According to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, a year after Hurricane Irma, which roared through on September 11, 2017, the housing market is starting to show signs of life. Irma is blamed for a 30% drop in home sales that occurred from August to September of last year. “The good news is that in September the actual number of homes available for purchase reached its highest point this year,” said Lou Nimkoff, president of the Realtor association. Sales of all home types were also up 8.5% as compared to last year.

Existing home sales in the Orlando metropolitan area increased by 4.1 percent, single family home sales were up 7.6 percent, while condo sales were up 23.4 percent year-over-year last month. Still, sales of homes by members of the Realtor association were down considerably from August 2018, by 18.1 percent.

And there’s bad news for buyers: The median price of Orlando homes sold in September was 3.6 percent above last September, at $233,000. It’s a 1.3 percent increase over August 2018, too. The median price for condos also increased, by 6.4 percent to $125,500 between September 2017 and September 2018.

The inventory of homes continues on a downward slide. The number slipped by 6.4 percent to 8,092 available homes for purchase this September, the report said. And homeowners are paying a little more in interest, 4.66 percent in September compared with 4.57 percent in August.

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