Orlando Real Estate

There are 16,597 active listings on the market in Orlando with 2,317 bank owned and 5,975 short sales accounting for half of all the homes for sale. Homes with contracts pending continue to be dominated by distressed properties with 2,103 REO and 5,796 short sales making up a whopping 86% of all these properties. Only about 8.9% of the pending short sales are turning into closed deals, so distressed property closings represent only 69.3% of the sales. As I had predicted a couple of weeks ago in my Orlando real estate blog closed sales for July dropped significantly from June. There have been 2,290 closings recorded with 1,073 foreclosures and 513 short sales. The median price also dropped a bit from the previous month to $109,900. Bank owned properties had a median sales price of $71,000 and short sales came in at $115,000. Cash sales once again accounted for a significant number of the sales with 1,202 or 52.5% of all sales. Cash buyers continue to pick up bargains with a median sales price of just $61,000.

After more than 3,000 closed sales in June at a median price of $116,000, some might worry that we are headed for a "double dip". (I just love how the media comes up with these catchy phrases.) All that has really happened is the homebuyer tax credit pushed some buyers into purchasing sooner than they would have otherwise. I have worked with a number of buyers since the tax credits have come out, been extended, been extended again and expanded; and all of them basically said the same thing. The tax credit was not the reason they were buying a home, but it was essentially pushing up their time frame for purchasing. July's sales numbers actually look a lot like the numbers we were seeing leading up to the April 30th deadline. Look for August and September to drop off a bit from these numbers as the school year starts back up.

David Welch Real Estate Optimist, Orlando Real Estate