Tomorrow, Thursday November 12th at 9:00pm look for me on HGTV's House Hunters. The last time I checked, my episode was still scheduled to air at that time. Check your local listings though to make sure. I want to thank Lisa and Doug for asking me to be part of this home search, and also for applying to be on the television show. I would not have thought to apply to be on the show myself. Since being part of this, I have been checking and House Hunters has actually already been to Orlando a few times this year. My friends at Talk.Realtor.com tell me that Orlando is pretty much at the top of the list for real estate searches.
I cannot think of a better place to be practicing real estate. Despite all the negative press you read every day, the bad times only last for a little while. I suspect we may very well be dealing with foreclosures for another three years as the banks work through their backlog. In the mean time, we are writing 3,500 contracts (not offers) a month and closing more than 2,000 transactions. The closings are what I would expect for our market, and the contracts are exceptionally strong numbers. I believe these numbers indicate a renewed demand in Orlando real estate. It is no wonder Orlando real estate searches have been so strong on Realtor.com and so many House Hunters episodes have been filmed here in The City Beautiful.
Orlando real estate prices have been very stable for seven months now bouncing along the bottom between $125,000 and $135,000 since April. With the big push by first time home buyers to get into a home before the November 30th tax credit deadline, I am expecting prices to take a tumble this month. First time home buyers purchase less expensive homes for the most part, so I expect prices to be a bit lower in November and probably December. Looking at the pending inventory of nearly 9,000 homes, there are 3,775 that are expected to close this month with a median list price of $124,500. There are a couple of factors to consider though. First, 3,775 will not close this month. Looking at recent history, we can probably expect about 2,000 of them to close including the 250 or so that have already closed. The other consideration is the role short sales will play regarding prices. A lot of the ones that will not close are short sales which have much lower prices than "normal" sales. However, the short sale prices are typically much higher than the REO's. In the end it has typically been a wash with short sale prices hovering just below the overall median price.
With the list price running at $124,500, I expect our median sales price to be around $120,000 this month. While the impending end of the tax credit might have accounted for more lower priced sales this month, the extra competition for well priced homes likely pushed offers closer to the asking price. With the extension of the tax credit, I suspect many of these sales will end up closing in December as the urgency to close by November 30th wanes. With the extension and expansion of the tax credit, I am expecting the tremendous demand continuing well into next year. Until hiring picks up though, look for our prices here in Orlando to stay in a very affordable range. I do believe that we will see a slight tick up in hiring in the first quarter. I believe we may already be seeing a little improvement in hiring this quarter, but nothing to get too excited about yet.
By the way, watch for me on HGTV's House Hunters this Thursday November 12th at 9:00pm. Check your local listings.
October closed out our fifth month in a row with over 2,000 closed sales. So far 2,004 have been posted for the month with a median sales price of $130,500. We have been hovering around $130,000 for seven months now ranging between $125,000 and $135,000. Of the 2,004 closes sales 832 or 41.5% were bank owned, almost 21% were short sales with 415 and the remaining 757 were "normal" sales. As usual we are seeing a pretty big difference in the median prices of these three groups. REO's came in at $80,000 while short sales were just under the over all median with $127,000 and "normal" sales had a median sales price of $180,000. The 415 short sales closed represent only about 7.5% of the total number of short sales under contract.
Total pending sales stand at 9,072 with 1,782 being REO'snd a whopping 5,544 classified as short sales. That leaves on 1,746 "normal" pending contracts. The "normal" sales tend to be higher priced homes, but also tend to close a bit more quickly once they are under contract. Short sales continue to be a drag on the entire real estate system taking six to eight months to obtain approval. The total inventory is down slightly to 15,778 with 1,255 bank owned properties and 5,583 short sales. Combined distressed properties represent just over 43% of our active inventory.
My blog post about the extension and expansion of the home buyer tax credit was featured on www.Talk.Realtor.com.
In the last seven days there were 12 sales in Baldwin Park ranging in price from $431,300 to $714,900. So far this month there have been 27 contracts written on two condos, one townhome and 24 single family homes. The prices have ranged from $210,000 to $799,000 with a median list price of $449,900. Currently, there are 99 active listings in Baldwin Park and 62 pending sales with 151 closed so far this year. The median list price of the active listings is $437,500. The properties receiving contracts have a median list price of $349,500 while the closed sales have posted a median sales price of $332,000 on a list price of $359,900. The most recent month seems to be bucking the trend for the year with a median list price $80,000 and $90,000 higher than closed sales and pending sales thus far.
Overall that does not appear to be the case. Orlando Realtors have written 3,516 new contracts in October that are still pending (3,337) or closed (179). Of these only 943 or 27% are "normal" sales with bank owned accounting for 34% or 1,183 contracts and the remaining 1,392 almost 40% categorized as short sales. The median list price of the contracts this month is down around $117,900 which is far below the median sales price of $129,900 so far this month. This is probably in part due to the last big push by first time home buyers to take advantage of the tax credit expiring at the end of next month.
I posted on Twitter the other day that it was 90 degrees with the wind chill here in Orlando. Several people liked that. Our sales are continuing to persist like the summer time weather. We have over 1,500 closed sales so far in October, and it looks like we will have our 5th month in a row with more than 2,000 sales and our 7th month with a median sales price hovering around $130,000. It would be even hotter if every contract we write actually closed. Since April we have been writing more than 3,300 contracts each month with just over 2,000 getting to the closing table. Short sales are still slow to close with well over 5,000 pending of the 9,000+ contracts pending in our market place. REO's can be a little challenging, but close almost as well as "normal" sales. I can't remember if I have had a closing this year that actually happened on time because of delays in financing. This too shall pass, but I hope the strong demand continues for a while. Our inventory level seems to have leveled off just under 16,000 which is just about an eight month supply. First time buyer tax credit is set to expire in just over one month. I do not think we will notice much difference in demand here.
David W. Welch, MBA Broker/Associate Remax 200 Realty www.davidwelch.com davidwelch@davidwelch.com
I have a broad and diverse base of business experience including finance, marketing, sales, computers/information systems, and health care. I graduated from the University of Central Florida in 1987 with a BS in Business Administration with a major in Finance. I earned my MBA from the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College in 1990 with a concentration in Finance. UCF is the seventh largest university in the nation. Rollins' MBA was recently ranked number 37 in the nation and is one of the smallest programs in the nation. The diversity of my experiences helps me to listen and understand the unique needs and wants of all my customers.
I primarily work in Orange county with a focus on the downtown Orlando, Conway, Dr. Phillips, Windermere, Winter Park, Waterford, Winter Garden, Ocoee, UCF and Lake Nona areas. These are mostly in South Orange county and East Orange county. The majority of my business is single family residential sales, but I also am familiar with many of the condo and townhome communities. I also have experience dealing in vacant land, and commercial sales and leasing. You can read more at www.davidwelch.com/orlandobuyers and www.davidwelch.com/orlandosellers. You can also read about the most up to date happenings in Orlando Real Estate at www.RealEstateOptimist.com.
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