Orlando Real Estate

May marked another month of strong sales, lower inventory and rising prices. Yes, you read that right. Despite what the local or national media keep reporting, Orlando real estate is selling well and the median sales price is up over 15% since the beginning of the year. First, let's look at the inventory of 10,609. Based upon last month's sales that represents just a 4.3 month supply of homes available for sale. This is well below the six month supply we generally consider a balanced market. This number is made up of 1,023 or 9.6% REO, 3,506 or 33% short sale and 6,080 or 57.3% equity sales. With the drop in inventory and rise in contracts, pending sales have risen to 10,533. Pendings are still dominated by distressed properties with 1,608 or 15.3% REO, 7,192 or 68.3% short sale and 1,733 or 16.5% equity sales.

Next, we see another stong sales month even with the drop in REO properties. We posted 2,480 closed sales with a median sales price of $110,000. Of those 928 or 37.4% were REO with a median price of $79,000. Another 645 or 26.0% were short sales with a median sales price of $97,500. Again, the percentage of short sales closed of the total pending was only 9%. Finally, there were 907 or 36.6% equity sales with a median sales price of $155,000. Cash sales still made up the majority of sales with 1,301 or 52.5% with a median price of $67,500, and financed sales accounted for 1,179 sales with a price of $143,000.

Compared to last month, inventory is down 7.3% from 11,444, but it is down 33.6% from last May. The median sales price is up almost 4.8% compared to April, but it is down over 4.3% from last May. While the national average sales price went up and is now double dipping according to many indicators, Orlando continued to slide to the low of $95,000 in January of this year. Orlando is back on the rise, and if inventory continues to decline, I expect our median price could also continue to rise.

David Welch Real Estate Optimist, Orlando Real Estate, Any Home-Any Phone