The usually robust summer home sales season started off in June with increased sales but little movement on prices in the core Orlando market, a report released Tuesday shows.
The midpoint price for an Orlando-area house that sold during June was $165,100, basically flat from the May midpoint price of $165,000. In recent years, June prices have increased about $5,000 from May.
For the first time in 2014, Orlando had a busier flurry of sales than it had year earlier. June sales of Orlando-area homes increased about 6 percent from a year ago and 5 percent from May, according to reports by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. The association reports member sales and activity primarily for Orange and Seminole counties.
Increased sales may indicate a shift from the pool of investment buyers who flooded the market purchasing distressed properties last year to a market defined by homebuyers purchasing homes in recent months, agents said.
The number of houses listed for sale continued its gradual climb in May, reaching 11,518. A year ago, the core Orlando market had only 6,937 houses for sale.
The month’s supply of inventory has increased to 4.09 months from 2.86 months in June 2013.
“We’ve had double-digit increases in inventory for months, and the additional supply is accelerating sales,” said Winter Park real estate agent Zola Szerencses, chairman of the association. “Would-be buyers who were blocked by competition last year are finding more to choose from.”
Prices are up 9.9 percent from a year ago but that increase is not as dramatic as year-over-year gains of 28 percent that boosted the Orlando housing arena last summer.
Short sales experienced the largest increase in median prices, with a 16 percent uplift from a year ago. Prices for foreclosures, meanwhile, dropped but only by less than 1 percent. And prices for “normal” sales increased 4.9 percent from a year ago.
Overall June sales showed some signs of a market that had softened slightly from a year ago. Homes of all types spent an average of 71 days on the market before coming under contract last month; a year earlier homes sat for an average of 68 days.
And while homes sold for an average 96.98 percent of their list price last month, they sold for 97.18 of the asking price a year ago.
The average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage increased to 4.17 percent from 4.16 percent a month earlier. June rates were down from 4.25 percent in May.
