West Volusia Monthly Market update

Have you seen what happened to our local real estate market in June? If not, you’re going to want to read this for some fact-based data for the West Volusia real estate market. I’ll be addressing the residential West Volusia real estate market including Deltona, Deland, Debary, Lake Helen, and Orange City as I review the market for the month ending June 30, 2022.

The median sale price for June in West Volusia is up to $319,250k. That’s up over $20k in just 3 months and over $64k in just the last 12 months. So, median prices are still rising. I’ve been hearing so many doom and gloomers indicating that the sky was falling, and maybe it is, but the prices are still going up.

It took West Volusia sellers a median of 5 days to get their homes under contract in June. That’s actually one day faster than it took them to sell in May, and it’s the same amount of time it took them in June of 2021 as well. Again, no real change in the data here.

So, thus far we’ve seen that home prices are up and they’re selling as fast as ever, but we all know that inventory, or the number of homes available for a buyer to buy, is a key factor, so let’s take a look at this. At the end of June there were 684 homes available. That’s a 16% increase in just ONE month and 36% in the last year, now that’s real news! I’ve been crying the blues about the inventory problem, and this is surely welcome news for buyers and for the overall stability of the market too, in my opinion.

What about interest rates? Aren’t they like 10%? No, they’re not. At the end of June Freddie Mac’s rate fell to 5.7%, which is up from about 3.1% where we began the year. This 5.7% is still, from a historical perspective, a very good rate. We’ve simply been spoiled over the last several years with these ridiculously low rates. As I write this in the 1^st week of July the rates have actually come down a bit, but I don’t expect that to continue.

So, what’s impacting the market? Inflation is the key. As long as inflation is out of control the interest rates will continue to rise. Of course, there are other factors such as the war in Ukraine, but by and large our local market is impacted as the Fed raises interest rates to combat inflation. As rates rise, buyers can afford less home and supply and demand is impacted, causing an increase in inventories as I spoke of earlier. Something else that is impacting the market is buyer sentiment, or what they “think” is going to happen. Much of this is fed by the media – just listen to the music when they switch to a new topic – it sells, but it’s scary! I’ve had sellers sell and then rent because they KNEW the market was crashing, and that was two years ago! That didn’t work out so well for them. However, I hear all sorts of talk, mostly people worried that the sky is falling.

So, the data says the prices are still rising and homes are selling even faster than last month, but inventory and interest rates are up, so where is the market heading? In spite of the concerns of many that the real estate market is destined for doom and has a bubble that’s about to burst, which I’ve addressed before, it really continues to do quite well.

Although the data for June looks very strong, I’m not getting as many offers on my listings and buyers ARE pushing back a bit more than they could afford to just a few months ago. Do I believe the market will slow? Yes, I do. However, it’s holding on quite well and I believe it’s already proven many wrong with its resiliency. As I’ve said before, it’s going to take some time for this inventory to burn off before buyers regain control of our local market. If you need to buy, now may be as good a time as any as I do expect interest rates to continue to rise. If you need to sell, don’t panic as there are plenty of well-qualified buyers out there that are willing to pay for properly priced homes.

If you have questions about the real estate market here in Central Florida, feel free to reach out to me directly.

• http://lmsresources.labormarketinfo.com/charts/unemployment_rate_data.asp
• http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/data/30-year-mortgage-rates.aspx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on July 19. 2022 / Tags: real estate trends, Volusia real estate market / no comments.