Sales overall are up, but prices are down. When April numbers are reported we should see better than 1,200 closed sales which is up from 1,080 in March. The median price, however, is continuing to float down. I expect April's median price to be about $5,000 less than March. It is just part of the economic dynamics we are dealing with right now.I did a study on last month's closed sales and found that about 3/4 of the sales had price reductions, and the contracts came within 36 days on average after the price change. The homes without price changes had contracts within 45 days of the listing on average. The second group on average was priced about $6,000 less butsold 90 days sooner than the homes with price changes.
www.davidwelch.com www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com
Come back later today to check out my new listing in Winter Park. This is a deal you are not going to want to miss if you are in the market for a condo. The last sale in this complex was about a year ago, and closed for $195,000. This one is going on the market for $158,900. The owner is looking for a quick sale at that price. There is a 1/1 across the street in a comparable complex listed for $149,500. This new listing is a 2/2 and almost 1,000 sq ft.
Sales numbers are still looking good for May. With today and tomorrow still to go, there have been 948 closed sales posted with a median price of $211,000. That is the same median reported in April. Available inventory remains at about 27,000. Pending contracts are above 3,400 with a median asking price of 219,500. Homes in some stage of foreclosure account for 4,683 of the active inventory.
www.DavidWelch.com, www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com
With just a couple of days left to close out May, there are 882 closed sales with a median sales price of $210,310. The number of pending sales has cracked the 3,400 mark, and new contracts written this month stand at 1,737 which is slightly ahead of April's pace. Properties categorized in some stage of foreclosure have edged up to 4,689.
I am very happy to see our numbers continuing to improve each month. Another encouraging number is the interest rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage dipped below 6% nationally.
They must have been reading my blog. The Orlando Sentinel actually has a positive article about the local real estate market today, and it is even on the front page. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-firsthome2508may27,0,2193812.story
It actually has a lot of the information I have been commenting on for some time now. Rates are low, inventory is high, prices have come down, and there is money to lend. They even mention FHA which I have been promoting to people who are a little short on cash for down payment and closing costs. I do think the article makes a bit too big of a deal about the down payment assistance programs the counties offer. The Orange county assistance program requires that the home has had recent major work done to it. These programs also have lower limits on income and home prices, so they will work for fewer buyers. They are great if you and the property qualify, but they are just a lot more limited in scope.
Here are some early numbers for May. Inventory of homes available remains fairly stable but down a little to 26,960. Pending Sales continue to climb and sit at 3,319 as of today. New contracts this month is ahead of new contracts for the same period last month. They stand at 1, 247 compared to 1,155 in April. Properties in either a pre-foreclosure, foreclosure or bank owned status has creeped up very slightly to 4,619. We still appear to be in turnaround mode as far as sales numbers are concerned. The median price numbers are still on the down side, but I expect to stabilize by the end of summer if not sooner.
www.DavidWelch.com www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the political derailment of commuter rail. The Orlando Sentinel has a good article about it in today's issue. I recommend reading it if you want to have an idea of why things happened. To simplify it, trial lawyers did not think that being able to sue for $200 Million was enough, and protections being offered to subcontractors on the rail system limit their liabilities to $100,000 and $200,000 was limiting trial lawyers ability to be able to collect large jury awards for their potential clients future injuries in the event of a commuter rail incident. This sound like a lot of money and greedy lawyers - and it is. Of course if you look at the issue from their side, a train wreck has the potential of being much worse than those numbers could account for. However, these are very similar to the deal in South Florida's tri-rail package. Ironically, it is the South Florida legislators that derailed Central Florida's train.
I know there are a lot of resources out there to search for Orlando Real Estate. I offer them on my web sites, but I also know that it can get frustrating looking here and there and everywhere in between. It is also difficult to search for criteria such as foreclosures. That is why I offer two links at the top of my main page www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com. One takes you directly to foreclosures near downtown Orlando. The other is a list of homes for sale under $200,000 near downtown Orlando.
