Orlando’s housing market ended the strongest sales season of the year with median prices rising 2% and sales up 4.8% in August from a month earlier, according to a new report.
The effects of Hurricane Irma, which
Before Irma, the Orlando area’s housing market showed prices strengthening in August when the median sales price was $225,000, which was up 9.8% for the year and 2% for the month, the association reported.
Rising prices didn’t seem to hinder sales, which reached 3,544 in August and were up 2.7% from a year earlier and 4.8% from a month earlier.
For five consecutive months, the supply of listings has been less than three months. That’s considered half the supply needed to fuel a market. The number of houses listed for sale dropped 13% over the last year and condo listings were down 27%.
One reason for the lopsided housing market favoring sellers is that the four-county Orlando area grew by an additional 40,000 jobs during the last year. That surge came at a time when builders had added relatively little new housing stock because mortgages and construction loans have been tighter coming out of the recession.
Even though buyers faced greater competition, they were able to better leverage their income because mortgage interest rates dropped to 3.92% from 4.01% a month earlier.
