Orlando Real Estate

Half way through the year and sales have remained strong in spite of the drop in foreclosures coming on the market. The combined effect of the strong sales and fewer foreclosures has caused the inventory to continue its decline. Currently there are only 10,188 homes listed for sale by Orlando Realtors®. That is a drop of almost 4% from the 10,609 homes available for sale a month ago. That represents only a 4.1 month supply of inventory. Generally, we consider a six month supply to be a balanced market. Of the homes currently available for sale only 871 or 8.5% are bank owned, 3,334 or 32.7% are short sales and 5,983 or 58.7% are equity sales. There are another 10,580 homes with contracts pending. This is only slightly more than the 10, 533 that were under contract last month. These homes are made up of 1,447 or 13.7% bank owned, 7,404 or 70% short sales and only 1,729 or 16.3% equity sales.

June's closed sales were almost unchanged from May with 2,476 closed sales at a median price of $110,000. The makeup of those sales changed with only 815 or 32.9% coming from bank owned with a median sales price of $75,700. This price was down from May's $79,000. There were 676 or 27.3% closed short sales which account for only 9.1% of the pending short sales with a median price of $97,225, almost unchanged from last month. "Normal" equity sales made up the plurality of the sales with 985 or 39.8% and a median sales price of $160,000. This was an increase of $5,000 from May's median sales price of $155,000. Cash sales dropped slightly to 52% representing 1,287 sales with a slightly higher sales price of $70,000 compared with May's $67,500. Financed sales made up 1,189 or 48% of the total sales with a median price of $149,755.

The general concensus is that bank owned properties will start coming back more strongly over the next few months. However, with the strong demand for these bargain properties the only impact they will have on our market is likely to be a slightly lower median sales price. I expect if this resurgence of REO's does happen we will see sales climb and prices drop while the inventory will remain on the lower side. The latest indications suggest that foreclosures have actually slowed in the Orlando area, so they may not make as big a splash as some people may think.

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