The Central Florida market has been on fire. Lenders, appraisers and Realtors® are busy, busy, busy. Year over year statistics are impressive.

Right now, the Orlando area market appears to be pretty stable. Month- over- month prices are increasing gradually and at a healthy pace, inventory of homes for sale has increased considerably in the past 2 years, and buyer traffic is steady. On the whole, we in the Orlando area are in a stable market.

On a national level, I hear and see news about prices skyrocketing and concerns of another bubble. I had those concerns a while back myself. Our market righted itself though, and I suspect other markets throughout the U.S. will follow; this has been the trend since the market crash and recovery – hardest hit states are where the trends start and the rest of the U.S. follows in time.

It’s hard to ignore the news, especially in the age of connectivity we are in. If you’re in the market to buy or sell a home, the best thing you can do is ignore the news.  Instead, examine local data. Better yet, save yourself from data overload. Find a Realtor® that is in tune with the data, knows how to interpret it, and has the know how to sort the facts from the fluff. This is a world of T.M.I (too much information). There are a number of factors to consider when working to determine where the market is going and where values are, and real estate is truly local – in some cases hyper local. Values can and will vary from town to town and even from neighborhood to neighborhood. Finding an agent that will be honest with you about your market and where you stand in it is crucial, and is likely to save you time, money and stress in the long run.