The Orlando housing inventory is at its lowest level in over a decade and buyers are constantly competing for a limited supply of homes. The lack of sellers in the market is forcing real estate agents to go to extremes that they would normally not go to in order to try and get more listings. Hungry real estate agents are going back to old-school real estate marketing techniques in order to get more listings.
Orlando Realtors are once again pounding the pavement for new listings. I know one agent that parks his car on a street located somewhere in his farm area and starts knocking on doors or putting outdoor flyers with his info on it. according to him, he’s lucky to get one listing out of every 20 doors that he knocks on. I personally think he’s insane and don’t like this way of marketing because it’s an intrusion of privacy. Let’s face it…Everyone hates an unannounced visit AKA the “Pop-in”. Besides, if I’m in my yard minding my own business or doing something in the yard, the last thing I want is a stranger coming up to me and asking me if I’m interested in selling my home.
Hungry real estate agents are going back to basics in marketing like calling on expired listings and “For sale by owners” with the hope that they are able to convince the homeowner to list the property with them. Other agents are resorting to sending out mass postcard mailers to entire zip codes praying for more listings. These conditions are not only affecting newer agents but experienced agents as well.
Another reason that I think is contributing to extremely low inventories right now is that homeowners who have a bit of equity are keeping their homes off the market. They figure that they’ve gone through the worst of it and they believe that prices will continue to rise for the next few years and intend on cashing in when it happens. The problem with this strategy, however, is that no one can predict what will happen with Florida’s real estate market and people that wait too long, will wait themselves out of making a profit from the sale of their house.
The reality is that if sellers aren’t truly motivated to sell, then they’re just not going to and I believe that it’s wrong to try and convince somebody to try and do something that they really don’t want to do.
Lenders that are holding on to thousands of REO properties are also reluctant to sell because they’re afraid of hurting prices. And when banks finally do release the properties into the market, they’re snatched up by the dozen by large investment firms. Most of the time, they never even hit the MLS.
One thing that I learned a long time ago about the Orlando real estate market is that you have to learn to adjust to the market which also means adjusting your marketing strategies, take what the market gives you. Over the years I’ve seen real estate agents that refuse to change their marketing as the market changes and most of them are now no longer realtors. You have to go with the flow if you’re going to survive by buying and selling real estate.