If you are looking for something more specific, e-mail me at sellmyhome@davidwelch.com or give me a call at 407-924-7670. I can set up a search just for you that can be e-mailed to you with updates as they occur or on a weekly or monthly basis. Let me do the searching for you. While you are visiting my site, be sure to check out the page on Creative Financing. I would love to help you with the purchase or sale of your next home.
As a Realtor, I can tell you that nothing affects property values like schools. Just look at Winter Park. The schools in the Winter Park area consistently earn some of the highest grades in Orange county, and the prices of the homes reflect a preference for the Winter Park schools. The same can be said for the Dr. Phillips, Conway and others.
The recent decision by our school board to swap the times of the middle and high schools will have an impact county wide. Students and their respective families have schedules arranged around the existing times. Local businesses that specialize in after school programs will be negatively effected. Juvenile crime that has become an issue will become worse. There will almost certainly be a drop off in the level of achievement as a direct result of this short sighted change.
The school district has a three billion dollar budget of which about half is operations and half capital. It just seems like the reported six million dollar savings (0.2% of the total budget) in transportation expenses created by the time change could be found somewhere else. Between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2008 the required local effort portion of the budget increased by 49.2%. Maybe somebody should have save a little bit for a rainy day.
I know I just wrote about this yesterday, but I received an e-mail from someone interested in using the county down payment assistance program. They have been having trouble finding homes that qualify for the program. In order to use the county money, the home must have had some major work completed on it recently. The best examples are a new roof or new A/C system installed. Also, the county money must be repayed if you sell the home within so many years. Nehemiah does not require any special qualifications like the home having work done to it, and the funds do not have to be repayed. They are a gift. When you close you are done with the program. Check out more information on Nehemiah.
If cash for closing costs or the down payment is the only thing keeping you from buying a home, stop waiting. Contact David Welch right now! Let David show you how you may still be able to purchase a home with $0. You do NOT have to be a first time home owner, but you do have to be buying the home as your personal residence. You do NOT have to attend any classes. You do NOT have to buy a home that has had major work completed on it. You can even buy a duplex, triplex or quad as long as you live in one of the units. You still have to qualify for a loan, but you do not have to pay closing costs or a down payment. This program has been around since 1997, but everybody has forgotten about it. Call David Welch direct at 407-924-7670 to get into a home NOW!
The Orlando Sentinel reported Florida existing home sales numbers today. You can read the whole article here http://www.topix.net/forum/source/orlando-sentinel/T8CQM4N4E23S2VLQ2#lastPost.
They actually used the words "Good news" to refer to Orlando real estate sales. The numbers reported for the first quarter were still down from last year by 31%, but Orlando was second in the state for sales of single family homes behind Tampa. Be sure to check out the article, and read my comments.
One other bright spot in the most recent numbers released is the days on market. For the first time in a while the average days on market actually dropped by a whole week from 128 to 121 days. I was looking at inventory numbers yesterday, and the inventory remains stable while pending contract continue to rise to over 3,200 total contracts.
In search of expert opinions regarding the Orlando real estate market, the Orlando Sentinel found two experts in their fields. A coffee shop owner in Mount Dora a rural community outside Orlando in Lake county says it will take "five to seven years" for the market to get back to normal. If that is not convincing enough for you. They dug deep into their vast resources and found an aviation industry consultant in Oviedo. Also, a more rural Orlando area suburb in Seminole county. He suggests people would be better off renting for another year until prices stabilize.
If you detect a bit of sarcasm in the tone of this blog, you are correct. I know that coffee shop owners and aviation consultants have long been known for their expertise in real estate, but how about interviewing a Realtor. Not everybody recognizes the real estate expertise of baristas and pilots, but some people may recognize a Realtor as a real estate expert. I have to go now, the Orlando Sentinel is calling. They want my opinion on the pros and cons of laproscopic surgery over traditional more invasive techniques. After all Realtors are known to be experts in the surgery.
