Introduction
Today we are talking about the Saint Cloud and Lake Nona marketplaces. These two marketplaces have absolutely exploded in interest over the pandemic years, and most likely a little bit even before that. But largely, a lot of noise was made, particularly as rents and income from rents for landlords in these particular marketplaces just took off during the pandemic season. When we were looking at Orlando income and Orlando rents, we would see year after year—particularly through 2021—Lake Nona would take in 30% more rent over the prior year. A lot of this also precipitated housing sales, as you would see the properties there doing the exact same thing. Home values were escalating, and properties were hitting the market at much, much higher asking prices than a year prior.
Today, we’re going to look at these two markets and see exactly how things are going. They are a bit disparate. For those of you that are familiar, you might say, “Well, Jared, why are you looking at Lake Nona? Lake Nona’s like a luxury market, and Saint Cloud is popular in its own right, but it’s more of a historic town.” It’s a small city with a really wide range of properties—you could see historic homes in the $300,000s, and you can see new build communities really all over the place. These two communities are really kind of on the doorstep of each other. That’s why I’m going to cover them in the same video, because it’s very easy to show charts in one of these locations and then show the next.
Market Shifts and Changes
But you’re going to notice a lot of shifting going on right here, and there are definitely some unique changes taking place. We’re going to dive into those and see. But first of all, I want to tell everybody that has been watching this channel—thank you! I jumped on here pretty aggressively about a month ago with a dedication to the Orlando market, making sure you stay updated on exactly what is happening in this marketplace. Understanding and having a deep dive into all of the city metros here has been important, and many of you have supported the channel. I appreciate it. I appreciate you jumping in the comments after these videos, giving thumbs-ups, and all that kind of stuff. It just helps the channel a ton. It helps more people find content if they want to know how Saint Cloud’s doing—that will benefit the channel. Also, the subscribers have just jumped off the charts in the past 30 days. I appreciate that.
I’ll let you know too, there’s another channel that I have—much bigger than this one, widely followed—that covers larger topics for the entire real estate market in the context of Florida as a state, not so much Orlando-focused. One of the things I will tell you is that there is an update on that channel hitting today that’s incredibly important for the state of Florida regarding the condo market and the massive changes that are taking place. It’s alarming. If you’re not familiar with what’s going on, you have to check it out. It’s going to be out later today, but this is live, so I appreciate all the grace. A lot of times I do edited content where my little mistakes and fa pause that are done on camera can be taken out, but I’m doing this one live for you, so I hope you enjoy it.
We’re gonna dive in. I’m gonna have a little fun. I’m gonna nerd out as we look at all this data. Take a look. The first graph that you’re looking at, you might say, “Jared, I see the entire Orlando marketplace. You said we’re gonna talk about Saint Cloud and Lake Nona,” which obviously we’re gonna be focusing on the southeast part of the Orlando Metro. But what you’re looking at—the color that you see, most of it being blue—we are looking at a price forecast. This is a home price forecast. The more blue, the more likely home prices are softening or correcting. The more even or red, there’s a likelihood of prices growing. I’m gonna zoom in closer on the markets we’re pointing out, but I want to tell you, “Jared, where does this come from?”
Understanding the Price Forecast
This is an aggregate of affordability, days on market (how long it takes sellers to sell), how much inventory has jumped, and how much prices are dropping or being cut in each of these markets. You can see that vastly in Orlando—Winter Park up here, the College Park and downtown areas of Orlando, out here in Oviedo, the east side is doing pretty strong. And again, even here, this is Lake Nona’s one of the zip codes—32827—which is closer to the airport. But you see, largely we’re seeing forecasted changes, so this is going to be interesting. We’re gonna dive in and see exactly what we are finding in this market.
Let’s start with home values. We’re looking at home value year over year. Let me zoom in really tight so you can see. Even with the forecast, home values are up year over year. In 34769, we’re up 4.3%. In 34772, which is directly south, going into what’s called the Manor area, it’s barely break even at 1.6%. Harmony, again, one I’ve been saying on my big channel to watch whenever I cover Orlando, is negative 3.1%—actually seeing a price correction as we speak. In 34771, you gotta understand too, when you’re getting close to a break-even market, 1% is really kind of flat. You have to pay close attention to what might be happening two or three months later.
