Orlando Vacation Home Real Estate, Orlando Realty, Orlando Condominium and Vacation Homes Sales

Email: Info@HolidayVacationProperties.com

Orlando housing market sizzles
Despite 3 Hurricanes, area existing-home sales set a 12th consecutive annual record.

By JACK SNYDER
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Neither Charley nor Frances nor Jeanne could stop Central Florida’s red-hot housing market in 2004.

For the 12th year in a row, metropolitan Orlando broke the record for sales of existing homes, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
Despite the three hurricanes, each of the four counties in the region – Orange, Lake, Seminole and Osceola – posted gains in selling homes compared with 2003, the group said.

Lake County led the way, with a 16.3 percent increase.
Orlando was not alone at a time when interest rates remain at historically low levels, encouraging buyers to snap up homes, new and old.

Nationwide existing-home sales for 2004 won’t be announced until next week, but new-home construction surged throughout the country in December to cap the best year since 1978, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday. Starts for all of last year totaled 1.95 million, up 5.7 percent from 2003. In Central Florida, a record 29,000 single-family home starts were posted in 2004, according to MetroStudy Corp., a national housing-research company.
Existing-home sales in the Orlando area totaled 26,091 as recorded through the Orlando Realtors’ central listing pool, which consists mostly of Orange and Seminole and only portions of surrounding counties. That was a 7.6 percent increase from the previous year. Such a strong showing was not surprising to industry observers, even taking into account the summer hurricanes, which delayed many closings as repairs and reinspections were made.

Buying a Vacation Home

Resale activity slowed sharply after the storms in August and September but rebounded strongly by November.
Lydia Pisano, president of the local Realtors association, said December closings were down slightly from a year ago but up compared with November, indicating that the hurricanes had delayed but not killed home sales.
“It appears that we are getting back to business as usual and will continue to build on our record-breaking streak that began in 1993,” she said.
Many area brokerages posted record years and are projecting more of the same in 2005, especially if mortgage rates don’t rise too high.
Heathrow-based Stirling International Realty recorded nearly $600 million in sales. Owner Roger Soderstrom said he’s projecting a quantum leap this year to $960 million.
“That’s the goal we’ve set,” he said. Housing could continue at a strong pace nationwide this year, if housing economists’ projections are on track.

“The long-term health of the housing market looks good,” said Larry Sorsby, chief financial officer of Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., a home builder based in Red Bank, N.J. “ as the economy continues to improve, people that were fearful of losing their job or not finding one are going to be in the housing market, even if interest rates go up modestly.”
Dave Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, expects the interest rates on 30 years mortgages to rise no higher than 6.75 percent by the end of this year. Others, such as Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, expect rates to rise to about 6.25 percent this year.

The average 30-year-loan rate last year was 5.75 percent.
“As interest rates move up, the ability to borrow money as cheaply as it had been available has waned,” said Anthony Santomero, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. “You’ll see that playing out as we move forward, both in the housing and the auto markets.”

Locally, the median existing-home price for 2004 – calculated on sales made in the core Orange-Seminole portion of the market – was $170,855, up 19 percent from the 2003 median of $143,556. The median price of houses sold just in December was $187,900.