Just Believe Your Own Eyes

Our founder, Steve Harney, occasionally asks to do a personal post on what he sees as important to our industry. Today is one of those days. Enjoy! – The KCM Crew

Many believe the housing market is in a full out recovery. Others are questioning that assumption. To find out, maybe the only thing we need to do is just open our eyes.

When my wife and I visited Miami ten years ago, we were amazed at the number of building cranes that lined the streets along the beachfront. There was a wave of buyers descending on the city with pockets full of money. Everywhere you looked, there was a new condo complex going up and each building being constructed required a crane on the property. Back then, the city of Miami looked like the set of a Transformer movie with what seemed like hundreds of these huge mechanical machines marching through the city.

Then the housing crisis hit.

Miami property values dropped by over 50%. The buying frenzy cooled.

The cranes disappeared.

Today, Miami’s house prices are beginning to rebound quite nicely. We purchased a condo in South Beach two years ago and have been happy to experience a nice bump in value already. However, this week we realized the Miami market is definitely back. Why do we know this?

The cranes are back. 

From the balcony of our waterfront home we can look at the city skyline. This week we saw a familiar sight. Building cranes dotted that skyline. New buildings are being built. There is a new buzz in Miami. Things are the way we remember them being ten years ago.

It seems the market is back!