Growth slows for Miami home prices: report

A bird's-eye view of North Beach, taken from the Akoya Condominiums in 2008 (Credit: Marc Averette)
A bird's-eye view of North Beach, taken from the Akoya Condominiums in 2008 (Credit: Marc Averette)

Growth for Miami’s home prices slowed again during January, a newly released report shows, as the region’s housing market continues cooling.

Prices for a home in the Miami metropolitan area appreciated by 6.8 percent year-over-year, but grew only by 0.4 percent from December, according to the monthly S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

That means Miami saw the eighth-most growth compared to all other major U.S. cities — a far cry from its days of double-digit appreciation back in 2013 and 2014. Though prices have steadily grown over the last year, the rate has also steadily slowed by a fraction of a percent each month.

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Several factors are putting downward pressure on the local housing market: a strong U.S. dollar and weak foreign economies have shrunken the pool of Latin American buyers. Rising home prices have helped flush lender-owned properties from the market, which in turn slowed the pace of home sales. And a glut of new inventory, especially for condos, has created a discrepancy in asking prices and closing prices.

Nationally, prices grew by 5.4 percent year-over-year in January. Portland, Oregon, reported the highest appreciation with 11.8 percent growth year-over-year, followed by Seattle, Washington, with 10.7 percent, San Francisco, California with 10.5 percent and Denver, Colorado with 10.2 percent.