Category: Orlando Short Sales

Orlando Home Builders Association Changes Name and Moves to a New Location

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

The Metro Orlando Home Builders Association wants to turn a new leaf and several changes are underway as part of its efforts to re-brand itself. The professional trade association that leads the Orlando real estate industry was established in 1953. Since then, it has governed and regulated several aspects of the city’s housing market including Orlando short sales, services of listing agents, and Orlando’s public-education programs to name a few.

The association revealed some of its re-branding initiatives on February 27, when it revealed plans to change the name from Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando to the Greater Orlando Business Association.

Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando moves to new headquarters

On the same day, the association also broke ground on what its new headquarters is going to be. The association is currently headquartered at 544 Mayo Avenue, Maitland but will ditch the 30-year-old venue and move to the new office in 1000 Sanford Avenue as soon as the construction work is done. The new headquarter will sit at the site donated by Charles Clayton III – the previous president of the Home Builders Association and also a long-standing member of the association. In addition to a changed name and a changed location, the association is also set to sport a more environment-friendly and greener office.

Word is, that the building at 1000 Sanford Avenue will file for a green certification with the regulatory bodies, including the Florida Green Building Coalition.

President Nathan Cross talks about right-sizing offices

Nathan Cross, President of the Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando said the association wants to right-size its offices so that the changing needs of staff, as well as the real-estate business, could be better matched. Moving to a new office was part of the right-sizing efforts.

Ensuring construction projects will create new jobs for construction workers. According to listing agents in Orlando, new opportunities for the local material suppliers. With new infrastructure development projects underway in Central Florida, including the SunRail passenger system, the real estate market of Orlando is expected to bring in worthwhile opportunities for architects and engineers.

The Home Builders Association has been an important part of the real-estate scene in Central Florida – participating in and regulating important industry events and initiatives through its councils and committees. How the re-branding is going to affect its reputation and standing in the market remains to be seen. https://orlandorealtyconsultants.com/

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Orlando Realtor- Seller Testimonial

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

https://orlandorealtyconsultants.com/ VIDEO – client testimonial

This is the story of Gayle McKenzie. Gayle found our company online after being let down by another Orlando real estate agent who wasn’t able to help her out of a tight situation. She owned a beautiful house in Whisper Lakes that she was no longer able to afford and needed to get a short sale done on her home before the bank foreclosed on her.

After sitting down with Gayle on the first appointment, Jenny Zamora RE Broker, explained the short sale process to Gayle in detail making sure that she was aware of what to expect moving forward. After collecting all the documentation needed for a short sale, she submitted the complete package to the lender including a contract.

Within a few months, Zamora was able to negotiate with Gayle’s lender and got the bank to reduce a balance of $310,000.00 down to $163,000.00

Getting the house at such a steep discount made it easy to sell. Within one week of getting the approval from the bank, we had a solid buyer. Three weeks later we went to closing and Gayle was able to move into another house with the $3,000.00 relocation assistance that she received from the lender.

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Why Do Some Lenders Take Longer Than Others To Sell Foreclosed Homes?

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

A community’s chances of a speedy recovery from a hung-over Florida housing market not only depend on how many foreclosed homes they have in the neighborhood but even more importantly on which lenders own those properties.

Working as a short sale realtor in Orlando, I can tell you exactly what banks are the best ones for doing short sales as well as which ones make me cringe as soon as I hear their name in a conversation. Now, things tend to change a bit when are talking about bank-owned homes. This is when the lender takes a home through the foreclosure process and ultimately ends up owning the property after it goes to public auction. Once they own the property, it becomes an REO [real estate owned] which they will then list with a local realtor to try and get it sold.

You would think that lenders would try and get the property sold as soon as possible to avoid any further losses that they’ve already suffered. However, this is not always the case. Many times a bank-owned property will sit vacantly and abandoned with no sign at all of an attempt on the bank’s part to market it and get it sold.

Some realtors believe that it’s a strategy by the lenders to avoid flooding the market with properties again which would cause a dip in prices so they only release a certain amount of properties over a pre-determined amount of time. Others will tell you that it’s because the banks expect the Florida real estate market to continue improving and they want to hold out in order to try and capitalize on higher sales prices.

If that truly is the case then I believe that lenders are taking a huge risk in holding out to sell in a hotter market. For one thing, you should never ever depend on the appreciation. This is something that I learned a long time ago when I first started investing in Orlando real estate. Getting into a real estate investment for the sole purpose of expecting the market to get hot then cashing out is what got a whole lot of folks into trouble in 2007.

