2007, housing crash here we come... by gimleteye

The Miami Dade county commission passed a resolution a few weeks back requesting the county manager and attorney to determine “all feasible actions to provide property insurance relief to the citizens".

The Miami Herald reports the county commission is headed to Tallahassee with resolution in hand to give the legislature a piece of its mind.

Blah blah.

With respect of the insurance crisis, this county commission is powerless. All it can do is pontificate, a skill set that has exhausted our patience.

2007 is shaping up as a very tough year. The insurance crisis is real, but it is a red herring.

What we are going to pay for in 2007 is the speculation in property markets that city and county commissioners aided and abetted with zoning changes and permits, as developers raked in vast fortunes and sprinkled some of that loot like pixie dust on their political campaigns.

No amount of huffing and puffing is going to keep the housing markets aloft.

For the most part, the mainstream media is struggling like marathon dancers to keep the party going. Miami Today keenly reports, “Industry leaders see signs of recovery for housing market.” Bull.

In the third quarter of 2006, Miami had the fourth highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the nation among the 100 largest metropolitan areas, a 97 percent increase from the 2nd quarter. As reported by MSN/Business Week, experts anticipate in 2007 that Miami, out of all the nation’s major metro areas, will have the second-worst price drop in housing.

Here is the reality behind the statistics: the city and county commission, in its decisions on zoning and permitting over the past decade, are directly responsible for the ways rampant property speculation has fed like an on-ramp to our declining quality of life.

In 2005, Miami ranked fourth in the nation for traffic intensity and estimated vehicle miles per urban square mile.

Think about it: sitting in our cars on the Palmetto or US 1 or any of the main feeder routes, we are paying every day for our city and county commissioners worshipping at the feet of big developers, fawning over land use attorneys from Greenberg Traurig while they gratuitously slapped at citizens.

So the first thing we can do in 2007 is to support and vote for an executive mayor and hope that clear lines of responsibility will eventually return the public interest to some semblance of common sense.

We are tired of wishful thinking. The Mortgage Bankers Association of America expects the Federal Funds Rate to remain at 5.3 percent. While 2007 won’t be an outstanding year for real estate, it’s unlikely to go down in history as one of the worst.”

Miami is exhausted by the bull and the hype. It is time for a change that begins with an executive mayor we can hold accountable. We hope, if county commissioners go to Tallahassee, they stay there.