Orlando Real Estate

Currently, there are 16,216 active listings in the Orlando marketplace with 1,776 bank owned and 6,056 short sales making up 48.3% of the active inventory. That is a pretty big chunk of the market, but pales in comparison to the percentage of pending and closed sales so far this month. The good news is that pending sales are going through the roof with 9,467. The not so hot news is that 83.2% of the pending sales are distressed with 1,876 REO's and 6,002 short sales. The number of closed sales so far is 1,043 suggesting a pretty good month for the number of closed transactions. Closed sales so far are also very heavily weighted with distressed properties. There have been 464 bank owned and 268 short sales closed so far making up 70.2%. The high percentage is showing up in the sales prices too. The median sales price for bank owned properties is at $76,050, short sales is $99,000 and "normal" sales is $164,000. The overall median sales price is up slightly from January at $107,000.

The inventory remains fairly stable, sales remain fairly strong with around 2,000 closing per month since June of last year. So why are the prices coming down? I believe at least a part of the problem lies in the condition of the distressed properties that are for sale now compared to a year ago. When the foreclosures first started hitting the market here, many of them were investor purchased homes in excellent condition. In fact, many of them were brand new homes that had barely been lived in. More and more, I am showing homes in disrepair and otherwise poor condition. Some are newer homes, but the process to foreclose and market has taken very long and time and toll on the homes. Others are foreclosures and short sales created by economic conditions. The owners just began to neglect the home, because they could not afford to maintain it. Of course, some take out their frustration on the home by damaging and ransacking the property before the bank takes it back.

Orlando Real Estate, David Welch Real Estate Optimist, As Seen On HGTV's House Hunters