Orlando Real Estate

Real estate has been anything but normal here in Orlando since about 2003. I still am stopping short of saying things are back to normal, but the Spring selling season seems to be back. In 2004-2005 everything sold all the time. By the end of 2006-2008 nothing seemed to sell. In 2009 prices dropped and sales shot up significantly. Now in 2010, after nearly a year of stable inventory sales trends seem to reflect the typical seasonal trends. Things slowed down a little bit in January and February while sales appear to be picking up (and new listings) so far in March. Last weekend I predicted we could hit 10,000 pending sales by Monday. Well, I got busy and did not have a chance to track pendings this week, but today we stand at 10,032 properties under contract. Although 6,221 are short sales that leaves over 3,800 "normal" and REO sales with a high likelihood of closing soon.

In March 1,264 real estate sales have closed just 2/3 of the way through the month. Typically about half the sales close by the 20th with the rest coming in the last few days of the month. The median price of those sales is right in line with February at $110,000. Inventory is up a little bit too with just over 16,400 homes available for sale including almost 6,100 short sales and just over 1,900 bank owned properties. About 1/3 of the closed sales are "normal", while 554 or almost 44% have been REO and the remaining 294 or 23% have been short sales. Cash continues to be king with 645 or 51% of the closed sales being all cash deals. If we really are returning to our typical sales "seasons", then April, May and June should be very strong. I am looking to reach 2,500+ sales in each of those months. We might even make it this month.

Orlando Real Estate, David Welch Real Estate Optimist