Flroida is the nation's housing market
Kolko, a housing economist and co-author (with Edward Glaeser) of the uber-influential study "
Consumer City," is now chief economist at
Trulia, a real estate insights website. Kolko posits that the state of Florida is the perfect microcosm of the nation's
ongoing housing problems, and that the GOP primary is bringing the issue into the political limelight ` a place it is likely to occupy in the general election as well. (For a range of views on how to "fix" the housing problem, see this edition of
The New York Times' Room for Debate).
Kolko's argument hinges on a couple of key points. First, Florida was more or less "ground zero" for America's housing crisis: at the worst of it, average home prices declined there 40 percent or more off their peak. Second, the state is overrun by foreclosures: it currently has the highest rate of foreclosed loans (14 percent) in the country. That's double that of Nevada (6.3 percent) and four times higher than Arizona, California, and Michigan. That said, people are starting to buy houses in Florida again. He cites Trulia's
Metro Movers Index, which shows increased house-hunting activity in
North Port-
Bradenton-
Sarasota,
Fort Lauderdale,
Cape Coral, and
West Palm Beach. Additionally, prices have increased more than 2 percent in the third quarter of 2011 in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and several other Florida metros.
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here.