Despite all the talk about a dearth of buildable land in South Florida, Broward County recorded an increase in housing starts during the second quarter.

Broward had 900 starts, up 54 percent over the second quarter of 2005, according to a report released last week by West Palm Beach housing analyst Brad Hunter.

"I don't know specifically what explains it," Hunter said, before speculating that one or two large developments are responsible for the increase. "But land is scarce -- that story hasn't changed."

By contrast, Palm Beach County's 1,508 home starts in the second quarter represented a 36 percent decline from the second quarter of last year.

Other housing tidbits from Hunter's Metrostudy consulting firm:

>There were 1,621 people moving into homes in Palm Beach County during the second quarter, down 8 percent from the first quarter of 2006. Hunter said he expected more, given the increase in supply of homes being sold by investors.

>Broward has 2,724 finished vacant homes and homes under construction, which represents a 16-month supply of inventory. In other words, that's the amount of time it would take to fill up those homes if no others were built.

>Palm Beach County has 653 finished vacant homes, which equates to a one-month supply. That's the lowest in South Florida, but it's still rising.

"In the short term, there's a competitive problem for sellers," Hunter said. "In the long term, once we work through this, we'll return to an undersupplied market."

>Rental rates for office space have increased in Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Rents in Palm Beach County's most prestigiousbuildings rose $2.22 a square foot from last year to $31.81, according to Cushman's midyear market report. In Broward, rates rose $2.87 to $29.07 over the same period.

Meanwhile, Broward's vacancy rate of 11.1 percent is down 1.2 percentage points from the first quarter and 3.5 percentage points from the second quarter of 2005.

Palm Beach County's vacancy rate essentially remained unchanged at 12.8 percent compared with midyear 2005.

But Brian Waxman, a West Palm Beach real estate broker, says Cushman's vacancy rate might be too conservative.

"We own 1.2 million square feet of office space, and we have 98 percent occupancy," he said.

A lack of new construction is the main culprit. And developers aren't building, for the most part, because of rising costs of construction and commercial insurance.

"It's a major bloodbath right now," Waxman said