The bottom line on south Florida property values, or property values anywhere in the country, is that the demand sets price. If your neighbor, for example, has a house roughly similar to yours, and sells it for $420,000, you can ask for your house more in that ballpark than the $365,000 you'd thought about as a selling price eight months ago.

You'll find as you begin searching for homes that south Florida property values are more affordable than you might have thought. Houses are certainly not in the league of Honolulu, San Francisco, Boston, and San Diego--for which you should be grateful. There's some variation in the three counties along the Atlantic coast, that is, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. This is in large part due to their different character and demographics. Even so, the differences for the most part are not radical.

Getting Help with South Florida Property Values

At the same time, you need to be certain that a house you're interested in isn't overpriced. You're most likely to run into this in FSBY situations, that is, when the owner is both listing and selling the property himself or herself. It's not the only time, clearly, but the most frequent. Furthermore, you're always free to make a lower offer. Prices indicated in MLS listings are merely asking prices. Negotiation comes later.

A real estate agent who specializes in a given area will have the best knowledge of accurate south Florida property values. As you already know, there's a vast difference between the median house value reported in a federal census and the market price. The 2000 census, for example, noted the median price of a home in Fort Lauderdale at $150,000. The realistic range of asking prices today is from about $200,000 up to about $500,000. Ballpark pricing isn't close enough when you're shopping real estate.