Ormond Beach Real Estate Really Has Been a Good Investment Over Time

Stan Smith, a University of Central Florida finance professor, just completed an analysis of the central Florida real estate market, and concluded that, even though prices rose and fell dramatically in recent years, they appear to have settled back into historic patterns. Current home values are just about where they would have been if the real-estate bubble had never inflated and burst.

"Most homeowners are within 6 percent of where they would have been had there not been a bubble. The people who have been here since before 2005, they should not have been hurt," Smith said, though he added: "... A lot of people did buy in 2005 and 2006, and obviously they have been hurt significantly."

Volusia County Property Appraiser Morgan Gilreath has obtained results similar to Smith's. Gilreath recently plotted home prices from 1996 to the present and concluded they are not far below where they would have been without the bubble. Gilreath said his analysis was not as thorough as Smith's research at UCF, but both indicate the residential market is not likely to decline much further.

"The point that the charts are telling us is that we're close to where we think the bottom is going to be," he said. "The question is: When is it going to turn around? I have evidence that it is turning around here in Volusia."

Read more about the studies at the Orlando Sentinel.