R.E.I.G.N – Orlando Real Estate

A couple years ago, if a home hit 60, 70, 80 days on market, the assumption was simple. Something was wrong with it. You didn’t need to think too hard about it. Either it had issues, or it was wildly overpriced, and buyers moved on.

That’s not what’s happening in the Orange County housing market right now, and if you’re looking at homes sitting around that 80-day mark, you’re going to misread the situation if you treat it like the old market. Most of the homes sitting right now are not broken. They’re not disasters. They’re not hiding some massive secret. In fact, the majority of them are priced “correctly” if you’re just looking at comps. That’s the problem. Roughly 25 to 30 percent of homes in the Orange County housing market are cutting their price before they sell, and the average one that does cut is doing it two or three times as it sits. So, on paper, these homes are adjusting. In reality, they’re still missing the mark.

What you’re seeing is a disconnect between what the data says a home should be worth and what buyers are actually willing to pay. Those two things used to line up a lot better. Right now, they don’t.

About 90 percent of the homes that hit that 60 to 90 day range are dealing with this exact issue. They came out priced based on comps, not based on how buyers feel about the market today. So they sit. Then they cut. Then they sit again. Then they cut again. It’s not one big mistake, it’s a series of smaller corrections that take time to play out.

At the same time, around 60 percent of these homes have aging systems. Older roofs, older AC units, electrical that’s getting up there in age. Nothing unusual, nothing you wouldn’t have seen a few years ago, but now it matters more. Buyers are already uncomfortable with where prices are compared to five years ago, so they’re not jumping at the chance to take on extra risk.

That’s where the slowdown really starts to show up. An average of 80 days is not slow in a historical sense, but it is noticeably different from the extremely fast pace we saw when buyers were competing heavily for limited inventory.

It’s not that showings completely stop. It’s not a cliff where no one walks through the door anymore. It’s more of a slow fade. The first couple weeks, you get your activity. Then it tapers. Then it tapers again. By the time you’re pushing into that 60, 70, 80 day range, you’re still getting eyes on the property, but not nearly enough to force a decision. And without pressure, buyers take their time. Or they walk.

What’s interesting is this is happening across price ranges, just with different reactions. Lower and mid-range buyers tend to hesitate longer because the margin for error is smaller. If they make a mistake, they feel it. Higher end buyers, on the other hand, are usually better at navigating the long-term side of things. They understand market cycles a bit more, so they’re willing to move if the deal makes sense, even if the market softens later.

Same timeline, different behavior, but the end result is the same. Homes sit.

When you step back and look at it, it’s really a combination of three things happening at once. Pricing is slightly off from what buyers want to see. Condition, even when it’s normal for the age of the home, feels like a bigger problem than it used to. And perception is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Buyers are comparing today’s prices to what they think the home should be worth based on the past, not just what the comps say right now.

That combination is enough to push a home into that 80 day range.

This is where a lot of people get tripped up. They see 80 days on market and assume there must be a major issue. Most of the time, there isn’t. What you’re really looking at is a home that came out just a little too high, in a market where buyers are a lot less forgiving, and then slowly adjusted its way down while buyer interest faded along the way. It’s not dramatic. It’s not obvious. It just sits. And that’s the Orange County housing market right now.

History tells us that a slightly slower market can actually be helpful for buyers as long as inventory is moving. Unfortunately, a rise in home prices significantly over 5 years and higher interest rates are making them much more price sensitive and reserved.

If you want my full picture of how this fits into other trends like pricing adjustments and overall market balance, the full Orange County housing market analysis breaks everything down together.