Spring Selling Season Brings Out Florida Mortgage Borrowers

In the Florida housing market, the traditional spring selling season - which commonly takes place between March and June - has officially started.

Buyers should make their move now because the median price of homes in Orlando has dropped back to its 2006 level ($240,000), reports the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

In addition, Florida mortgage rates have slipped to 5.83%.

An increase in the number of sales that took place in March (1,665) when compared to February (1,541) is another spring-selling indicator; however, sales are down 42.1% when compared to March of 2006, when 2,878 home changed hands through the Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service.

These factors have worked together to improve Orlando’s affordability index to 93.6% in March, from 87.1% in February. The housing affordability index, distributed by ORRA, is a number used to identify the discrepancy between an area’s median income and its median home price. In Orlando’s case, an affordability index of 93.6% means that Florida mortgage borrowers earning the state-reported median income ($50,762) are only 6.4% short of the income necessary to purchase a median-priced home.

“Orlando’s index has historically been in the black, even peaking at 152% back in January of 2004,” explains ORRA President Randy Martin, GRI, RE/MAX 200 Realty. “However, the red-hot housing market of 2005 started a downward trend that persists nearly two years later. It is having a direct effect on the professionals who are thought of as the foundation of a community: police officers, firefighter, teachers.

ORRA members are responding by lobbying on behalf of property tax reform and directing those clients who are struggling to get into a home toward the many assistance programs offered by governmental and nonprofit organizations at the local, state, and national levels.”

The inventory of homes available for purchase through the MLS increased by 1,492 homes in March to a total of 23,547. The total inventory for March is 61.7% above that of March 2006, reflecting a 14.1-month supply at the current pace of sales and a chance for seeking home mortgages to negotiate a fair deal.

There were 4,072 condos for sale through the local multiple listing service in March. Duplexes, townhomes, and villas accounted for 2,118 of the listings in Orlando’s inventory, while single-family homes took up the remaining 17,357. The greatest percentage (19.6) of single-family homes currently for sale are priced in the $250,000 - $300,000 range.

SOURCE: RISMedia