Orlando Real Estate

The seventh habit from Stephen Covey's book "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" is called Sharpen the Saw. This one is pretty straightforward, but it is also something that many of us forget too. You get busy, and you neglect giving yourself time to read or practice or attend workshops to get better. In the real estate business, if you are not moving forward you are getting left behind. Our industry is changing probably more rapidly than it ever has. We not only need to be skilled salespeople, but skilled in a variety of technologies, lending changes, and changes in our market place.

I just attended a workshop on using Facebook Business Pages, and picked up several good ideas. The person leading the discussion was Mike Smalley, a lender with Waterstone Mortgage. He has really worked hard to develop a winning presence on Facebook. When our market really slowed down in 2008, I spent a lot of time figuring out how to improve my web presence, and I have managed to move my site www.davidwelch.com to #7 on page #1 of Google for "Orlando real estate." In the process, I had to learn about Facebook, Twitter, SEO and Blogging. This was on top of keeping abreast of the latest changes in short sales, staying on top of market and financing trends. So I saved sharpen the saw for last, because we all need to keep our skills honed and we need to be ready to retool our business plans as our markets shift and change.

It's groundhog day 2012, and currently there are 8,844 homes available for sale listed with Orlando Realtors, and 9,525 homes with contracts. Of the home still available, 783 are foreclosures and 2,852 are short sales. Of the homes with contracts on them, 1,187 are foreclosures and 6,963 are short sales.

January, Orlando real estate sales statistics so far: 1,691 sales have closed with a median sales price of $105,000. Both numbers are way, way down from December. It looks like we should finish with just under 2,000 closed sales. While the $105,000 is a drop from December, it is still $10,000 higher than January 2011.

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

There are 8,816 homes available for sale listed by Orlando Realtors, and 9,553 homes have contracts. Of the homes still available, 791 are foreclosures and 2,836 are short sales. Of the homes with contracts, 1,176 are foreclosures and 6,987 are short sales.

Orlando, January sales statistics for January: So far 1,582 sales have been posted for last month with a median sales price of $105,000. I know the last two days have been busy for the title agencies. I had a late closing yesterday that will be put into the system later today.

I have a new listing search tool available. Now you can search our MLS like an agent. Just check out www.orlandorealestate.listingbook.com.

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

There are only 8,864 homes available for sale listed by Orlando Realtors, and 9,566 homes with contracts. Of the properties still available, 797 are foreclosures and 2,826 are short sales. Of the properties with contracts on them, 1,171 are foreclosures and 7,002 are short sales.

Early January Orlando real estate sales statistics: 1,508 sales have closed with a median price of $105,000. I will be adding to this statistic in about two hours. Closing 1031 Saddleback Ridge this afternoon.

There are 8,957 homes available for sale listed by Orlando Realtors, and 9,542 with contracts. Of the available homes, 807 are foreclosures and 2,863 are short sales. Of the homes with contracts, 1,180 are foreclosures and 6,994 are short sales.

Early January, Orlando real estate sales statistics, so far 1,303 sales have closed with a median sales price of $105,000.

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

There are 8,992 homes available for sale listed by Orlando Realtors, and 9,507 homes with contracts. Of the homes available, 793 are foreclosures and 2,897 short sales. Of the homes with contracts on them, 1,176 are foreclosures and 6,984 are short sales.

Early Orlando, January real estate sales statistics: 1,216 sales have closed so far with a median sales price of $103,600. The lowest price of a home closed this month was $5,000 and the highest price was $4,438,900.

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

I started a short series on business planning using Stephen Covey's Seven Habits as a guide. In my first post I talked about what Covey refers to as Private Victory and the first three habits: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, and put first things first. This post will focus on the Public Victory areas of: think win-win, seek first to understand then to be understood, and synergize.

You can apply these three habits in the implementation of your business plan as you are actually in field working with buyers, sellers, other agents, title companies, lenders and the other professionals we deal with on a regular basis.

Think win-win is an appropriate mindset when working with your customers. If you do your job well your customer has their home sold or their purchase closed and you get paid for your efforts. Your customer and you both have an incentive to work together and you both win at closing. This is also the best mindset to have when approaching the other agent, the title agent and the lender. By working together toward a successful closing every professional involved benefits.

