Did Florida home prices REALLY drop 40% this year? (Reality Check)

Photo above - good for parts! (if you act fast). Cars on the North Shore of Oahu can rust to pieces before your loan is paid off. Now the same thing is happening to high rise buildings in Miami. Prices are falling.

Everyone wants lower home prices, right? Well maybe not if you already own a home, and are trying to sell. Especially if your mortgage loan still has a big balance. According to the link below (London Daily Mail) Florida condos have dropped 40% in price. The reporter is some UK guy named “Miles Dilworth” (his real name, not a joke). Miles lives in New York City, not Florida. But that doesn’t automatically make Miles one of the 88% of journalists which opinion polls show are NOT trusted by people.

However, unlike “Miles”, I actually DO live in Florida. And I can tell you that there are some condos listed near me (greater Tampa area) but they’re NOT on sale at 40% off. I suspect the big price drops are happening in places like Miami. Or moving up the coast, other geezer-attractant cities like Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

The problem isn’t global warming – yet. It’s decades of mismanagement of condos by their owners associations. These units are largely occupied by geezers (and investors) who assumed they would die (or sell the unit) sooner rather than later, so they NEVER voted to increase their condo fees for proper maintenance. Hence, a crisis related to breezy salt air. Steel girders and concrete pilings are rotting away. It will cost millions to fix these problems. In some cases the damage is too far gone to be fixed.

Additionally, the insurance industry says it has been underpricing disaster insurance. Hurricanes and flooding. Ignore the fact that there’s no spike in hurricanes, and the peak was evidently a century ago. The insurers are probably still right. Their rates aren’t high enough to cover the cost when these towers in the sand start to topple over.

There’s not much chatter about gulf cities like Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota. But we have plenty of salty air driven by the breeze too. Condo prices aren’t down 40% yet, but when the insurance and condo fees keep rising, who knows?

If you’re smirking because you DON’T live in Florida, please stop. California, I’m looking at you. You also have rust and concrete erosion. Not to mention earthquakes, brushfires (some by arson) and cliffside homes simply falling into the sea. California auto insurance rates went up 30% over the past 12 months. A similar hike is expected next year. Insurers are fleeing the state because they don’t get along with the state regulators. When auto insurers flee, they usually shutter their property-casualty divisions as well. Fewer insurers means less competition which means higher insurance premiums. That old supply/demand equation again, dammit !! Perhaps socialism can fix this? (Just kidding.)

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but eventually Florida WILL sink beneath the waves, like it was 23 million years ago. That’s why nobody ever finds dinosaur fossils in Florida, except possibly in a gift shop. Planet Earth normally doesn’t have polar ice caps and glaciers. When there's no ice and snow places like Florida are submerged. Those ice caps started melting 20,000 years ago and will continue to do so whether you dive a Tesla or a Toyota. Nothing can stop it.

But that’s NOT a reason to sell your Florida condo. Instead, sell it because of salt air corrosion. This is a self-inflicted wound by geezers who won't vote for condo maintenance, or school taxes, or any other kind of taxes. They think it's 1930.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

~Florida hit by 'worst real estate crisis in decades' (msn.com)~