Orlando Real Estate Statistics are now available in the Market Pulse. You can pull up the PDF at www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com.
Take a good look at the graphs at the bottom showing new contracts and total contracts. They really drive home my point that sales have turned around.
Well, the official numbers are in as reported in the Orlando Sentinel this morning. You can link to the article "Orlando-area home sales see improvement". The numbers being reported are pretty consistent with those that I have been estimating in my recent Orlando Real Estate blogs.
The number of sales at 1,147 is up compared to March's 1,080. It is not a huge improvement, but it is headed in the right direction. The 1,147 is only down 25% from last April. We have been seeing sales down 40+% compared to year ago numbers. At this pace we still have a 22 month supply of homes on the market, but the sales pace is improving. Watch this number start to come down as sales continue to increase and the inventory begins to get sold down a bit.
The reason sales are picking up is two fold. First, and most importantly, price has come down considerably since last year. The median price in April was $211,000, which is down $9,000 from March. A couple of things are effecting this. Quite simply, foreclosures and new homes are bringing prices down. Banks and builders need to get rid of their inventories, and this is having an impact on the existing home prices.The second reason sales are picking up, is pent up demand. People have been waiting for nearly two years, and more will get tired of waiting purchase. Prices and interest rates are down, and a lot of buyers are taking advantage of this.
If you are still waiting, consider this. In another article in the Orlando Sentinel today the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that in many areas people are turning to rentals. The main reason is cost, but in Orlando the cost of ownership is not that much more than the cost to rent. In fact, the difference is $259 a month. This does not take into account future appreciation. It does not mention if it accounts for tax benefits either.
You can go to www.DavidWelch.com anytime for a list of foreclosures in Orlando near downtown. I update the list every week. You don't have to do a lot of searching, just click. I also keep an updated list of properties for sale under $200,000. If you would like to search for properties yourself that is available on my home page as well. The search is tied directly into the Orlando MLS, so you get the latest information.
Coldwell Banker of Central Florida reported, in the Orlando Sentinel today, their best sales month since March of 2007. They reported 520 sales transaction sides in April compared with 502 in March of last year.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-realestate0808may08,0,998093.story
This is just more evidence of what I have been saying in my Orlando Real Estate blog. Sales are picking up. That is the first step in a recovery or turnaround. Prices always lag sales, so we will see prices continue to decline somewhat.
The expectation is that pending sales for existing homes in March will be down. That report is due out today for the nation. While real estate markets around the country and the world do have an effect on our local market, real estate is far more dependent on local economics. Certainly, if someone has to sell their home in LA to purchase a home in Orlando, it has an impact. That accounts for a percentage of home sales, as do the investors that are picking up steals in areas that have been hit hardest by downturns. If the investor finds better buys in Las Vegas, they may not buy a rental in Orlando.
Locally, we are expected to continue growing and adding jobs. Prices have come down quite a bit since last year making homes more affordable. The median wage will buy the median priced home in Orlando. These are the factors that are fueling the rising pending sale in our market. While nationally pending sales have been on the decline, our pending sales have increased each month so far in 2008. The number of new contracts written as well as the total number of pending sales has increased each month through April. Closed sales have also increased each month so far this year. So, when you see the headlines be thankful that the Orlando market is actually doing better than many others.
Zillow numbers came out, and the Orlando Sentinel jumped on the "bad news". They tried to make Zillow sound like they are some kind of authority on real estate values. They have an algorithm that estimates values based upon publicly available information. I will say that there are times when the number Zillow comes up with is in the ball park, but there are far more times when it is not even close to reality.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not bashing Zillow. I am just not praising them either. I advertise my listings on the Zillow website, and I always check to see what their estimated value is. When I sit down with a seller, there is a good chance they have already seen the Zillow estimate of their home. If I am working with a buyer, they almost certainly have checked the house out on Zillow. It is a great resource for publicly available information on properties. Unfortunately, it is only as good as the public information and their algorithm.