Seek first to understand then to be understood is really the secret to success of any salesperson. Your customer is not looking to be sold, they are looking for your professional opinions and advice. You are their advocate in the transaction, and you need to understand their concerns. Ask your customer questions, then be quiet and listen. A little time listening to your customer can yield a much more productive relationship with them.

Finally, synergize goes hand in hand with thinking win-win with the other people involved in closing your transaction. I have had a business relationship with the same title agency and the same loan officer for about 13 years. I stongly encourage my customers to work with these people, because I have complete confidence their transaction will be handled professionally. I find that the transactions I close with these folks go so much more smoothly. You need to try to synergize with whoever may be providing your customer's loan or closing their transaction, but whenever you can working with your partners takes the synergy to another level.

There is one habit left, and I'll cover that in my next post.

There are 9,018 homes available for sale listed by Orlando Realtors, and 9,470 homes with contracts. Of the homes available, 829 are foreclosures and 2,902 are short sales. Of the homes with contracts, 1,154 are foreclosures and 6,982 are short sales.

Early Orlando real estate sales statistics: 1,108 sales have closed so far with a median sales price of $105,000. It looks like our number of closed sales will be off last year's mark of 2,100, but the median price looks to be about $10,000 higher than last year's $95,000.

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

December 2011 real estate search results are in and Orlando, FL was the #10 most searched market in the country in December 2011, based on data released today by Realtor.com, the #1 homes for sale real estate web site.

Median list prices for homes in Orlando, FL hit $155,000 in December 2011, a 0.71% increase from one year ago this month, and -2.52% decrease from November 2011. The national median list price in December 2011 was $188,000, a 5.03% increase compared to December 2010.

Active for sale inventory of homes in Orlando, FL in December 2011 leveled out at 11,159, a -43.26% decrease compared to December 2010. National inventory counts for December 2011 were 1,893,528, a -22.29% decrease as compared to a year ago.

The median age of inventory in Orlando, FL in December was 80 days, a 8.11% increase compared to November 2011. Nationally, the median age of inventory was 122 days, a 7.02% increase compared to November.

For details on all 146 MSAs monitored by Realtor.com in December 2011, click here:

http://www.realtor.com/data-portal/Real-Estate-Statistics.aspx

Contact us if you’re interested in a custom report detailing real estate trend data by county or zip code.

Each month, Realtor.com surveys up to 250 Metro Service Areas (MSA) throughout the nation and monitors real estate trends including consumer search behavior, median list prices on for sale homes, active inventory counts and median age of inventory. The information is released to local markets to help consumers and real estate professionals as they work together to successfully navigate their local market.

According to Realtor.com, the top 10 most searched real estate markets, identified as MSAs, in the United States in December 2011 include:

Chicago, IL 1^st
Detroit, MI 2^rd
Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA 3^rd
Phoenix-Mesa, AZ 4^th
Atlanta, GA 5^th
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL 6^th
Philadelphia, PA 7^th
Dallas, TX 8^th
Las Vegas, NV 9^th
Orlando, FL 10^th

In addition, the top most searched real estate markets in Florida in December 2011, and the national searched rank included:

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL #6
Orlando, FL #10
West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL #13
Fort Lauderdale, FL #16
Miami, FL #18
Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL #31
Sarasota-Bradenton, FL #38
Jacksonville, FL #42
Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay, FL #46
Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie, FL #52
Naples, FL #54
Daytona Beach, FL #56
Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL #62
Pensacola, FL #110
Tallahassee, FL #113
Ocala, FL #124
Punta Gorda, FL #129
Gainesville, FL #130

Realtor.com is the most searched real estate web site today, and displays more than four million for sale and for rent property listings fed directly to the site for free by more than 933 multiple listing services (MLS) across the nation. More than 75 percent of all listings on Realtor.com are updated every 15 minutes with important information including price changes, sold data and property status changes, with the remaining properties updated every one to 24 hours. All homes tracked in these monthly reports are single family homes, condominiums, co-ops and townhomes.

For more information or commentary on local market trends, please contact:

Julie.Reynolds@move.com
Jennifer.DuBois@move.com
Jill.Kipnis@move.com
Candice.Cerro@move.com
Move@accesspr.com