Experts Optimistic About Florida's Housing Market

MIAMI (CBS4) - There's encouraging news about the state's housing market. Real estate experts are showing some renewed optimism in Florida's housing markets, but they're waiting for potential buyers to agree.

The latest University of Florida real estate survey covering the last three months of 2010 suggests changes in state and federal government have led to the increased optimism.

Many are looking to Florida's newly sworn in governor Rick Scott to help the market along.

"He's more business friendly," Timothy Becker, a University of Florida real estate researcher, said. "He wants to make Florida more viable for businesses to come in, and he wants to create 700,000 jobs."

Statewide foreclosures and expectations for the market are beginning to stabilize. The survey finds job growth will remain the key to keeping the real estate market on the road to improvement

"The good part of this survey is that we're still along that path," Becker said. "Nothing's has derailed us from that path. We're still going to get better. It's going to be slow. We need to keep working our way to getting job growth in the state."

January pending home sales for Miami-Dade is up 28% since last January 2010, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, condominium sales are up 37% while single family homes are up 15%.

In Broward, home sales are up 4% since January 2010.  Condo sales are up 8% while single family homes are down .4% in the county.

Rock-bottom pricing continues to boost local condo sales. But while prices are starting to stabilize and even rise in some prime locations overall prices may still be bottoming out.