Is now the time to buy a house in Central Florida?
Now is a much better time than a year and a half ago," said Chris Toadvine,
a certified financial planner in Orlando and president of the Financial
Planning Association of Central Florida. "I think home prices may fall a bit
further, but if I were a buyer, I would not be trying to time a bottom."
From a dollars-and-cents perspective, it's certainly a buyer's market.
Asking prices for Orlando-area homes have not been so low at any time in the
past four or five years, and the number of properties on the market is still
at or near record levels.
"There's a substantial amount of inventory still to be sold," said Hank
Fishkind, a private economist who analyzes the Florida and Central Florida
real-estate markets for Attorney's Title Insurance Fund and other industry
groups and companies.
Prices are now back to levels last seen in the spring of 2004. New-home
prices in the Orlando area have dropped about 20 percent from their 2006
peak, according to some industry surveys.
Price plunge near bottom, experts say
For potential buyers who have everything they need lined up and are ready to
sign on the dotted line -- but are holding off for fear the house they buy
will keep losing value in the coming year -- industry professionals can't
offer any guarantees. But they generally agree that most, if not all, of the
historic plunge in values has likely run its course.
In coming years, they expect a slow but steady increase in property values,
at or slightly above the rate of consumer inflation, without dramatic leaps
fuelled by lax lending practices and easy money.
Posted: 1 January 2009
Source: Orlando Sentinel
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