Orlando Real Estate

This has been a crazy day to end a crazy week. There is a lot of good news though for Orlando real estate. First the sales for May were outstanding at 1,866 with a median sales price of $130,000. Of those sales 1,091 were labeled as distressed including short sales and bank owned properties. That is about 58.5% of the sales which is consistent with what I have been seeing for almost nine months.  Of the distressed properties 802 were actually bank owned, so short sales are still way below REO's for closed sales. Pending sales is a different story. Of the 6,662 pending contracts 4,551 or 68.3% are distressed. Only 1,400 are REO's, so the short sales are more than 2 to one in the pending category compared to the bank owned properties.

The active inventory continues to drop with only 18,946 properties listed for sale by Orlando Realtors. There were 20,194 properties on the market at the end of April. So there has been a 1,248 or 6.2% drop in inventory in one month. Of the homes on the market 7,246 or 38.2% are considered distressed properties with only 1,122 being bank owned. The bank owned properties have been declining steadily since the beginning of the year. First, the moratorium was keeping new REO's from hitting the market. Now, it appears that there are a few things keeping the banks from foreclosing. The stimulus package is helping to encourage banks to work mortgages out with home owners. The other side of that is the banks working out more short sales. I think that one of the biggest issues effecting the number of REO's on the market is just the process. It appears only so many foreclosures can get done, and when they hit the market they are getting bought pretty quickly in many cases. In other words, I think they are not foreclosing as fast as they are selling. The main reason for this is pricing. The median price over all was $130,000, while the median price of all distressed properties was $102,000 and REO's was $82,000.

Orlando Real Estate, David Welch Real Estate Optimist, @RealtyOptimist