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Real Estate Market Pulse, March 2007
The April Market Pulse Report which covers the March, 2007 real estate activity was released this week. The report covers listings, sales, days on market and other critical statistics regarding real estate transactions mostly in Orange and Seminole County.
Click here to view a PDF file containing this data:
www.orlrealtor.com/Pages/marketpulse/Market%20Pulse%204-07.pdf
The number of active listings has increased to a new record of 23,547 homes for sale in the two county area. This is the highest inventory level in the history of Central Florida real estate. Sales for the month were quite frankly surprising and somewhat disappointing, with only 1,665 homes closed in March, 2007. That is a sobering 42% decline from last year's number when 2,878 home sales were recorded. The sales in March, 2006 were the highest sales of any month in that calendar year with two other months also being over 2,800 homes sold in May, 2006 and June, 2006. If 2007 follows that trend and sales this year don't go much higher than March's figure this will really become serious for many hopeful home sellers.
On the flip side, there has not been a better time to buy a home in my eighteen years of selling real estate. Interest rates continue to hover near historical lows, inventory is obviously abundant so selection is good, and prices seem to have stabilized.
The number of homes on the market has increased by nearly 62% (23,547 in March, 2007 compared to 14.559 in March, 2006). Prices have remained fairly stable in most areas and the days on market to sell have continued to rise. If you're planning to sell, allow as much time as possible and begin your planning early if you can! While 1,665 homes sold last month, there were a record 3,401 homes that came off the market unsold (expired or withdrawn listings). More than twice as many homes came off the market as homes that sold last month. Homes that came off the market unsold do not count into the days on market calculation.
The Absorption Rate (the number of homes for sale divided by the monthly closed sales) continues to hover at well over a year (14.1 months). In other words, there are 23,547 homes for sale and 1,665 sales last month and at this rate it will take fourteen months to clear the inventory currently on the market.
I'll keep you posted as the summer selling season progresses. I'm optimistic that we'll see significant improvement, but the time frame is uncertain. Many of the experts had been predicting a more balanced market by mid to late 2007 but I believe the timeline could be much farther out into 2008 or even 2009. Based on the statistics, it would seem we have been at the bottom of the cycle these past few months, so some mild improvement should be coming fairly soon!
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