I’m gonna give you some leading indicators to help you understand how the fall will do in these zip codes. Is the fall likely to trend down? What we see is, as I mentioned earlier, 32827 is positive 2.8%, and 32832 is also positive 3.3%. Let me make a note here—if you’re familiar with this area, you might say, “Jared, why is this area up 4.3%?” Affordability is a big factor. A lot of these homes in this marketplace are in the $300,000s. You can see it right on screen—it says $331,000 is the home value here, versus last year, which was $317,000. If you know the marketplace, Orlando’s median is somewhere around $390,000. That’s well under the median, so people are basically coming way out here in the south, and they’re fine commuting down into these areas.
Affordability vs. High-End Areas
Look at the areas that are hot pricewise year over year—are they beat-down, cheap areas, or are they high-end areas? There’s a combination. Right here we have Pine Hills. Pine Hills is up 6.4%, as an illustration. Here’s BVL, but in Ventura Lakes in Kissimmee, it’s up 5.4%. What do those areas have in common? Affordability. You also have Oviedo, which is up 6%. What does Oviedo have by contrast? It’s mega popular. People are sending their kids to school in UCF, and they just keep buying this area up. The area has very appreciated private schools and a lot of different things going on, and people are just after it.
The question becomes, how long do these lower-end markets hold on? The question gets answered by the reality of inventory. We had a forecast saying that this might just be a changing market. Let’s nerd out—how have the home values gone in this area in five years? Look at the numbers. 32827 has gone up almost 60%—it’s up 57% in a five-year run. In 32832, it’s up 60% in a five-year run. In 34771, it’s up 55% on a five-year run. Look at how much Harmony has either given back or is obviously just indexing below the rest of the market. It’s now standing at 39%. Let’s take a look at the chart. Let’s see if it’s given some back—it’s given some back.
So, Harmony peaked—this is 2016, so this is a long-running chart. This is probably 2005. But look at this—since August of 2022, they were about, I don’t know, is that 50%? They were 57-58% up on a five-year run. Look what’s happened—given it back, given some back. So, interesting. Have I not covered something? 57% in 772, 66%—oh my gosh, we see this folks. We see this in the affordable areas. Look at BVL—69% in five years. Look at Pine Hills—71% in five years.
Is this sustainable? Does the air come out of that balloon anytime soon? Let’s look at overvalue—this is a chart of income versus existing cost to own. This is a rate percentage of overvalue according to local income versus housing costs. Overvalued by 52% in 34769, overvalued by 33% in 34772, overvalued by 17% in 34771. I think you have a more affluent population, by the way, moving into this section of Saint Cloud—income levels, right? Then down here in 34773, overvalued by 19%. Why? Because the price is correcting. It is interesting to me that, again, I’m not calling for correction. I’m not saying anything. I’m gonna call it even, okay? So I’m not—this isn’t hyperbole. This is me just talking to you on this live stream. I’m a 20-year agent. I’ve sold almost 4,000 homes. I was very active in the last price correction—very busy in that market, cleaning up the mess.
First Signs of Correction
I will say the one thing that happens first—the first sign of a larger correction or recessionary move in the housing market—is the areas that were on the outskirts. Those start to correct first. The housing types that are not people’s first choice—those correct first, i.e., condos and townhomes, i.e., single-family bungalows, tiny little lot lines, right? The houses that they build, and they build these in Harmony a lot—and I’m not making a point about Harmony—Harmony fits more in a “I’m gonna move way out there because it’s super expensive where I’m at.” It’s more of an outskirts move. And again, why did they blow up during a bubble situation? They blew up because they were a lot more affordable than downtown Orlando. So they were a juggle move, okay? I juggle all my costs, and I’m gonna consider all my wants and desires and, okay, I’ll make the drive so that people go out of town. Again, I’m just putting pieces together—it doesn’t mean anything definitive. This is me talking, okay? And don’t be offended—some people get so mad when I start saying, “Hey, this is possible eventualities, possible reasons.” Look here—you have a very hyper-affluent owner in 32827. It’s 16% overvalued, even though the typical home price here is like $630,000, something like that. This is just a high-income situation. That marketplace is like many of the markets where luxury home ownership is less affected by economic circumstances.
Alright, let’s take a look at some other graphs here. Do we want to look at mortgage payments? Not really. Mortgage payments—a percentage change. Let’s look at the crash percentages. So, this is a cycle chart from—oh, by the way, let’s look at two different things. Let’s look at this one—this is called the percentage of change since 2022, since June 2022. What happened in June 2022? The Federal Reserve started raising interest rates from like 2.5-3% for a 30-year fixed to 7%. Most people don’t know, but in the short nine, six months that followed, seven months that followed, there was a 9% drop in median price in the Orlando market, Florida market in general. But Orlando was correcting as well. The reason why we want to see how much has changed—this is basically the run of price in your marketplace since elevated interest rates began, right?