The article today created a lot of comments about the state of the Orlando Real Estate market.
Well today is the day that the association statistician cuts off the data coming in. I hope everyone has registered their sales from April. I have a feeling folks are getting things in the MLS in a more timely manner. As of today there were 1,161 closed sales for April that is up 81 sales from March. Of that number 206 were showing as either a pre-foreclosure or foreclosure making up 17.7% of the total sales. The current inventory is 26,960 with 4,512 showing up in one of the foreclosure categories or 16.7% of the total inventory in the tri-county area. We had a couple hundred listings expire at the end of the month, but not as many as we have been seeing. The pendings remain very strong with 2,998 contracts and a huge 965 of them in a foreclosure status representing 32.2%.
The distressed properties are definitely having an impact on the median price. Today I show the median at $210,000. That is a big drop from March's $220,000. It seems prices have really come down and it should effect our sales numbers favorably. About 25% of the homes that sold last month had no price changes and had contracts on them in 45 days on average. It looks like pricing is coming in line with buyers expectations. The 75% that did have a price reduction saw contracts with 36 days of the price change on average. The homes with price changes spent about 90 days longer on market overall compared with the homes that were priced well from the beginning.
www.davidwelch.com, www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where politics over powered good sense. We have so many legsilators here in Central Florida who have worked to get this through, but some other Senators saw this as just a "nice to have" when it is a real need. The day this died in the Senate a report came out ranking Orlando as number four in worst traffic. Tens of millions have already been spent, and a lot of local effort to prepare for commuter rail has been put forth. Now, thanks to some of our neighbors to the south we stand to lose out on $300 million in federal money to get this done.
As a Realtor, I see the importance of this in improving the lives of everyone in the Orlando metro area. It reduces traffic congestion and reduces emmissions so we can enjoy cleaner air. It also makes life more affordable for those who have to spend hours on I-4 everyday in addition to hundreds of dollars a month in gas to sit in traffic. This project may only be 61 miles long to begin with, but it would serve as a backbone for a public transit system that could directly improve the lives of probably a million people.
Central Florida contributes more to the state's revenues than probably the rest of the state combined. I know that Orange county is the largest net "donor". Unfortunately, I believe there are politicians more interested in the next election than the long term health of our state's citizens and economy.
www.OrlandoAreaRealtor.com
Please contact your state legislators, and let them know how important this is to our community. This issue has been voted on so many times, and is facing yet another vote. Check out the www.OrlandoSentinel.com article about this important issue. This really will have long term implications toward our quality of life in the Orlando area. It also affects our economy as gasoline becomes such a budget hog. The benefits of this will not be obvious immediately, but there will be benefits for everyone in the Orlando area. Less congestion on the main arteries, I-4, 417, and 429. East - West travel will be affected too because it will be able to flow better at the I-4 interchanges.
April saw yet more improvement in sales numbers. So far there are 1,079 closed sales reported for April with five days remaining for sales to be reported in the MLS. I typically see a couple hundred input after the close of the month. So we should see more than 1,200 closed when April is in the books. Right now the 1,079 is one sale shy of March's 1,080. Keep in mind these are my numbers, not the official numbers for the month. They will come out around the 10th of the May. I am also seeing another decline in the median price to $215,000 which is down from March's $220,000.
Pending sales are hovering around 3,000 and active listings remain high at almost 27,000. (I measure inventory numbers differently than the official numbers that are reported.) New contracts written in April were way up compared to March. There were 1,679 new contract in March, but that was up over 20% in April to 2,026. Another not so great number, is foreclosures and pre-foreclosures in the Orlando area. They are moving up slowly, and right now stand at 4,435.
Overall, we are seeing improved activity and more interest in the market. I had three agents and one prospect contact me today about three different homes I have for sale. www.3573GatlinPlace.info, www.1558HuntersStand.info, www.13642Hawkeye.info