Florida’s Recent Housing Success? Thank Baby Boomers

The HDI Market Report provides insights into housing price trends and other leading indices for the real estate market at the national and local levels.

NEW YORK – June 7, 2016 – Clear Capital's Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report releases recent and granular data each month. The HDI Market Report provides insights into housing price trends and other leading indices for the real estate market at the national and local levels.

Florida's markets continue to recover from the devastating lows of the housing market crash, and an increase in baby boomers provides key insight into the market's future, according to Clear Capital.

Survey results

• Regionally, the West continues to dominate quarterly growth as it hovers around a 1.1 percent quarter-over-quarter price increase, though that's a downtick of 0.1 percent from last month. Growth rates in the South remain unchanged at 0.7 percent quarter-to-quarter growth, while Northeast and Midwest regional growth continues to lag behind the rest of the nation at 0.1 percent.
• Nationally, quarterly market performance remains fixed at 0.6 percent with no change month-to-month.
• The Seattle and Tampa MSAs tied for the top spot on the Highest Performing Major Metro Markets for June, each reporting a quarter-to-quarter price increase of 2.0 percent.
• Tampa isn't the only Sunshine State metro area to make the high-performers list. It also includes Orlando(1.7 percent quarterly price growth), Jacksonville (1.7 percent quarterly price growth), and Miami (1.4 percent quarterly price growth).

The most recent quarterly growth figures for the Floridian markets fit into a longer-term pattern of growth and recovery for the state, according to Clear Capital, and each major MSA has "experienced incredible gains since the market lows of 2011, recovering at least 30 percent or more of the individual market value."

Jacksonville and Orlando home prices have increased 33 percent and 44 percent respectively; Tampa and Miami home prices have skyrocketed by almost 56 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

The baby boomer influence

Clear Capital compared Census Bureau data on baby boomer moves to the price increase from its index, calling the growth in both an "interesting phenomenon that may be contributing to the stellar price growth in the region."

The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that this segment of the market – homeowners aged 55 to 74 – has increased more than 2.5X the overall population of homeowners in each of the top four Florida markets since 2011. In Miami and Jacksonville, the increase in homeowners of this generation is more than 500 percent greater than the overall increase in the total population of homeowners.

"It's evident that the baby boomer demand for housing in the (price growth metro areas) is a significant contributing factor in the market's overall success," the report concludes. "In Orlando, the trend is quite similar as the ratio of baby boomer homeownership growth to overall homeownership growth is over 400 percent."

"Florida has traditionally been regarded as prime real estate by those retirees who may be looking to migrate from colder areas of the nation such as the Northeast to a warmer and sunnier alternative for their golden years," says Alex Villacorta, Ph.D., vice president of research and analytics at Clear Capital.

"As the top Floridian housing markets continue to grow and return impressive price gains – Tampa is currently reporting 12.2 percent annual price growth – it's no surprise that this generation continues to invest in real estate in the region," he adds. "The baby boomer share of homeowners is clearly on the rise here, and as more and more of this generation nears retirement age, Florida markets may be in for a boost in performance if tradition continues and retirees demand homes in the region."

© 2016 Florida Realtors®  All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.