Central Florida and The Villages: Homes for sale, Trends and Forecast

Mark Gilbo from Gilbo Realty shares his view on the Central Florida and “The Villages” real estate market. “The prices of houses in The Villages have been decreasing for the past year and a half. If someone purchased a house after January 2022 and tried to sell it now, they would lose money. The inventory of houses has increased by about 45%, and the prices will continue to drop. While the rapid price surges in the last three years have kept foreclosures down, the market changes may lead to an increase in foreclosures. This may result in some great deals for investors and realtors in the foreclosure market. If you're looking for foreclosure deals, it's best to look outside major cities. These areas have more affordable properties and lower taxes. In the coming years, more people may move towards these areas for the same reasons. Mark believes that prices will continue to drop slowly until after the election. There might be a possible rise afterward, but only a significant interest rate drop to 4% or 3.5% would stabilize prices. Inventories will continue increasing while prices decrease. Foreclosure.com is an excellent website to find off-market affordable housing. They list a large number of city-owned properties across the country, including sheriff sales, foreclosures, REOs, tax liens, and short sales. It's a great resource for anyone looking for a diverse range of options in all 50 states, especially if their MLS is limited to specific areas.

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Transcript

0:00 - TJones - Welcome to foreclosure.com. My name is Tim Jones, and I'm excited to introduce our guest, Mark Gilbo. Before we move forward, please like and subscribe to our channel for the latest videos. Hi, Mark. Thank you for speaking with me today.

0:13 - MGilbo - Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

0:14 - TJones - We're glad to have you. But before we get started, can you tell the audience a little bit about your background in real estate?

0:22 Yeah, I mean, I started in real estate back in 92 as an investor. I got out of high school in 88. I went to college for a few years studied a bunch of real estate. Ron LaGrand, Carlton Sheets, all those guys who were around at the time were, you know, trying to sell courses. And I did, I got into real estate, you know, mostly flips, you know, wholesaling some stuff and it wasn't a big one on rentals, so I did mostly flips just to get in and out of a property. I did that mostly off and on through the nineties as I work part-time, you know, various jobs. Then I became a loan officer in 2000 and did a ton of loans. It was the craziest time as you know, you know, before 08 and I did that till 07 Right before that, you know, the crash happened and I did millions of dollars of loans. I learned so much during that time frame. I became a realtor in 2011 because I was doing it again back in investing, buying REOs during that time because everybody was belly up in a lot of ways. And, so I became a realtor because nobody would call me back. I would call in a house listed with a realtor and no one would give me a call. So I'm like, what, what am I doing? I just took my course, you know, two months' worth of work and I got my license. And, so I did that, you know. I list a properties, you know, I did still did wholesaling then. I did quite a bit of that, what I couldn't wholesale or flip on to other investors. I listed it. So I had a little thing going on where I could talk to people looking to get out of the property quick sale. If it wasn't something they were interested in when it came to my offer, I flipped it over to a listing. That worked really well. And I became a broker in 2016. I sold enough, got all my education, did all that and I became, you know, pretty good sized reo broker. I got some really good accounts. You know, we work with some of the big banks and big asset managers that manage the properties for the banks. So we still do that today. We still do a lot of foreclosure properties. And I just opened a brokerage in Florida, central Florida, near the villages this year; just last month. And I'm in the process of setting up the website and getting all that stuff done. I've been looking at that market for at least two years to go into and we just finalized it. So that's a quick tale.

2:58 - TJones - Well, congratulations on the new brokerage and thanks for sharing your experience with us. So, yeah, let's let's dive into it. So, what are you currently seeing in the central Florida housing market and the well-known The Villages retirement community?

3:14 - MGilbo - Yeah. You know, I've been watching that for a couple of years. I've done a ton of videos on it. The village’s is a unique place. It's a 55 plus community. People around the whole country are moving to it or they want to retire there to a certain extent or they'll buy a house, just go there in summer because of the weather, you know, you're in Florida. And it's a different place. It does hold up better than the rest of Florida. They're probably the only one that really competes is Miami right now. But I see the prices coming down in the villages still. I've been seeing them drop for the last year and a half. The peak of the villages was mid-2022. That was a peak. So if you bought a house in January 2022 or later and you try to sell it, you're gonna lose money. I can pull up 100 examples right now on the screen. So I see the inventory increasing, that has increased quite a bit, about 45%. And the village’s is better than the outskirts of the villages, the outskirts even worse. There's a ton of inventory over building and people panic during COVID. No, they're all buying all this stuff. So, I see inventory increasing and prices dropping without a doubt. And I see some people, in the near future, probably panicking a little bit about the pricing. So they'll try to get out of it, and they're gonna lose money.

4:43 - TJones - Well, thank you for sharing your perspective. Can you help viewers understand how buying a foreclosure or a pre-foreclosure could be an affordable housing option, given the current market conditions?

