Orlando Real Estate

Today is the end of May, and we can expect another 400 sales or so to close and be posted over the next few days. For right now though, we have 2,041 sales in the books with a median sales price of $107,000. This continues a few trends we have been seeing this year. Pretty good sales, dropping inventory and increasing prices. Now before you get all defensive over the increasing prices comment, I am just reporting the monthly median sales prices. From month to month you can expect volatility. We also normally expect rising prices during this time of year. The last several years have been anything but normal here relative to our real estate market.

Month	Sold	Available	Median Sales Price
January	2,041	14,398	$95,000
February	2,170	13,480	$95,000
March	2,613	12,533	$102,000
April	2,388	11,480	$105,000
May†	2,113	10,805	$107,000

By the time May is complete, I expect to see close to 2,500 closed sales. It is unlikely the additional sales will change the median price very much, but sometimes that does happen. If things remain the same with the price, that would represent a 12.6% increase in the median price since the beginning of the year. With banks and the courts moving at a much slower pace on foreclosures, the overall number of homes available is down 25% since January. The slow down in foreclosures has impacted both the number of REO properties for sale and the number of active short sales. With fewer bargain priced bank owned homes, it appears buyers have turned to short sales. May, June and July are typically big buying months for families looking to make moves while the children are out of school. We could see the inventory below 10,000 by the end of June and continued increase in the median price.

†May numbers are as of May 31st @3:30pm.

David Welch, Real Estate Optimist