There’s a new Disney rollercoaster called The Volatile Real Estate Market ride (you have to be at least “this desperate” to ride), but I’ve been on it – and only half the ride is working. Sellers are selling, but why aren’t buyers buying when it’s so clearly a ‘buyers’ market in Orlando? The reason is, everybody wants to wait until we reach a new feeding frenzy and everyone has to pay twice as much for half the size. Yet, right now you can pick up some amazing deals best deals, with some unheard of incentives (someone just offered me their first born child, if I would close in 30 days).

Yes, I know the mortgage market is not that flexible anymore and the only thing one can flip at the moment is a good old fashioned burger, but I am not just talking about investors being frightened away. No, right now I have clients who are ready, able but only somewhat willing to buy. Even they seem to have been bullied into a totally defensive stance by the media and other market advisors (i.e. their cousins who got their real estate licenses during the Great Condo Gold Rush of 2005).

Which part of Orlando is a BUYER’S market is unclear?  

There’s an old fable in my home country of Germany. A guy is whistling, happy and smiling while walking up a steep, difficult mountain, but sad and depressed while making his way down the easy path on the other side. When asked why he is depressed going down the mountain, he replies that he can’t stop thinking of the painfully hard up-part to come when he has to walk back up again. He never quite takes advantage of the moment – always worried about that something worse is to come.

So at what stage are buyers really happier? Sometimes I think we are actually more satisfied when we are getting shafted in a crazy Sellers Market because we just can’t believe that right now WE are getting the better deal.

I tell my clients that this is the time to buy condos in Orlando. You know, there is a reason why no one is in that empty line at the supermarket: It’s because everyone knows that something must be wrong with that line. The truth is, the average person just prefers to do what everyone else is doing. Which is why Donald Trump is rich. Because following the crowd gets you nowhere in real estate.