The local real estate market here in Orlando has been under a lot of scrutiny lately along with the majority of the US housing market. The headlines read "Orlando-area home sales drop 35% in April". While we cannot dispute this fact that the numbers are down but is the press giving this market a bad wrap?
In 1999 I was just getting into real estate sales. While taking my real estate classes I remember my instructor ranting about how great the Orlando real estate market was at the time. I do not recall negative press for the real estate market during that time. I went on to get my real estate license and never heard a whimper from anyone during my first few years about a bad market. Well as we all know from 2002 - 2006 the housing market in Orlando and around the country took off. People all over were buying houses at an incredible pace. Many baby boomers were coming of age where they bought vacation homes and home prices continued to climb.
In April 1999 the Orlando area had 1496 home sales and in 2005 we had a record number 2557 home sales for the same period. How could we possibly keep up that pace? There were times that I would place a home for sale in the Multiple Listing Service and I would expect that property to sell within a week and sometimes within hours of listing it. Many times the property would sell sight unseen. This is not a realistic expectation in a normal market.
Here we are in May 2007 and the April statistics were just released. In April 2007 we had 1469 homes sell and there are all kinds of negative press floating around on a 35% drop from the same period last year. Wait a minute I thought 1400 sales in one month was a good number? At least that seemed to be the consensus back in 1999. Has the bubble really burst or is it just settling back to where it should be? Is it realistic that you should put your house on the market and have a line of buyers starting a bidding war on your property the same day you listed it?
For more information regarding the above web blog, please contact Jeffrey Funk at 407-438-4028 or email us at jeff@realtyinorlando.com