Kind of interesting because look what’s happened—it’s affected certain markets. Some it hasn’t, some it’s inflated them even worse. For instance, this area right here—34769—is up 7%. Why? They’re affordable, just like I told you. Same thing in Pine Hills. And again, don’t get mad when I make these comparisons. I can already see people in 34769 saying, “Which by the way, I love selling in this zip code, okay? Don’t get mad at me for comparing you to other affordable markets, okay?” Yes, I know it’s not BVL, I know it’s not the same as Pine Hills. They’re just in the same price area. They’re in a range of price appeal. Let’s just put it that way. That’s why I have to make those comparisons.
But let me take a look at this. You’re up 7%, no different, right? Look at—I told you a second ago—I think BVL is in the same spot. BVL is up 8%. Parts of affordable Kissimmee, downtown Maine, look at this—up 7%. 34772—it’s more rural. A lot of people are wondering, “Is rural okay? Is rural gonna be fine? I think rural will be even stronger.” Well, look here—this is a more rural Saint Cloud market. It’s up only 1.8% in the past two years. You know what this means too? If you bought a house a year and a half ago, your house, if you had to sell it today, understanding that you probably have like 5-7% closing costs—if you only went up 1.8%, there’s a likelihood that you actually haven’t made enough in equity in certain parts of 34772 to actually break even from your sale.
Long-Term Planning is Key
This is the interesting thing. This is why it’s advantageous for you to consider making sure you’re buying right now in these markets. You’re paying attention to what I’m showing you. You need a long-running plan, okay? Look at these—if you bought in Harmony, prices are down 7.1%. This is very uncommon, by the way.
Let me stay in the Orlando market—by the way, I clicked out. But look where it’s blue. Look where since 2022—look where it’s blue over here, which I think this might be Groveland. This is way out there. I think this is Groveland. So you have Groveland over here—forgive me if I’m not calling this correctly—you have the South Kissimmee market, which is high Airbnb. Then you have—I said south—this is the west Kissimmee market. Look, it’s the outskirts—they’re starting to see the most price shift since then. So then you have the Lake Nona areas, up 2.5% for 32727, and up 4.5% for 32832.
Monitoring Market Trends and Inventory
Alright, let’s take a look. Let’s take a look at market trends. Let’s see where the inventory is starting to pick up in these areas. I want to just take a look at each one. So, year-over-year inventory is a game changer for home values. Look what we’re seeing right here—32827 is only up 8%. Now, is that because they already climbed a bunch? No—it’s insane how much limited inventory is present. Let me flip to the inventory chart for a second.
Look at 32827. Look at this—this is an eight-year average dotted line right here, down the middle. Look at how they bottomed out at like 20 homes for sale in 2022, and they’re literally running on the average. There are a lot of markets that are way above the eight-year average—they’re way up here. As you can see, look at the history of 32827—they’re usually having 150-170 houses on the market at any given time. They’re still at 131. It’s interesting, right? Like Winter Park looks like that—you have this affluent crowd of people that are just locking down their homes. They’re not really trading.
Alright, let’s look at 32832. Look at that vertical rise—that’s June, by the way. You might ask, “Jared, where are you getting this data?” This is from an app showing data that I’ve pulled from Realtor. It’s actually something I subscribe to, but the data is drafted from Realtor.com, which covers everything. I can pull this up for any market. Look at this one—162 is where they’re at now. Where was the previous month? Look at that—they went from 136 in May to 162—a big move north.
Understanding Market Reactions
And again, what does that mean when you see this graph? I affectionately call a graph doing this for the last three months “straight up, sponsored by SpaceX”—it’s going to the moon, right? Now, this is interesting. This is a straight direct north view. When I see this on a graph, it tells me that buyers have absolutely slammed on the brakes, and sellers are still bringing houses to the market, and the unsold inventory is just going up.
Now again, look—it’s 162 right now. Do you have a moment in time in history where—yes, one other time—August 2016, they had 163 units. 150. So, this is the second highest level of inventory that this marketplace has ever seen in eight years. By the way, it was on average in February. In February, it had an average level of 105. It is now 62 units heavier, which is like, what, a 40% climb over March, April, May, June—four months. Four months, you’ve seen a 40% jump.
