Total new-home closings: 7,705
Population: 2,321,418
The good: Larger homes push average sales prices upward.
The bad: Attached units and REO/foreclosures claim their shares of the market and contractions linger over from 2013 and 2014.
The bottom line: Even showing declines, Orlando proves that markets need not be in an upward trend to produce results for builders.
The brightest skies for Orlando’s new single-family homes market hinge on staving off market encroachments by attached units, which grabbed 3.8% share year over year in February 2015. REOs and foreclosures, at that time, registered 46.5% share of the total market. Builders in Orlando have learned to ride the bumps, including initial signs of contraction arriving in fourth quarter of 2014, bringing on drop offs in new-home closings of 25.4% year over year in February 2015. That said, this sunny town registered 7,472 new homes sold over the following 12-month period—down from the year prior, but proving that a good market in decline still trumps those that are mediocre. In March, single-family permits rose by 10% year over year.
