Orlando Real Estate

Well here are some salient numbers regarding Orlando Real Estate. January sales posted as of this morning stand at 960 which is an 18% improvement over last January's 813. Of the 960 closed last month 550 were distressed sales making up 57% of all the closed sales. That is up from about 49% in December 2008. The other big news is the median price in January which dropped from $169,900 in December to $148,500 last month.

Contracts pending went up by about 700 from December to January's 3,933 that is 127% more than January 2008. Many of these are short sales an foreclosures that are taking a bit longer to get closed. In fact 2,413 or 61% of the pending sales are distressed properties. That is actually down slightly from December when roughly 2/3 of the pending contracts were distressed properties. I will comment that a lot of transactions are taking longer to get closed. I have one scheduled to close tomorrow that should have closed last Friday, but the lender just wanted one more stipulation cleared. I will add that this is the first time in 10 years that Jeffrey Sachs with FBC Mortgage has missed a closing deadline. So, I know it is not him or his team, but a sign of the times when the lenders underwriters are checking and double checking everything.

Finally, the inventory of homes available for sale is about where it was a month ago. I did not take a count right at the end of the month, so I may be off a little from the official numbers. I have us up about 100 homes from December to 22,601 which is still down over 3,100 or about 12% from last year. Of the active listings 8,292 or roughly 37% are distressed properties which I believe is about the same as it was in December. The MLS has added a new category of "Short Sale", so I am hoping we will be able to more accurately account for these properties.

David Welch, Orlando Real Estate