Orange County has led the way, and the value of homes has skyrocketed across Central Florida over the last two years. However, in the upward trend, Osceola County, there was one exception to the evidence of how homeowners were whipped by uncertain economic landscapes.
Orlando Sentinel/South Florida Sun Sentinel presents an analysis of data from Zillow, a real estate marketplace company. Orange’s home value increased by 4% in the region from March 2023 to March 2025, while Osceola trailed with a 0.58% decline.
The mixed trends in the values of Central Florida homes are similar to other places. Much of South Florida sees a small dip. Zillow Economist said the value, which has risen rapidly during the pandemic, has remained flat. However, one of the region’s elected property appraisers believes there is little risk of a decline during the Great Recession of 2008.
Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Appraisers in Central Florida say Orlando is the second-strongest subway area in Miami alone – some of the unique features of the second home with numerous short-term rentals near the theme park. They say the region is currently resistant to price softening.
Jared Jones, a lead at Jones Group Real Estate at Winter Garden, said the value of the home in the Orlando area is stronger compared to other parts of the state, primarily due to its demand.
“Orlando is one of the top 10 cities for an inbound transition,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of debate as to whether it’s cooled or not, but it still remains.”
He said many people traveling around Florida are buying new homes. Ken Pozek, founder of Winter Garden-based Pozek Group’s real estate company, agreed.
Pozek said Osceola and St. Cloud in Clermont and Mount Dora and Groveland in Lake County are the local cities with the most opportunities for new construction. In Lake County, housing value increased by 1.42%.
“It’s been a little more affordable, especially over the last three or five years,” he said of the lake. “A lot of people expect all this connectivity to occur when the SR 516 comes in and it’s on other major roads. So we see a lot of clients expecting future growth.”
The experience of Stan Painter, an emergency medical services aide for the Central Florida Tourism Monitoring District, covering Disney World, shows Orange’s strong real estate market.
Last week, he and his husband Joao sold the five-bedroom, 4-bath 3,400-square-foot home to Ocoee. The house sold for $839,900 in just six days, six years after buying it for $480,700. We then paid cash to a two-bedroom two-bath condo in downtown Orlando.
Paynter said the couple is worried that their homes will not be sold after talking to their neighbors and learning the value of their homes across the state.
“It was a huge relief to know that we would sell as quickly as we did,” he said. “We had five shows, and that was the last thing that gave us an offer.”
There are many bright spots in the real estate market in the area. Windermere, southwest Orlando with Zip Code 34786, has increased its household value by 7.02% since March 2023. North of Orlando with Zip Code 32789 was Winter Park, which saw an increase of 7.99%. The city is known for its museums, abundant outdoor spaces and a slightly older, $1 million home located under a canopy of living oak trees.
In Seminole County, the increase was 3.99%. The largest jump postcode was 32732. Geneva is there with a suburban home that saw a jump of 9.59% worth. The community is close to Little Big Econ State Forest and the large and small Econ Rock Hatchee River.
Sentinel has created these numbers and more by analyzing monthly changes to Zillow’s home value index for ZIP codes in this region. Collects recent sales prices across the region, focusing on the centre of each region’s market rather than the extreme, and using them to estimate “typical home values” beyond just what’s on sale.
At Osceola, Sentinel’s analysis found an overall dip, but Zillow’s senior economist Kara Ng said in an email that the slight downward trend is far from unique.
“Several factors affect regional differences, but trends in places like Osceola County are clear. Price pressures are beginning to be easy,” says Ng. “But the shift is ongoing. More sellers are listing their homes – faster than buyers are scooping them up – meaning the house is sitting longer and the competition is cooled.”
Osceola real estate appraiser Katrina Scarborough said the county’s market has been adapting to massive new construction in recent years. She said sales have tapered and the rapid growth of the past five years has begun to slow down.
“In the West End, we know we’re reducing the value of our tourist corridors,” Scarborough said. “The east side of the county is slightly reduced, like Harmony.”
Located southeast of St. Cloud, Harmony was thriving with new construction and broken developers in multiple masterplanned communities. However, amid this increase in supply, the value of the home has dropped by 6.52%.
“I feel that’s a natural trend,” Scarborough said. “I don’t think we’re going to do a big drop, like we did in 2008.”
Osceola Zip Code 34747, home to the Disney-built tree-lined Master Plan Celebration community, has lost its largest home value at 8.89% across the region.
The community in the tourist corridor includes a second home for many snowbirds. This states that Jones is contributing to the poor value.
“They don’t live there because in essence short-term rentals are second homes,” he said. “They don’t need that house, so if the money gets tight, they’re discretionary and they just get rid of it.”
Second home owners are the motivation to sell, and often do so at a low price — which reduced the value of the homes in the area, Jones said.
He said he’ll take better photos of things for the real estate that will continue into the beginning of autumn after the busy season of the real estate.
