Deanna Armel spent Oct. 19 on a TV filming set, being interviewed as a real estate expert for an upcoming season of home improvement show “Designing Spaces.”
That same day, the CEO of Orlando-based Armel Real Estate Inc. sold a home at full price before she even put it on the market. More than a decade working in real estate has always been exciting for Armel, who said she’s left the Christmas dinner table to sell a home on at least one occasion. However, the current real estate environment is nothing short of “crazy,” she told Orlando Business Journal.
Low interest rates and accelerated out-of-state migration last summer kicked off a historic seller’s market in Central Florida with record sales activity and higher-than-ever home prices. While the market remains hot, many economists expect it to cool down by the end of 2021 and into 2022.
Of course, the state of the residential real estate market is important because Florida home sales generate about $90,300 per home in local economic impact, per the National Association of Realtors. More broadly, the housing market often is considered a reflection of the local economy’s overall health.
The rush of buyers in the U.S. housing market last year and earlier this year was “like a gold rush,” but those days appear to be over, PNC Financial Services Group Senior Economist Abbey Omodunbi told OBJ. Home prices will increase next year, but at a slower pace, and an expected interest rate hike may dampen demand, he said.
However, the ongoing moderation doesn’t mean the market will shift in favor of homebuyers. Rather, it’s the opposite, he said. “It’s going to be a seller’s market for the next couple of years.”
To get a feel for what it’s like on the ground in Central Florida, OBJ tracked three local Realtors during the course of six weeks. In this exclusive report, they share their experiences in their own words, while week-by-week data from the Orlando Regional Realtor Associations demonstrates the corresponding market shifts.
Here are Orlando’s 2021 Realtor diaries:
Sept. 24, 2021
Metro Orlando homes in September sold after an average of 27 days on the market, the second-shortest average in any month since 2005. However, the statistics don’t showcase the speed of the housing market as vividly as what Christine Elias, founder of Winter Park-based Urban Dog Group by Coldwell Banker Realty, went through with one of her listings:
