Orlando Real Estate

Tomorrow is the cutoff date for capturing January's sales, and I hope that timing and the weeked is affecting the numbers so far. Right now only about 750 closed sales have been recorded in the MLS for January. That is way lower than I expected. The median price took another small hit. With the numbers I am seeing right now, look for a median price in the $220,000 range.

www.davidwelch.com/orlandobuyers

The Orlando Sentinel had a great article today about household creation and retail development here in Central Florida. Orlando ranks 3rd in the nation in household creation which is one of the best statistics for real estate sales, development and overall economic development. Orlando also ranks number 20 in the nation for retail development. The expectation is that the development is outpacing the need slightly, but is expected to even out by the end of this year. The article goes on to say the diversified and rapidly expanding economy in Orlando is outpacing most every other market in the country.

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Inventory is continuing to remain steady at just over 27,000, as pending contracts rise quickly to just over 2,200. So far this month 536 sales have closed with 580 contracts expected to close before the end of the month.

You can read more about what is going on in Orlando real estate at www.davidwelch.com/myblog.

Here are some numbers from yesterday. 27,202 - the number of homes for sale. 2,061 - the number of sales pending. 421 - the number of pending sales that are listed as pre-foreclosure or foreclosed properties. 370 - the number of closed sales so far this month. $248,900 the median list price of the pending sales. $230,000 the median sales prices of the homes that have sold.

There are two encouraging trends in these numbers. First, the number of pending sales continues to climb fairly rapidly for the second month in a row. Second, the median price looks to have rebounded somewhat from last months low. For all of the buyers that are still waiting, mark this in your calendar. David Welch is calling January 2008 as the bottom. I am looking for continued improvement as we get ready to enter the Spring.

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I used to complain that Valentine's Day was just some made up holiday so the greeting card people could sell more cards. The truth is, it may be just that, but somebody has to remind us to stop and smell the roses. Remember your true love today, and try to make it special. A great idea for this Valentine's Day would be a new home. "He went to Jareds", but you could blow him away with a new home for your sweetie.

Pending sales are way up by the way, so do be left out. I checked the pending sales last night, and they are up over 1,900. We may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I personally have three contracts pending right now, and have people coming to town at the end of the month to buy. I think 2008 will be considerably better than 2007. Read more at www.davidwelch.com/buyers

If you tried to sell before, but were not successful check out www.remaxdifference.com

The Orlando Sentinel found an economist with the Portland Cement Association that says Florida may already be in a recession. I am sure this guy is an expert, but why did the Sentinel go to the economist for the Portland Cement Association? Because...he used the "R" word. Our own local economist Dr. Hank Fishkind feels like we have been hovering around the bottom for some time, and sees a quick recovery. That apparently is not newsworthy, because it is a positive story.

The truth is that the newspaper is trying to remain relavent in a society where news is available 24/7 on your PC and even on your phone. Journalists are becoming less necessary as there are cameras and camera phones everywhere. Who needs reporters and journalists when there is raw footage of everything as it happens? Bad news sells, and if the news isn't bad find someone who thinks it is and report on that.

I apologize for the soap box thing, but I honestly think our economy has become the self fulfilling prophesy of the media. If you say things are bad often and long enough, people will beging to believe you. In Orlando real estate the truth is prices are down, interest rates are down and inventory is up. That makes for a tremendous buying opportunity. Start buying homes and watch the economy pick back up.

www.davidwelch.com

The official numbers are in, and the median price for January fell 1.2% from December to $222,250 and sales were down to 756. There were about 200 more contracts written in January as compared to December, and interest rates are down to 5.6%. Inventory of homes for sale is up slightly to 25,724.

Buyers need to look at this really hard. There are a lot of good homes for sale at prices that are 11% below last years prices, and interest rates are down about 1% from last year. Interestingly the average price went up in January as 18 homes priced over a million dollars closed. www.davidwelch.com/orlandobuyers

Official housing statistics should come out today. Go back and look at my blog over the last couple of weeks for a preview. Sales numbers are way down as is the median price, but pending sales are way up. I am interested in seeing if the pending grew more because of slow closings or new contracts. That will be important in guaging the Orlando real estate markets next steps. I am optimisitic we will taking a step forward. Check back here at www.davidwelch.com/myblog.

January numbers will be out soon, but I am already looking ahead to February. The pending sales are continuing to rise (just over 1,840 today). The list price of the pendings is up from January too. If you read some of my recent blogs - www.davidwelch.com/myblog - you will see that I am placing the median sales price around 221,000 for January. I also looked at the median list price for January and found that it was only $229,900. The sales that are currently pending have a median list price of $239,900. So far this month, the average seller is taking 9% off the list price on the properties that have sold. If this holds true for the rest of the pending contracts we could see the median price just below $219,000 for February.

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Pending sales continue to climb, and as of today are approaching 1,800. Closed sales in January were dismal to put it lightly at around 760 with a median price of $220,000 or so. These are still my preliminary numbers, and I will let you know what the official numbers are when they come out on the 10th of the month. As I say all the time the pending number is the more important one in my opinion, because it gives an indication of where the market is going. I doubt that you will hear much about the pending contracts anywhere else. Historically about 2/3s of the pendings close in a given month, so I am hoping for 1,200 sales in February.

I currently have one firm contract closing this month, another will be finalized today that will close this month, and a third that we are waiting for a lender approved short sale. www.davidwelch.com/orlandobuyers

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Web www.davidwelch.com www.orlandohousecalls.com www.orlandohomes.cn

Super Tuesday is here at last. I am very interested in seeing the response in the markets to the results today. Quite often buyers tend to wait and see during election years, but this has already been a very long race. I am hoping some will decide to make moves now rather than wait. We voted here in Florida to approve Amendment 1 which changes our property tax situation. The number of pending sales has gone up considerably in the last month. The MLS was showing 1,769 pending sales just a little while ago, and that is up from around 1,500 at the beginning of the year. I am concerned though because closed sales for January appear to be way way way down. I am counting only 758 recorded so far with a median price of $221,500. One number that may be hidden is the number of short sales with outstanding contracts. The banks are taking forever 6-16 weeks to sign off, so many short sales with buyers are still showing as active. I expect many of these will close toward the end of the quarter as banks try to end their fiscal quarters.

www.davidwelch.com/orlandosellers