Central Florida Market Recap of December 2021

December’s median home price was recorded at $340,000, closing the year with the highest median home price ever recorded.

Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association releases overall 2021 data, revealing a historic year of real estate in Orlando, including an all-time record low for inventory and an all-time record high for median home price.

2021 Annual Market Recap

(Cumulative 2021 totals compared to cumulative 2020 totals)

The overall median home price in 2021 was recorded at $310,000, a record high and a 17% increase compared to 2020 when the overall median home price was recorded at $265,000.
Overall sales in 2021 increased by 23.6% with a total of 45,572 sales. Overall sales in 2020 were recorded at 36,871.
- Single family home sales increased in 2021 by 18.3% for a total of 34,648 sales compared to 29,287 sales in 2020.
- Condo sales increased in 2021 by 46.7% for a total of 5,889 sales compared to 4,016 sales in 2020.
- Townhome sales increased by 41.1% in 2021 for a total of 5,035 sales compared to 3,568 in 2020.
“We witnessed an unprecedented real estate market in 2021 – with demand, and price, dramatically increasing. On the flipside, we saw buyers struggle in a market punctuated by low inventory month-after-month,” said Tansey Soderstrom, 2022 Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association President. “We expect demand will remain strong in 2022. If sellers decide to take advantage of this market, we could be in for another fierce year.”

December 2021 Recap

State of the Market

Overall sales in December increased by 4.26% with 3,820 sales.
Homes spent an average of 31 days on the market in December, up slightly from November 2021 when the average was 28.
Inventory noticeably dropped in December, decreasing by 15.1% from November, for a total of 2,586 homes on the market. This is a historic low for inventory in Orlando.
New listings continued to drop with just 2,797 new listings in December.
Interest rates showed a slight increase as the average interest rate in December 2021 was 3.07% compared to 2.95% in November.

During 2021, interest rates increased by roughly a quarter point from 2.73% on January 1, 2021 compared 3.07% on December 31, 2021.
There were 439 total distressed homes (bank-owned properties and short sales) sold in 2021. That represents a 50.1% drop over 2020 when 880 distressed homes sold.

Inventory

At the start of the year, inventory was at 4,875. The last day of the year, inventory was at 2,586 – a decrease of 47% and a historic record low dating back to 1995, as far back as ORRA data goes. Previously this year, inventory hit a record low in April 2021 followed by several months of increased inventory.