Report: Home prices blunt area's edge

The housing boom is pricing middle-income professionals out of Miami, says an economic development group, which suggests a regional summit on the issue.

BY NIALA BOODHOO

The lack of affordable housing for middle-income professionals is a serious challenge to Miami-Dade's business competitive edge, the Beacon Council said in a report that calls for a regional summit between the business community and local government leaders to tackle the issue.
It's clear that the local residential development boom is ''pricing valuable talent out of our market,'' said the report, which is to be released today.

The Beacon Council's Jaap Donath, one of the researchers for the report, said that housing affordability was one of the top challenges for the economic development group. Businesses already here are facing the issue when recruiting, and the cost of housing is a major concern to new businesses that want to relocate to South Florida, he said.

''We need the business community and local governments to get together to understand what are the things that need to be done,'' said Donath, the council's vice president of research and strategic planning.

The report looks at 2004 and 2005 household wage data in the Miami metropolitan area in comparison to average housing costs for single-family homes that same year. It assumed that people could afford a single-family house that costs 2 ½ times their household salary.
By that measure, not only would essential workers like firefighters, nurses and public school teachers need two-income households to afford to buy a house, but so would accountants, medical scientists and aerospace engineers.

The report tried to provide a picture of what the Miami-Dade housing market would be beyond the monthly average home prices, said Donath.

''We wanted to see if that tells the whole story. Are there are any pockets that are affordable?'' he said. The report highlights several ZIP Codes, such as Hialeah, Sweetwater and Carol City, as areas with homes still listed below that average price.

He said that in addition to looking at neighborhoods such as these, professionals should also look more to living in town homes and condominiums, like people do in Manhattan.

Donath pointed out that Miami-Dade is still a cheaper option compared to such cities as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But this is an issue that we need to address, he said.

``It's time to use this report to focus on this and move forward to possible solutions.''