively low,'' said Chris McCarty, the survey director.
For more than a year, the index has been bouncing between the high 60s and low 70s and will likely stay in the doldrums, he said.
``I think we are stuck here until we see a clear indication of recovery,'' McCarty said.
The survey is important because consumers account for about two-thirds of all spending, and their confidence levels are often an accurate predictor of retail sales. Unlike unemployment and sales figures, which can lag behind a month or more, the consumer confidence data was collected in August and is considered a more nearly accurate snapshot of current conditions.
Nationally, there are signs that the real estate market may be bottoming out.
Home prices rose for the second consecutive month in June, posting a 1.4 percent increase, following a 0.5 percent rise in May. While values suffered compared to a year ago, they also rose by 2.9 percent between the first and second quarter -- the first quarterly increase in three years.
The Miami-Fort Lauderdale market was among 18 of 20 major metropolitan areas seeing a month-to-month recovery.

HOME SALES UP
The figures come less than a week after the Florida Association of Realtors released a report showing existing home sales in Miami-Dade and Broward counties were up double-digit percentages compared to a year ago.
Those figures, however, also showed median single-family home prices in Miami-Dade and Broward were down by more than 40 percent from a year ago, although since the beginning of the year prices appeared to be bouncing along a rough bottom.