In July, Miami felt afterglow of June’s home sales record

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)

Miami’s residential market reported a surge in home sales during July, nearly breaking the record it had set only a month earlier.

Miami-Dade County saw a total of 1,354 single-family homes sold last month, missing June’s historic record by only 36 transactions. The residential market in June posted a 10-year record of 1,390 home sales, an amount that eclipsed the previous record in 2005 by 80 homes.

A report from the Miami Association of Realtors released on Thursday shows that home sales in the county grew in July by 10.2 percent, compared to the same month last year.

Prices for both sections of the market also continued their upward trend. The median price of a single-family home grew 8.6 percent in July, year-over-year, from $255,950 to $278,000. Condos saw a smaller 2.6 percent gain in median prices, increasing to $195,000 from $190,000.

Chris Zoller

Chris Zoller, the Miami Association of Realtor’s 2015 residential president of Miami

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The association said last month that the county’s residential market is on track to break its annual record of 13,521 home sales, which it set last year.

“A global city with the second-largest financial hub in the country, Miami continues to draw increased demand from international and domestic home buyers,” Christopher Zoller, the association’s 2015 residential president of Miami, wrote in the report. “South Florida’s improving job market and historic low mortgage rates are encouraging more end-users to buy property here.”

On the condo side of the market, sales activity for existing units grew 4.8 percent year-over-year. July saw a total of 1,471 condos sold, compared to 1,403 last year.

The report noted that despite this increase in sales, mortgage loans for condos remain hard to come by. Federal Housing Authority mortgages in particular are scarce, as the association said only 29 of Broward and Miami-Dade County’s combined 8,523 condo complexes have approval for such loans.