Florida vacancy rate at 20%?

I was reading Yahoo news yesterday and reviewed this article;

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-20-of-Florida-homes-cnnm-2507768369.html

It claims that Florida's vacancy rate is near 20%.  They even go so far as to point out some individual county vacancy rates. Sarasota County is stated at  23%, Collier is at 32%, Lee is at 30% and Miami-Dade is only at 12%.

Expected recovery timeframes for these vacancy rates was given as "eight years" to get vacancy numbers back into the single digits.  Also noted in the article is the prediction that Florida prices will drop another 5% in 2011 and 3% in 2012, and then "they'll ljust sit on the bottom" instead of rebounding.

So according to these "experts" we can expect 2 more years of falling prices, and then an unknown amount of time of stagnant prices.

Well I say, let's go look at the Sarasota Association of Realtors data located at;

http://www.sarasotarealtors.com/about/hottopic.cfm?eveID=257

The Association notes that figures show a drop in inventory to a six year low and that the number of sales have increased, though not the prices.

I can't help but wonder what expert am I supposed to believe? Is my market falling further or showing signs of recovery?  I do understand that the yahoo vacancy numbers take into account empty houses that may not be on the market for sale.

I didn't write this blog today just to blow more hot air at a highly debated subject, I did it to point out the myriad of "conflicting facts" being put before you everyday and I'm curious ~ how do you sort through it?  ~ what expert do you trust? ~ what source of information do you point your customers towards?

Pat Murphy, Short Sale Negotiator           www.liensearchpro.com            941-822-6111 Phone