Jay Roberts is the founder and CEO of Prosper Group, a Tampa Florida-based real estate developer focused on modern new construction homes and rentals. In this article, Jay Roberts of Prosper Group discusses why the Orlando real estate market is one of the hottest he’s seen in decades.
Orlando is not just for Disney anymore.
While tourists still flock to the Florida city to visit a slew of big-name amusement parks, many others are moving to the central Florida city for other reasons beyond tourism. Orlando’s population soared in 2021 with 53,000 new residents, making it the third-most-popular migration city in the United States that year, according to Redfin.
Jay Roberts of Prosper Group explains that a large increase of new jobs paired with affordable cost of living, a surge in population growth and low housing inventory have added up to one thing: a red-hot housing market.
Orlando’s Real Estate Market by the Numbers
Jay Roberts of Prosper Group reports that migration to Florida isn’t new. Americans have been moving to the state for decades, especially those at retirement age who are looking for year-round sun, an active lifestyle, and affordability.
As populations in major metro areas in the north recover from strict mandates during Covid, those in the southern half of the United States continue to add new transplants, according to Jay Roberts, CEO of Prosper Group.
Home prices have risen to meteoric heights driven by record high demand and low inventories. By the end of 2021, the median home price in Orlando rose nearly 23% to $356,000 compared to just a year ago. Compare Orlando’s average home price to New York City’s average of $740,000 (according to Zillow) and you have a lot of people looking to relocate and put that savings in their pockets. Inventory is very much a factor, too.
The number of homes for sale decreased by 29% during the same period. In popular Orlando-area counties, including Osceola, Seminole, Lake, and Orange, inventory was down 47% in 2021 compared to 2020, a record low.
Orlando’s home price growth is far above the national average, which is about 15% year-over-year.
Jay Roberts of Prosper Group notes that these impressive statistics led Zillow to rank Orlando No. 9 on its list of the 10 Hottest Housing Markets in 2022, where values of homes are anticipated to appreciate at a much quicker rate compared to the rest of the United States.
Lifestyle and Jobs
Jay Roberts of Prosper Group says that while the real estate market in Orlando is more robust than the national average, it is in line with other hot markets across the country.
More people have been moving to warmer areas of the country, attracted to less populated regions that offer lower costs of living during the COVID-19 pandemic, including states such as Florida, Arizona, Texas, and Nevada.
Existing home sales across the country rose by nearly 6% in January 2022 compared to the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
For cities in Florida, Jay Roberts of Prosper Group says that job growth is also a key factor in the hot real estate market. In January of this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the Orlando metro added nearly 88,000 new jobs in the private sector in December 2021, an 8.3% increase over the past year, the highest number new jobs across all of Florida.
All told, there was a 9.3% overall increase in the Orlando area’s labor force between December 2020 and 2021, amounting to nearly 115,000 new jobs.
Job gains were led by the following industries – hospitality, leisure, education, healthcare, and manufacturing. Job growth overall in Florida was six times faster than the national average last November, DeSantis announced.
The bottom line: Over the past year, more jobs were added in Florida than new homes.
Orlando Renters Feeling the Impact
Renters are also feeling the impact of the hot Orlando real estate market. The average monthly rent in the Orland-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area has risen nearly 29% to $2,050 between 2020 and 2021, according to Redfin.
Jay Roberts of Prosper Group reports that early data suggest that there will be even more rental price growth in 2022. A study by Dwellsy finds that the median rental listing amount in January 2022 was $2,250.
That’s up a whopping 61% increase compared to January 2021. Nationwide growth in rental listings year-to-year was 16%.
The rental increase applies to both single-family homes and rental units, notes Dwellsy. Single-family rentals in January 2020 averaged $2,400, up from $1,695 in January 2021. The average apartment rental in Orlando in January 2022 was about $1,555, a $300 increase over the previous year.
What’s Next for Orlando?
Many real estate experts including Jay Roberts of Prosper Group see Orlando’s hot real estate market streak continuing through 2022. Economists at Zillow believe growth in the metro area will be well above the national home value growth of 14.3% in the coming year.
And while mortgage interest rates are expected to rise this year, they are still at historical lows. In 2021, the rates were below 2%.
Tag Photo: Jay Roberts, CEO of Prosper Group
