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Belton Jennings, chief executive officer of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, is a smart guy. He is recognizing the softening of the Orlando Real Estate market, and as opposed to starting a panic or screaming about a crash, he is trying to educate the newer real estate agents on how to cope with it.

The real estate market, like the stock market, tends to bring in many new people during boom years. And it is hard to screw up when it is easy to sell homes. But when times get tough, then the true professionals step up and show why they are great. If you are a marginal agent and in your heart of hearts know you do not market well, either get out or get some more education. Selling homes with higher interest rates and less demand will take a great deal of skill for the next few years.

The economy and local home sales remain strong in historic terms, but the cycle is turning to a buyer’s market and, if the trend continues, it could reach a level of softness that few local sales agents have experienced, said Belton E. Jennings III, chief executive officer of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
‘For some of you, it will be a scary thing,’ Jennings said to several hundred members during an association luncheon this week at the Renaissance Resort at SeaWorld.
Jennings noted that about 86 percent of the more than 11,000 local Realtor members have been in the business less than 10 years — and existing-home sales in the Orlando area have set annual records for the past 13 years. During the past year alone, the local association’s membership swelled 26 percent to 11,897 people. So any softness in the market will be magnified.
So far this year, the number of homes sold by association members is up almost 7 percent over last year. In dollars, the sales volume through April of $2.7 billion is 24 percent higher than the same period a year ago.
But as the inventory rises to record levels, mortgage rates edge up and pay raises trail home prices, everyone ‘is becoming edgier,’ Jennings said — buyers, sellers and agents. If it continues, he said, some real estate offices will close.

Leading Realtor sounds warning.

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