Miami Bucks National Trend Of Dropping Home Values

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – While nationally the Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed home values hit new index lows to end 2011; the data wasn't as bad for two of the hardest hit areas in the nation, Miami and Phoenix.

According to the indices, 18 of the 20 markets analyzed showed monthly declines in prices from November 2011 to December 2011. Miami's home prices increased 0.2 percent; while Phoenix prices increased 0.8 percent.

"Hot, hot, we don't have enough homes, there juist aren't enough homes now for the demand. We have buyers where we just can't find them the right homes," said Liza Mendez of the Miami Association of Realtors. " It's unprecedented how fast we're coming back, unprecedented".

Still, given how far both Miami and Phoenix's home prices fell during the housing bubble collapse from 2006- the present, the prices have just one way to go. This was especially true in Detroit, which was the only city to past an annual increase in prices of 0.5 percent.

The national composite index fell 3.8 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011 and was down 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010.

"The national market is still bottoming. Based on those numbers, it may still be bottoming out," said Mendez.

"In terms of prices, the housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. "With this month's report we saw all three composite hit new record lows. While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended."

Even though Miami showed a month-to-month gain to end 2011, home prices in the area still fell 3.8 percent from the same time in 2010. Miami's numbers showed a 0.5 percent decrease from October to November, before showing the 0.2 percent increase to end the fourth quarter.

Overall, average home prices in the United States have fallen back to their late 2002 levels.