Houses have always been for sale in the Keys in large numbers and they still are, but things aren't exactly what they used to be.
I know home price devastation has swept the land south of the 49th parallel but in the Keys the effects have been mitigated somewhat because people with money, who don't need to borrow from the banks are coming down and snatching up homes in the sun. 
One can't blame them, but several of my young colleagues are trying to secure their futures in the Keys buying homes with first time buyer loans. One couple in their 20's got a house on a swimming canal (no motors allowed) ten miles out of Key West on stilts for just over $300,000. Four years ago it would have gone for $550,000 in a bidding war.
Dry lots, homes without direct access to salt water, are selling around $200,000 in the islands between Key West and the Seven Mile Bridge. That's affordable around here.
Writing as a homeowner well underwater already I don't think the housing market is coming back. We live in a country animated by the belief that if you believe hard enough it will happen but n numbers don't lie. There are tens of millions out of work and many more with jobs that are paying less and less. Security is at an all time low among the working classes. Oil is expensive, weather is violent and causing economic hardship and banks are still finding it more profitable to borrow money low from the Government and lend it back high than to make loans to the dwindling numbers of people with decent if not spectacular wages. It's all completely crazy but it's on display for anyone to see if only they pull their heads from the sand.
That being the case how can house prices rise? They may stabilize in the keys as gentrification moves forward apace- speculators are buying up assets at fire sale prices, but there are still enough foreclosed homes on the market at fire sale prices to keep the housing market feeble. Given all that I'm betting that next prices will be lower than this and Realtors will be screaming even louder, as they go out of business, that "NOW is the time to buy!"
I know home price devastation has swept the land south of the 49th parallel but in the Keys the effects have been mitigated somewhat because people with money, who don't need to borrow from the banks are coming down and snatching up homes in the sun. One can't blame them, but several of my young colleagues are trying to secure their futures in the Keys buying homes with first time buyer loans. One couple in their 20's got a house on a swimming canal (no motors allowed) ten miles out of Key West on stilts for just over $300,000. Four years ago it would have gone for $550,000 in a bidding war.Dry lots, homes without direct access to salt water, are selling around $200,000 in the islands between Key West and the Seven Mile Bridge. That's affordable around here.
Writing as a homeowner well underwater already I don't think the housing market is coming back. We live in a country animated by the belief that if you believe hard enough it will happen but n numbers don't lie. There are tens of millions out of work and many more with jobs that are paying less and less. Security is at an all time low among the working classes. Oil is expensive, weather is violent and causing economic hardship and banks are still finding it more profitable to borrow money low from the Government and lend it back high than to make loans to the dwindling numbers of people with decent if not spectacular wages. It's all completely crazy but it's on display for anyone to see if only they pull their heads from the sand.That being the case how can house prices rise? They may stabilize in the keys as gentrification moves forward apace- speculators are buying up assets at fire sale prices, but there are still enough foreclosed homes on the market at fire sale prices to keep the housing market feeble. Given all that I'm betting that next prices will be lower than this and Realtors will be screaming even louder, as they go out of business, that "NOW is the time to buy!"
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