4:55 - MGilbo - Yeah, I think it's a great option today, especially today because, you know, prices went up so fast in the last three years that they have some equity. Even if you're in foreclosure, you know, in 2008, if you're in foreclosure, you're buried, you didn't have the equity build-up. Now, what you have is you have this major ramp up of pricing in the last three years. So even if you are in foreclosure, you can probably as an investor or as a realtor, you can probably work with that client and either purchase the house from them and maybe they still walk away with a little bit of money or at least list it to where they can walk away with some money. So that, that's kind of really what's been keeping foreclosures down a little bit was the fact that we've had this major ramp up in pricing. But again, as with those changes, you're gonna see an increase in foreclosures, which you already are. So, there are going to be some really good deals in foreclosures from here on out, without a doubt.

5:54 - TJones - Interesting. Ok. Just to dive in a little bit further, what opportunities are you seeing with stressed assets like foreclosures and pre-foreclosures?

6:04 - MGilbo - Yeah, I think besides working with the seller directly, you can still buy foreclosures, but I'm seeing a lot better deals outside of the major cities. Everywhere I go, no matter where I look. If you're looking on the inner city  to buy foreclosure deal. I think as you go, more suburban rural, the deals are much better. I'm seeing even in New York, upstate New York where we have another office, I'm seeing prices below $100 grand again, $60,000, $30,000, where it was hard to find a year and a half ago, two years ago, everything was so inflated. So, I think your deals for now are gonna be outside the major cities. I think that's where someone should be looking and I also think the populations kind of move that way anyways., just because some of the cities, but just because it's cheaper to go out that way and taxes are cheaper. So, yeah, I think that's where you're gonna see it. I think you're gonna see a bunch of deals outside of the major cities. No matter where you go.

7:07 - TJones - Yeah. That makes sense. Especially with, you know, remote work taken off over the last couple of years and how people can kind of be a little bit further from where their offices are.

7:17 - MGilbo - Yeah, that's a big one. And then we're getting every day phone calls, we get people who are looking, you know, they can't afford to live in the city but they can afford to buy a house 20 minutes outside, and where it's a little bit more rural and the prices are a little bit more, and manageable for them in their budget.

7:36 - TJones - Yeah. Ok, thank you. So I think this is an important one for our audience. So what are your expectations for the Central Florida Orlando real estate market for the 2024 spring selling season?

7:52 - MGilbo - Yeah, I think prices will continue to slowly drop. It's an election year. So, let's remember that, and that's important. There's been a lot of money still funneled into the economy over the last three or four years. You know, there's a ton of money printed. So that's still working its way out through the system. You know, people bought a lot of properties, they're still spending it. So I still see prices dropping slowly, until after the election, and maybe it ramps up a little bit. The only thing I can see that really slows that down or maybe keeps prices where they're at is a rate drop. But it would have to be significant. I don't see a half-point making a big difference. I think you're gonna have to see 4% that 3.5 again for it to be economical again. That's my opinion. I think prices drop inventories up and I still have a question mark on rates.

8:52 - TJones - I think everyone does. Especially after the last fed meeting. I think people were anticipating, you know, some sort of rate cut.

9:00 - MGilbo - They tried that in December. Remember, they lowered rates, and all they got was a ton of inflation. It doesn't help. The problem is that when you lower rates, everything else goes up in price. So, you know, it doesn't matter if I have a house, if I can't go buy food. Yeah, you gotta be able to eat first, before you worry about shelter, right? So that's kind of where we're at as a US economy.

9:26 - TJones - It's scary, but I appreciate that. So, how do you utilize foreclosure.com to find off-market affordable housing?

9:36 - MGilbo - I was really impressed in the fact that, I'll be honest, I wasn't aware of how many city-owned properties are out there in the country. I couldn't believe, I mean, my city aloan on your website has 300 something city-owned properties that is insane for a medium sized city. So I like the fact that if I have a client call me and I'm selling them properties or helping them, you know, buy an investment property in Syracuse or Florida doesn't matter. And someone says, hey, you know, I've been thinking of buying something in Texas. I can send them to a site like yours, like foreclosure.com, where I can say, look, go over there; there's gonna be a ton of properties. Take a look and the good thing is you have a wide variety. You got sheriff sales, you got foreclosures, you have, what, you know, REOs obviously you have tax liens. There's a bunch of stuff you have on there that someone can make an offer on or at least short sales and at least, start working towards finding some deals. And I'm not afraid of that as a broker because, for me, if they're interested in something, I'll reach out, and I'll partner with another realtor in another city to make it happen.

10:42 - TJones - Awesome. Great. Thank you for sharing. Foreclosure.com is a great place to start your search and to do your due diligence to find these types of opportunities. So I'm glad you found it useful.

10:55 - MGilbo - Yeah, let me just add this, remember, I'm limited to my MLS. So if I'm gonna look on the MLS, I can only see what I'm attached to, and even though I'm in two MLSs, I can see half of New York and half of Florida; I can't see all 50 states unless they go to your site. That's a big difference. 

11:15 - TJones - No, that's very valuable. Thank you. Well, Mark, that's all the time we have for today. I do wanna thank you again for joining us. So, thank you, Mark. Appreciate your time.

11:24 - MGilbo - Thank you so much for having me. It's been great. Thanks. I really appreciate it.

11:28 - TJones - We're glad to have you. Remember to sign up for our free foreclosure email alerts. Until next time. I'm Tim Jones with foreclosure.com, and we'll see you next time. Take care. Thanks, Tim.