Orlando Housing Market Report: Prices, Sales up in March
The annual spring home selling season’s start helped improve monthly sales and caused a dip in median sales prices, the Orlando Regional Realtor Association announced Tuesday.
The median price of homes in the Orlando housing market slid to $240,000 for the first time since June 2006, ORRA reports. In February, the median sale price was reported at $255,000.
Realtors in Lake, Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties reported 1,665 home sales in March, up from 1,541 in February, which the ORRA says is a reflection of the spring selling season, which traditionally runs March through June.
Both factors have helped raise the region’s housing affordability index from 87.1 percent in February to 93.6 percent in March, ORRA reports. The index is used to identify the discrepancy between an area’s median income and median home prices, helping Florida mortgage loan borrowers make an easy decision.
“Orlando’s index has historically been in the black, even peaking at 152 percent back in January of 2004,” says Randy Martin, ORRA president and Re/Max 200 Realtor, in a prepared statement.
But when compared with March 2006, when 2,878 home changed hands through the regional Multiple Listing Service, last month’s sales slipped 42.1 percent.
Multiple-family home sales also struggled last month. Only 224 condos sold last month, a 63 percent drop from the 612 that sold in March 2006. Meanwhile, 134 duplexes, townhomes and villas sold this March, which was 48 percent less than the 258 sold the same period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, 2,025 existing homes sold last month in the Orlando area, a 42-percent decline when compared with the 3,489 sold in March 2006. As warm weather continues, Florida home loan activity should only pick up.
The total inventory of homes for sale through the MLS also rose in March to 23,547, up 1,492 homes from the same month a year earlier. About 17,357 of that represented single-family homes; 4,072 were condos; and duplexes, townhomes, and villas made up the remaining 2,118.
