Distressed sales pummel SF home prices, especially in Palm Beach County

Thanks to downward pressure from the glut of foreclosed properties, home prices declined in South Florida in November, according to a home price report released today by CoreLogic, with Palm Beach County faring the worst.

Home prices in Palm Beach County fell 10 percent from November 2010 when factoring in distressed sales. The county’s prices remained the same when sales of distressed properties were excluded from the equation.

Over the same period, Broward County prices dropped 1.7 percent, and were about equal to last year’s level without distressed sales. Miami-Dade prices stumbled one-half of a percentage point, but without taking distressed sales into account they actually gained 6.4 percent, which confirms numerous anecdotal reports of the market’s strength. Nationally, prices decreased 4.3 percent with distressed sales and 0.6 percent without them.

“With one month of data left to report, it appears that the healthy, non-distressed market will be very modestly down in 2011. Distressed sales continue to put downward pressure on prices and is a factor that must be addressed in 2012 for a housing recovery to become a reality,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

Florida as a whole outperformed the country, as home prices fell just 3.7 percent year-over-year, and 0.7 percent excluding distressed sales. – Adam Fusfeld