Home prices in Metro Orlando and Volusia County outpaced gains in most of the state’s other metro areas over the past year, a new report shows.
The median price in the Orlando area, which includes Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties, reached $180,000 in March, an increase of 13.2 percent from March 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by Florida Realtors.
Prices in Volusia reached a midpoint of $135,500 in March, up 17.4 percent. Statewide, housing prices increased 7.1 percent during that time to a midpoint of $173,000.
In terms of sales volume, Brevard County showed greater gains during March than almost any other part of the state. Brevard had 775 sales in March, up 25 percent from a year earlier.
Joe Janson, an agent for Stirling Sotheby’s International Realty, said he has seen more investors and traditional buyers buying in Brevard than he saw a year ago. Weather, he added, may play a role.
“We’re seeing more people out of the North who are here to buy, and that could be a factor of the bad winter they’ve had,” he said.
Housing prices in Brevard increased 10 percent during that time to reach a median of $132,000.
“March marked the 28th month in a row that statewide median sales prices rose year-over-year for both single-family homes and townhome-condo properties,” said Florida Realtors President Sherri Meadows, chief executive officer of Keller Williams Cornerstone Realty, with offices in the Villages.
In the Orlando market, unlike most metro areas within the state, sales were down from a year earlier. The four-county area had 2,215 sales for the month, down 8.3 percent over 12 months. Across the state, March sales were up 2.8 percent from March 2013.
