At least once a week someone asks me about real estate in the Orlando area. Are home prices going to drop? And how soon? A lot of potential buyers are waiting for prices to come down, and there’s a lot of information swirling around out there.
I read a lot of that information on what’s happening here and in the rest of the country as well. Here’s what I know.
Florida experienced the most growth of any state in 2022.
According to a Census Bureau report in 2022, Florida was the fastest-growing state in the nation.
Our domestic net migration was 318,855 people. That means after accounting for the people who left the state, we still had a 300K+ increase of people. Texas had the next largest net migration followed by North and South Carolina. Interestingly, about half the states in the US had positive migration and half had a negative migration. New York and California had the biggest drops in population.
Real estate is very regional.
Florida is going strong. What about the rest of the county, especially the states with the negative net migration? As you may expect, some of those areas are experiencing a drop in housing prices. Some top regions for falling home prices are San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and New York. Makes sense that fewer people equals less demand for housing, causing prices to go down in those areas.
Central Florida predictions.
So, back to the Central Florida area. Are home prices going to drop anytime soon? The simple answer is, “Not likely.” But prices have definitely flattened out and even dipped a little in the last year. The median price is $379,544 which is down .5% since this time last year – good news considering the astronomical rise in prices of the last few years. Higher interest rates have kept some buyers out of the market (some sellers too), curbing demand which helps to slow the rate of housing inflation in our area. For prices to come down significantly, there would have to be a big drop in demand. That just doesn’t seem to be happening in our area – at least not anytime soon.
This US New & World Report article does a good job of summarizing what’s happening in our regional market. And this short video from Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
