Florida real estate market hit bottom in 2007

A new report released Jan. 7 by Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund Inc. and posted on www.MyRealEstateStory.com finds that Florida's housing market slowed in 2007 in nearly every county analyzed. The report also shows that real estate markets flattened out in spring 2007, before the subprime mortgage crisis in August knocked markets down another 10 percent across the state. Since then the housing market has flattened and is expected to begin to recover during the next several years.

The 2008 Fund Real Estate Forecast, commissioned by Florida-based Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund's Consumer Education Campaign, was created by economist Hank Fishkind of Fishkind & Associates, Inc., using The Fund's extensive online system of deed data for more than 30 Florida counties. The report provides a snapshot of the national economic outlook and 33 county-specific forecasts for 2008 through 2010, as well as a section detailing how actual 2007 data compared to projections that were made in last year's Fund 2007 Real Estate Forecast report.

"Florida is one of the leading states for job creation and outperformed the rest of the country despite the housing market meltdown," said Fishkind. "The state's population growth also slowed, but is still nearly greater than all of the other Southeastern states put together. Florida has a very large and powerful economy that has gone through a cyclical downshift, but it is still outperforming compared to the rest of the nation."

The Fund's 2008 Real Estate Forecast shows that Orlando continues to be the strongest residential real estate market in the state because of its large share of fastgrowing industries, such as tourism, healthcare, education and defense manufacturing. Not all markets in Florida mirror Orlando's resiliency, however. Miami-Dade is currently going through the worst condominium bust cycle that Florida has seen since 1975. Additionally, significant excess supply of single-family homes in the Fort Myers and Cape Coral markets will not begin to be absorbed until 2010. - Business Wire