Deltona-Daytona-Ormond housing market earns top 10 ranking for this surprising reason

DAYTONA BEACH − A new national ranking lists Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach as the ninth-slowest metro area in the country to sell a house.

The ranking by CreditNews.com comes as a surprise to P.W. Mabry, president of the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors.

"We're selling properties like crazy right now," said Mabry, an agent with Re/Max Signature in Ormond Beach. "Our numbers (volume of homes sold) are going up."

How did they come up with the ranking?

New York-based CreditNews.com based its ranking of the nation's 10 fastest and 10 slowest metro areas to sell a house on data from real estate website Zillow.com, which found that it took a median of 39 days for a listing to be put under contract to be sold in the "Deltona" metro area in January.

"When referring to 'Deltona,' we meant the entire metro area, encompassing Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach," confirmed Dan Runkevicius, chief editor for CreditNews.com in an email. "The data was sourced from Zillow’s 'for-sale inventory' data set.' Housing inventory was then adjusted to account for the size of the metro population."

Florida Realtors Association data showed the "median time to contract" for existing single-family homes in Volusia County in January was actually 41 days, according to a copy of the report provided to The Daytona Beach News-Journal by the West Volusia Association of Realtors.

The Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors reported that the median time to contract for properties listed by its members was 53 days.

The statewide median time to contract in January was 43 days, according to the Florida Realtors Association.

Nationally, the median time to contract for homes to be put under contract was 36 days in January, according to the National Association of Realtors.

It's based on a 'Zestimate'

Mabry said he takes data provided by Zillow with a grain of salt.

"(Real estate) brokers must click on a button that allows Zillow to get their information," he said. "I know for a fact that not all brokers click on that button."

"Zillow also has in small print on its reports that when they give you an appraisal value for a property that they call it a 'Zestimate.' That's so they can't be sued (if the information is incorrect)," said Mabry. "It's their personal opinion."

"We have people tell us all the time that 'Zillow says my house should sell for a half-million dollars,' but that's not necessarily the case," he added. "Their 'Zestimates' are only within 5% of the actual sale price of a home about half of the time."

John Adams, president of Adams, Cameron & Co. Realtors in Daytona Beach, also expressed skepticism regarding Zillow's latest ranking for the Deltona metro area.

"Zillow has a very good statistics team and generally produces good results, however, in this case, I can't agree," said Adams.

Adams, Cameron has 300 agents in eight offices in Volusia and Flagler counties, the most of any real estate brokerage in the combined two-county area.

Local market back to pre-pandemic levels?

Florida Realtors Association data for the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach area, which encompasses the combined Volusia County-Flagler County area, showed that the median time to contract for homes locally rose to 33 days in 2023, up from 13 days and 11 days in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Despite the increase, the median time to contract remained lower than in 2019 (41 days), the year before the COVID-19 pandemic-fueled real estate boom in Florida began.

"I like the (Florida Realtors) view over time, because it is more objective," said Adams.

What CreditNews had to say about its rankings

The report by CreditNews.com stated that its study "reveals a major shift in best-selling markets since the onset of Covid. None of the top fastest-selling metros pre-COVID remain on the list today, and vice versa.

"Part of the reason behind this realignment is different inventory levels across the nation − which, we found, has a strong connection with how fast listings sell."

What do the latest local housing numbers say?

According to countywide data provided by the West Volusia Association of Realtors, Realtors in Volusia County sold 509 homes in January, up 3% from 494 a year ago. The median sale price rose to $350,000, up 4.8% from $333,990 in January 2023. The inventory of active listings climbed 21.8% year-over-year to 2,384, compared with 1,957 a year ago.

Still, the month's supply for Volusia, meaning how long in theory it would take to deplete the inventory if no new listings are added, remained tight at 3.3 months, compared with 2.5 a year ago.

The statewide month's supply in January was 3.8, according to Florida Realtors.

According to the National Association of Realtors, that means the local real estate market remains tilted somewhat in favor of sellers. "Historically, six months of supply is associated with moderate price appreciation, and a lower level of month's supply tends to push prices up more rapidly," the NAR website states.

Who else made the fastest and slowest lists?

According to CreditNews.com, the 10 fastest metro areas to sell a house in January, along with the median days on market, were as follows: 1. Hartford, Connecticut (8 days); 2. tie between Rochester and Syracuse, New York, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (9 days); 5. tie between Richmond, Virginia, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and New Haven, Connecticut (11 days); 8. tie between Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, and Columbus, Ohio (12 days).

Jacksonville was the other Florida metro area, along with Deltona to make the 10 slowest metro areas list: 1. Austin, Texas (66 days); 2. McAllen, Texas (53 days); 3. Poughkeepsie, New York (51 days); 4. San Antonio, Texas (49 days); 5. New Orleans, Louisiana (48 days); 6. Jacksonville, Florida (42 days); 7. tie between Cape Coral, Florida, and Colorado Springs, Colorado (41 days); 9. Deltona, Florida (39 days); 10. New York, New York (37 days).

Why do some homes take longer to sell?

While some homes locally sell within days of being listed, others can go months without receiving an offer, often resulting in a lowering of the asking price.

"When homes sit on the market, there can be a lot of reasons," said Mabry. "In some cases, it could be a property that requires extensive repairs or updating. Being over-priced is almost always the No. 1 reason. You have sellers out there trying to get top dollar for their home, in some cases against the advice of their Realtor."