Nearly a third of people selling in Orlando right now bought their house during the pandemic boom, and they're at real risk of walking away with less money than they paid. Statewide, the typical Florida homeowner lost a little over ten thousand dollars in value over the last year. In some pockets, actual sale prices have fallen as much as 17% off their peak. If you bought in 2021 or 2022 at the top of the run-up, the math has not been kind.
Here's what's actually happening. Buyers paid whatever it took to win a bidding war when there were ten offers on every house. Since then, insurance premiums have gone up, inventory has built back up, and buyers stopped showing up with the same urgency. None of that is anybody's fault. It's just the market finding its real level again, which it always eventually does.
If you're buying right now, here's what it means for you.
A motivated seller who's underwater, or close to it, is not in a position to hold the line on price the way they could have in 2022. That is real room to negotiate, both on price and on who pays for what at closing. The sellers who need out are not the ones who are going to walk away from a clean, well-qualified offer over a few thousand dollars.
Negotiating room only matters if your offer is strong enough to act on it.
That means going in fully underwritten, not just a five-minute pre-qualification. It means knowing what the house would actually appraise for, not just what the listing says. And if the seller is willing to work with you on concessions, that money is usually better spent permanently buying your rate down than shaving a little off the sale price, because a lower payment is something you feel every single month, not just on closing day.
None of this means anyone did anything wrong by buying in 2021 or 2022. Nobody had a crystal ball. But if you're the one buying today, the market correcting is actually working in your favor, as long as your own file is strong enough to take advantage of it. If you bought during the boom and are weighing whether to sell now, I'd be curious what your own numbers actually look like.
Scott Shannon · Neighborhood Loans · 352-282-3020
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