Orlando Florida Regional Housing Market Update July 2013

ORLANDO FLORIDA

REGIONAL HOUSING MARKET UPDATE

July 2013

The latest housing market data are in for Central Florida, including Lake Mary Florida, Longwood Florida, Sanford Florida, Winter Springs Florida, Oviedo Florida and Altamonte Springs Florida. Here are the highlights taken from the Orlando Realtor Regional Board ending

June 30, 2013 (the latest now available):

Inventory 

Inventory rose again last month to 7,616 homes from 7,272.  It appears the lack of inventory bottomed out at 6,937 in March.

The inventory includes single family homes, condos, duplexes and townhomes.  A year ago the inventory was 8,136.  For comparison: In December of 2008, there were 22,524 on the market.  The overall inventory is now down 6.39% from a year ago, but up 4.73% from last month. Inresponse to the inventory shortage, finally, for the first time in 7 or 8 years, multiple builders have started multiple communities / subdivisions from scratch (as opposed to buying out existing projects).   

Single family home inventory is down 9.79% from a year ago, but condo inventory is up 2.56%. The current pace of sales equates to only 2.97 months of supply, up slightly from  last month’s 2.55.  Six months of supply is generally considered balanced. Under normal economic conditions, anything above six months is generally considered a “buyer’s market” and anything below is then considered a “seller’s market”.  However, these are terms used loosely as descriptors. Buyers ultimately set the market price.

Sales 

Overall sales were actually down 1.95% from a year ago.  

Of the sales in June, 1,620 or 63.21% were “normal”, 478 were short sales (18.65%) and 465 (18.14%) were bank-owned. The number of normal sales increased by 33.88% compared to a year ago and the number of short sales fell by 35.84%. Bank-owned sales decreased by 29.44%. This continues the now-standing long-term trend of normal sales taking more and more of the sales total than those sales under distressed conditions.   

Single Family Home sales increased by 1.28% over a year ago. Condo sales were down 15.84% and villa/townhome sales were down 3.81%.      

Homes spent an average of 66 days on the market in June –  two fewer days than last month, and almost three weeks less than a year ago. The averagehome sold for 97.14% of its then-current listing price. “Then current listing price” is an important distinction since a home may have been on the market with prior price reductions.  Thus, it may have ended up selling for less than the percentage cited from its original debut listing price. 

By county in the Orlando MSA for sales compared to a year ago: Seminole County was down 7.66% from last June, Orange County was down 6.11%. Osceola came in down 10.30%, but Lake County increased by 22.79%. No statistics for Volusia or Brevard were made available (Volusia has several different realtor boards with both New Smyrna and Daytona each having their own and Volusia is officially part of the Daytona Beach MSA.  In addition, Brevard has its own Board). 

Prices 

The median price of a home rose 22.40% from a year ago to $153,000 and 3.27% more than last month. The Orlando Florida metro area market has now posted positive year-over-year gains in price for 24 consecutive months.  

However, remember - the median price above encompasses all sales. Individual categories can fluctuate within the median. However, this month, as was the case last month, prices year over year rose in all categories. Normal (no distress) sales rose 13.85% to $185,000 from last year and up from 180,000 last month, short sales rose 4.55% to $115,000 and Bank-Owned averages increased 24.28% to $108,000 compared to a year ago.

Affordability 

The Orlando MSA affordability index decreased to 190.84 from 212.25 and the first time homebuyer’s index also decreased to 135.71 from 150.93. 

Each index is inversely proportional to pricing changes. An affordability index of 100 means that a buyer earning the state-reported median income has exactly the income necessary to purchase the median-priced home.  Anything over 100 indicates that average buyers earning average incomes (adjusted for the MSA) have more income than that which is required.   A score of 99 means the buyer is 1 percent short of the income necessary to qualify. When prices rise faster than incomes, the affordability index goes down and visa-versa.

Orlando Unemployment 

The latest numbers for Orlando Florida – for May is 6.6%, down from 6.9 in April.  A year ago it was 8.4%. The national average was 7.8%  

The statistics cited is provided by the Orlando Regional Realtors Association, of which we are a member. 

This report is intended to be for reference and informational purposes only.  The opinions expressed herein are solely those of New Southern Properties Inc. and are opinions. No purchases or investments should be made based solely on this report, this data, or the opinions expressed herein.  Real Estate purchases and investments are complex transactions. You are strongly urged to consult with your financial, legal and real estate consultants before making any real estate purchase or investment.