Orlando Real Estate

Overall in Orlando the number of houses for sale is down from the beginning of the month. There are 15,296 houses for sale in Orlando compared with 15,428 four weeks ago. Bank owned and short sales continue to make up almost half of the available properties, with 49.9% of the market. The number of bank owned homes has increased from 1,737 on November 1st to 1,872 as of this morning. After three large banks issued a self imposed moratorium on foreclosures we saw several hundred properties taken off the market in October. That trend has reversed in November. Pending sales have remained fairly stable with 9,061 homes under contract. Of course distressed properties dominate this segment with 86.3% of all contracts made up of short sales with 5,776 and bank owned properties with 2,045.

With today being the end of the month, there will likely be a few hundred more closings posted over the next few days. Currently, 1,564 have been recorded with a median sales price of $105,000 again. Bank owned properties have not regained their share of the closed sales yet with only 38.1% or 596 REO's closed so far. Short sales make up 27.6% or 431 sales and "normal" equity sales account for 34.3% or 537 of the sales. The median prices so far are $70,000, $107,000 and $155,000 respectively for REO, short and equity sales. Cash purchases continue to rule with 861 or 55.1% of the recorded sales paid for with no financing. Cash purchases also continue to be for the least expensive properties with a median sales price of $61,900 compared with $150,000 for financed purchases. We are getting into the historically slowest time of the year between Thanksgiving and New Years, so I expect to see a little bit slower sales activity. Based on some of the recent economic news I expect to see 2011 start out stong, but I'm an optimist.

David Welch Real Estate Optimist, Orlando Real Estate