For home buyers, rock bottom prices tough to pinpoint

For home buyers, rock bottom prices tough to pinpoint

The explanation for a surge in sales of South Florida homes last month can be found in a one-bedroom condo on the 29th floor of a Brickell Avenue condo tower.

The Club at Brickell Bay unit sold in 2006 for $410,000. Five days after real estate agent Doug DeWitt listed the foreclosed unit earlier this month for $114,000, 12 bidders swarmed, offering cash. The sale — above the asking price — is set to close next week.

”I am standing on the bottom,” DeWitt said. The agent says eight of his 15 foreclosure listings now have contracts with buyers. “Prices do not go lower than this.”

Bargains like the Brickell Bay unit continue to draw buyers back into the market at a quickening pace, February numbers showed. Analysts have said that increasing sales, along with steep declines in home prices, would signal the beginning of a long-awaited recovery in the region’s ailing housing market.