2017 Real Estate Study: Should You Buy or Rent?

Miami, FL, July 24, 2017-These are some of the key findings of the 2017 Miami-Dade Real Estate Study, conducted by the polling firm Bendixen & Amandi International and the Miami Herald. One hundred of the area’s top brokers, agents and analysts were interviewed on the condition of anonymity from June 5-July 6 to create an honest and credible portrait of the current state of the county’s housing market.

Buy, sell or rent?

Timing is always critical, whether you’re planning to sell your property or are entering the market as a buyer. When asked if now is the time to buy or sell, 45 percent of respondents said buy; 29 percent said sell; and 25 percent said both.

More than 70 percent of industry experts think it’s time to own, while 19 percent said renting is best. At the same time, almost 70 percent said they are seeing a shift in the public’s interest in buying vs. renting: 59 percent said more people are interested in buying, while 41 percent felt people are looking to rent.

“Those numbers reflect an unusually high confidence in buying at this moment,” said Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of the real estate consulting firm Miller Samuel. “There’s a perception among consumers that the market is entering the next cycle. Consumers were much faster to embrace optimism than the brokerage community during the 1987 stock market crash, after Sept. 11 and after Lehman collapsed and the market plunged 30 percent overnight in 2008. These results are evidence that participants in the industry are seeing a shift in consumers toward buying.”

One of the motivators driving that shift may be an oversupply of inventory that favors buyers. Fifty-five percent of respondents said the current market is high, and a majority (38 percent) felt the value of that inventory was flat - neither good, poor or overpriced.

Source: Miami Herald