Florida Real Estate is prime for picking.  Foreign Investors are looking long and hard at the largest selection of inventory in recent history and have choice properties available. Are the banks or the buyers pulling the strings?  The latest market information, would indicate that it is the buyers now making the banks dance and may indeed be pulling the purse strings.  Only recently has this been possible.  As inventory swelled and the market reached its saturation point, the record number of foreclosures nationwide have added a little more driftwood to a sea of debris.  Abandoned properties. 

Up until recently, the banks have held fast in their unyielding determination that the threat of foreclosing would force delinquent mortgagees to pay up or get out.  Many chose the latter; unable to make increasingly higher payments as their adjustable rate loans matured.  The properties were abandoned and "given back" to the bank.  There are such properties in every neighborhood.   One recent report suggests the number is now one in every 268 homes in Osceola County (near Disney) is in some form of Foreclosure.

The old school thought on foreclosures was they could be had for pennies on the dollar. Perhaps so in the day of $25K loans.  In the shadow of Monster Loans, the buyers are holding their purse strings a bit tighter watching and waiting for the properties to come down.

There are slightly more than 915 single family homes in the four zip codes constituting the St. Cloud area of 34769. 34771,34772, and 34773.  In the past 30 days 44 single family homes have gone under contract or have been sold during the same 30 day period 175 single family homes entered the market.    These numbers do not include, condos, townhomes, mobile homes or income properties.

What is encouraging is the steady reductions adjusting daily. These reductions open opportunities to current renters looking to settle into a more permanent housing alternative. Namely a starter home. 

On January 29, 2007 Osceola County voters will have a Property Tax Reform bill presented on the ballot for consideration.  Two items of particular interest are the Portability Issue for existing home owners who move and may take their deduction with them into larger housing; and the increase of the current Homestead Exemption from $25,000 of Assessed Value to $50,000 off the Assessed Value. A 10% Cap to non homesteaded properties is also in the reform.

Easing the burden on tax payers while excluding the educational contribution, may provide some relief for Osceola County Home Owners.  A random sampling suggested that most home owners would welcome some form of tax relief.

So it would appear that buyers are indeed pulling the strings, and banks, and sellers are responding to achieve movement in what is an extraordinary market condition.