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Across South Florida, home sellers are making money when they sell their properties — but those profits are shrinking.
In the third quarter, sellers in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties saw the pure profits on a median sale fall, year-over-year, according to an analysis by The Real Deal of ZIP-code-level home sale data from Attom. (Attom’s data included ZIP codes with at least 10 transactions in the quarter and compared the median of homes sold in a quarter to the median of those same homes’ prior sales. It’s not known when those prior sales occurred and each quarter comprises different deals.)
Profits fell the most in Palm Beach County, by 18 percent. In Broward, profits plunged by 12.5 percent, and in Miami-Dade, by 6.4 percent. However, the counties’ typical profit margins — about 64 percent for Palm Beach, 71 percent for Broward and almost 79 percent for Miami-Dade — are well above the national norm of about 50 percent, as the region has long been a magnet for buyers, particularly high-end buyers from around the globe.
Brokers in the area have said the market is in a tough place of late, with high demand for ultra-high-end homes, but not so much for lower priced homes. Pressures from economic uncertainty, affordability concerns and aging condos also haven’t helped.
All of South Florida’s 177 ZIP codes recorded gains for home sellers in the third quarter. The best-performing neighborhood was 33160, along the ocean in North Miami Beach. The median home sale notched profits of 245 percent in the third quarter, up 565 percent, year-over-year.
In Broward County, the ZIP code that yielded the highest returns for sellers was 33065, which covers Coral Springs and Pompano Beach. Sellers of a median home netted about 108 percent returns, a nearly 46 percent increase compared to the same time last year.
In Palm Beach County, the 33480 ZIP code — which covers Palm Beach — yielded a return on the median sale of 174 percent, the highest in that county, but a 5.5 percent drop from last year.
The ZIP code with the worst-performing return on the median sale across the three counties was 33167, which covers North Miami, Westview, Golden Glades and Pinewood in Miami. That area saw a typical profit margin of about 16 percent in the third quarter, down about 69 percent, year-over-year.