According to media stories all over the country, the South Florida market, from West Palm Beach to Miami, is awash in overpriced condominiums, just waiting for eager buyers to snap them up for pennies on the dollar.

It’s evident in South Florida, as well as other areas of the country, that houses are moving faster, and inventory is decreasing. In fact, inventory levels are down to less than an 8 month supply. Home sales have increased for the fourth month in a row. Barring a barrage of foreclosure dumping by banks, we are seeing a leveling out of prices.

For close to a year, the housing market in Florida has been showing gains. The fact that prices have continued to fall has certainly helped to increase sales and reduce inventory. But more important, in one segment of the market, it’s helped to push prices up. While we are seeing bidding wars on foreclosures and short sales in the low priced segment of the market, higher priced homes have quietly edged up 1.1% in price.

For the last couple of days, the net outflow of population from Florida has made headlines all over the news. For the first time since 1946 – that’s 63 years – Florida has lost population. To read the headlines, you’d think that the state is about to empty out.

There is an old cliché that says you must first believe in yourself, before others will believe in you. That same statement could currently be applied to Florida. We’ve been beaten up by the press for the last several months. Evidently those blows have had some effect, because we’re down by 58,000 residents at last count.

Somebody has got to step up to the plate and proclaim that the real estate market in Florida has bottomed. Since I am not famous or well known in any way, I’ll proclaim, “Florida real estate has hit its nadir.” The next stop on the real estate trajectory is up.

The Government is selling Bernie Madoff's seven million dollar house to recoup some of the money that investors lost. However, most of the investors will never be able to recovery their investment.

Auction sales of homes have been making the news lately. That’s because many banks around the country find that auction sales move their REO (real estate owned) inventory much faster than conventional sales. Approximately 10% of the foreclosures around the country are selling this way. But they’re selling not only to Americans, but to a large percentage of foreign investors.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the real estate investment market in South Florida, commercial property foreclosures jump out of the news and bite owners right in their wallets. Of course, the ill fortune of former investors becomes the very good fortune for new investors waiting on the sidelines with pockets full of cash.

Florida commercial property values are down, and so are the commercial property values in every other state. But as in all investment markets, where some see problems, others, who are forward looking, sense value.

According to many real estate pundits, it is difficult to make money in today’s real estate market, and it is close to impossible to make money in Florida real estate. However, if you closely follow the south Florida market, as I do each day, you will see several factors may help you to make money in Florida real estate.

Despite gloomy predictions and continual press reports that South Florida property values are sinking into the ocean, South Florida single family homes are appear to be holding steady at prices that are 30 – 35% below their 2006 peak. It’s the taxable values that are declining.