Again, I’m just viewing this live. I’m watching this—I didn’t know that was going to be there, but it is telling, right? By the way, if you’re a seller in this market, what does it tell you? If you’re going to be the next person out of the marketplace, your home has to look right, and the price has to show high value versus a lot more competing homes. And if you’re a buyer, it tells you there might be some sellers in there that are highly motivated because their feel for the market is changing. Their spidey senses are telling them, “Hey, this is changing. This is going to be different.” And the other thing too, folks—this is in moving season, okay? You are seeing a time here where it’s vertical, going up when there’s supposed to be a peak number of buyers out there absorbing it.
The Impact of High Inventory in Saint Cloud
This is weird because usually we see the summer sell-off of a big number of homes. So that’s interesting. Okay, look what we have here. So now we’re in 34771. This is the area just below Lake Nona, going towards Saint Cloud. This is 304 units—it marks the highest on record. It’s an eight-year run, by the way. Look at what happened after the interest rates started going up in 2022. So, they’ve been on this path before. However, this is a record low—they were at 38 homes, they needed this inventory. But look where the average usually is—the average is down here. It’s so far above that. This is uncharted territory. And I would imagine, okay, for everybody watching, you’re in 34771—there’s probably a good bit more homes on the market here at this point in time. There are probably fewer homes back here, and there’s been a lot of development in the zip code. Some of that will affect higher inventory, but this is very high.
This is, again, that same move that we’re seeing in the zip code 32832 just to the north, and that’s shifting. Let’s take a look at Harmony, because obviously that’s where we’re seeing a lot of weird stuff—34743. Look at this. Alright, so they peaked and actually had a little bit of either a sell-off or people just pulling their house off the market. In May 2024, Harmony had 105 homes on the market. They’ve been climbing out of the hole—they went way up and then shot into 2023 above the eight-year average. And then, over the last eight months, it’s just been going straight north. This is a good sign—you had a big pullback. I mean, I say big pullback, it was like a 10% drop in inventory, but hey, it helps. But it’s still elevated.
Alright, let’s take a look at 34769. You can see it’s high. It’s been higher, but it’s well over the eight-year average. And you can see that this is a big move north, similar to what we’re seeing through the rest of the region. In 34772, just below, this is more rural than 34769, and it’s way off the charts—it’s way, way up there. It’s like the eight-year running average is 102 homes. It’s at 229 houses, and it’s been jumping since May 2023. So, last summer till now, sellers are push, push, push—more homes, more homes, more homes. Buyers are just not keeping up with it.
This kind of inventory surge typically indicates a shifting market where sellers might need to adjust their expectations, while buyers could find themselves in a more favorable position. As we continue to monitor these trends, it’s clear that both Saint Cloud and Lake Nona are experiencing significant changes, each with its own unique dynamics.
If you’re navigating these markets, whether as a buyer or a seller, staying informed and adaptable will be key to success.
Best Realtor in Saint Cloud and Lake Nona - Reach Out Today
If you’re ready to make a move in Florida’s real estate market, don’t hesitate to reach out. Contact Jared Jones at 407-706-5000 (call or text) or email info@jaredjones.com for professional guidance and personalized service that will help you achieve your real estate goals.
Why Choose Jared Jones?
As a top real estate agent with nearly 4,000 homes sold and over 20 years of experience in the Florida real estate market, I have the expertise needed to help you navigate today’s evolving landscape. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell, my deep understanding of market trends and personalized approach will provide you with the insights and strategies required for success.
Stay Ahead of Florida Real Estate Trends
Unlock insider knowledge and stay informed about the latest in Florida’s real estate market! Subscribe to Jared Jones’ YouTube channel for in-depth analysis, current news, and expert insights on real estate trends across the state. Plus, check out my other channel for a deeper dive into the Orlando metro area, where I explore what it’s like to live in and around these vibrant neighborhoods. Whether you’re buying, selling, or just curious about Florida real estate, my videos will keep you ahead of the curve. Hit the subscribe button and stay updated with the most relevant real estate information!
Search Saint Cloud Listings
Jared Jones Real Estate Team Serving All of Central Florida
- Osceola County
- Orange County
- Lake County
- Polk County
- Seminole County
- Volusia County
- Broward County
- Marion County
- Flagler County
- Brevard County
- Pinellas County
- Hillsborough County
