A home in Valencia Cove

A Boynton Beach residential developer sold 73 homes pre-construction in two hours as buyers compete over a shrinking inventory, the Palm Beach Post reported.

GL Homes sold $35 million in homes, ranging from $300,000 to $600,000, on its new Valencia Cove development lottery-style. [more]

Brad Hunter

As South Florida’s housing inventory shrinks, so does its vacant land, fueling a bidding war among builders and a rapid rise in construction costs and home prices, surveyor Metrostudy’s chief economist, Brad Hunter, said in an interview in the Sun-Sentinel.

“A complete transformation has occurred. Two years ago, buyers were holding back because prices were still falling, and now there is urgency to buy,” Hunter reportedly said. [more]

Housing starts in Broward County rose 67 percent in the first quarter, compared to the same period in 2011, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. There were a total of 257 housing starts in the first three months of this year, according to data from research firm Metrostudy. In Palm Beach, housing starts jumped by 22 percent in the same period. The firm said South Florida’s home starts reached the bottom three years ago. Despite the significant increases, new home activity is well below the peak years in the mid 2000s, however. [Sun Sentinel]

A Toll Brothers home in Jupiter

Construction of new homes in Palm Beach County could rise up to 20 percent this year, the Sun Sentinel reported. That number, which comes from research firm Metrostudy, would mark an increase over the 949 homes started in 2011. “People are more optimistic and ready to buy,” said Brad Hunter, the South Florida director at Metrostudy. [more]

Housing starts in the tri-county area have risen in each of the last three quarters, with home construction across the region beginning to show signs of life, according to a report from Metrostudy. “This is a bullish indicator on housing demand, since it shows that builders have the confidence once again to sell from plans and to build spec homes,” said Brad Hunter, South Florida director for Metrostudy. There were a total of 940 home starts in the third quarter in South Florida. [Sun Sentinel] [more]

South Florida’s housing market showed improved starts, finished vacant inventories and slower move-ins in the second quarter of 2011, according to a report from Metrostudy. The company’s data, which looks at six counties in Florida, showed single-family starts in South Florida rising to 772 in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2010, and an improvement from 736 in the first quarter. Palm Beach County saw the most housing starts in the tri-county area, with 297 in the second quarter. [SFBJ]
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USB Securities’ Maury Harris and HIS Global Insight’s Patrick Newport predict that between 750,000 and 1 million new households will be created in 2011, up from just 357,000 in the year ended March 2010. Last year was the lowest on record, according to Bloomberg News.

Young adults are starting to leave parental homes at the fastest rate since 2007, spurring consumption, boosting U.S. housing starts and off-setting an inventory of vacant properties. This is perhaps due to a backlog of young people who’ve been waiting for the economy to pick up before moving out. The Census Bureau reports that U.S. household formation in the three years ending March 2010 was 2.3 million short of the long term average. [more]

Builder GL Homes has opened a $7 million clubhouse at its Valencia Reserve development west of Boynton Beach, although it has sold less than half of the homes there in the past two years. Around 600 people came to celebrate the clubhouse’s opening, along with GL founder Itchko Ezratti. The move to complete the clubhouse is likely one of reassurance, said Brad Hunter, head of research firm Metrostudy’s South Florida office. “Consumers want to be reassured that amenities that were promised will actually materialize,” Hunter said.

New home absorption showed a slight increase in the third quarter, but
demand is still soft due to the struggling economy, according to a
report by Metrostudy. Brad Hunter, chief economist of Metrostudy in
South Florida, said low demand, combined with unemployment, have worked
as a brake on the residential market. The data in the report includes
counties from Miami-Dade north to Indian River. In Miami-Dade County,
single-family home starts fell to 78 in the third quarter from 133 in
the second quarter. [SFBJ]

[more]

While home construction is still down, Cooper City’s large new Monterra
development in Broward County helped boost the county’s home starts in
the third quarter. The number of Broward home starts rose to 265 from
198 in the second quarter, and up even more from the 147 home starts in
the third quarter of 2009, according to Palm Beach Gardens-based
Metrostudy. Palm Beach County did not fare as well, with a drop in home starts to 248 in the third quarter from 278 in the second quarter. Last year in the third
quarter, the county had 294 home starts. [Sun
Sentinel]

[more]