Not only that but houses that just sit vacant will continue to rack up homeowners association fees, property taxes, risk of vandalism, as well as code enforcement fines if the home is in some way in violation of county code enforcement or safety issues. Also, the longer a house sits unattended the deeper it will fall into disrepair.

For some reason, the smaller lending institutions appear to be a bit more nimble when they deal with foreclosures. It’s probably because they’re only dealing with a fraction of the number of properties that the big lenders are.

 

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Median Orlando Home Prices in Shoot 24 Percent Up at the Close of 2013

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 Wednesday reinforced positive sentiments among Orlando realtors as the Orlando Regional Realtor Association released its yearly report about the Orlando real estate market. The report revealed that the average Orlando Home price for properties in the city saw a 24 percent hike in the previous year. This 2013 rise in median home prices marks an all-time high since the economic downturn of early 2006 that took the housing market down with it.

Key takeaways from the report

 The median home price in the core Orlando real estate market was $149,625, in 2013. Back in 2012, the corresponding figure stood $28,000 below, at $121,000. The last time Orlando real estate agents had seen such a hike was just before the housing bubble in 2005.

Median house prices rose by more than 33 percent that year. The same upturn of events was seen in 2013. The report holds that 2013 saw the sale of 6.54 percent more homes, than the previous year. Compared to the 28,765 homes that were sold in 2012, 30,645 were sold in 2013, showing just where top Orlando realtors had been busy the year.

Comparing the statistics for December alone, aggregate median home prices were up by 20.87 percent compared to the previous year. In the December of 2012, the aggregate for Orlando was $132,500. The 20.87 percent boost brought up aggregate median house prices for all of Orlando to $160,150 in the December of 2013.

The Christmas month also saw a 3.32 percent hike in the median home price of Orlando real estate properties from the previous month. Compared to the median price of $155,000 in November 2013, December registered the median price of $160,150. Real estate agents in Orlando sold 2367 homes in December – 11.55 percent more than their November tally.

Prime reasons attributed to the up-turn

 Orlando Regional Realtor Association’s chairman, Zola Szerencses remarked that the competition between investors and buyers helped reverse the sunken-mortgaged conditions for many property owners.

Industry experts list low inventory during the first two quarters as a positive influence. The second and third quarters presented prospects with low-interest rates – boosting confidence and increasing sales.

Despite the promising upturns, the median prices in the Orlando real estate industry remain considerably low compared to the peak Orlando realtors saw in July 2007. The real estate bubble was about to burst and median prices for the Orlando neighborhood homes peaked at $264,000. For 2014, economists have predicted a flattening up of the sales and price increase to about five percent.

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Orlando Realtors Look at Opportunities in 2014

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

The economic slump has affected many different sectors, including real estate. However, Orlando Realtors have used the recessionary trend to their advantage. Following basic economic models of continuous spending, even when money circulation in the markets is limited; short sale negotiators and realtors bought substantial land areas when the prices were at record lows.

Now, the prices of land in Florida are slowly climbing once again, giving hope to real estate agents. Statistics show an inflationary trend that is not as strong as it was before. This means that though prices are increasing, they are doing so at a slow rate. Agents think the New Year will bring with it higher sentiments among people, making it easier for them to close deals and gain returns on various investments made during the slump.

Consumers likely to make purchases

During the recent crisis, the economy was in shambles. People were unsure of whether they could recover from the slowdown, because of which they started saving or hoarding money. Accumulating most of the wealth in the economy did not allow for a free system or circulation of money. Due to unpredictable futures, people unintentionally hampered the system even further by tightening their expenditure.

Now with new hopes and regulations aimed at recovery, companies have drastically reduced the number of layoffs, and people feel more secure. As a direct result, there is likely to be additional investment in land, and citizens will be able to make larger investments in such sectors. Since Orlando Realtors have made purchases at the lowest going rate, there is sure to be much profitability even though growth is slow-paced.

A positive trend brings back the hope of a complete recovery

The changing trend is likely to accelerate very soon because most consumers have a sense of security when they view others making investments. When the price starts going up, people will make quick investments so that they do not miss out on making low-cost purchases that will benefit them in the future.

Real estate is a very safe option because it seldom depreciates for a long time. The land is a limited resource, and there is a constant demand for it

due to the increasing population and changing consumer preferences. Security is vital because people require places to lock their money down without it losing value over time against inflation and depreciation. For this reason, the land seems to be the safest bet.

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