Photography by Julie Fletcher
BY DIANE SEARS
A TURNING DATA INTO ACTION
THE SCHMIDT REPORT is a Secret Weapon in Residential Real Estate
s someone who breathes life into the statistics surrounding residential real estate in Central Florida, Jason Schmidt watched with interest when COVID-19 hit the region in March. Residents were under “stay at home” orders as the virus started to spread, and it wasn’t clear how the unfolding scenario would affect housing sales, which had been on track for a banner year. In the first quarter of 2020, there were more houses on the market than there were buyers. In Orange County, for example, there were almost 4,500 houses for sale, compared with about 17,000 a dozen years ago. The dynamic of supply and demand was driving prices up, making it a seller’s market. Was that about to change? Schmidt is the president and broker at Stockworth Realty Group, a Windermerebased firm with 18 agents who handle luxury real estate sales. He’s also the publisher of The Schmidt Report, a 300-page quarterly proprietary publication that examines all facets of the residential real estate market in Central Florida. “What we ended up seeing was that in January through March, we were on pace to have a record year within our region,” Schmidt said. “And then in April, we saw a fairly significant dip. We saw a decline in total sales of between 10% in some markets and 20% in others. “But what we didn’t expect to see was inventory remain low and, in some areas, even drop further. Because of the uncertainty
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created, a number of people who normally would have capitalized by putting their houses on the market didn’t.” Schmidt’s team needed a competitive advantage, and they had one with The Schmidt Report. He added information from April into the first-quarter report, and it showed what was happening. “April was a declining month, but May and June were record months for us,” Schmidt said. “Agents have had to shift a bit in the way they interact with people and the way they show homes. But interest rates are low. We have no expectation that mortgage rates are going to tick up that much, which helps keep demand in place. And because we’ve got such low supply, we’re seeing quite a lot of real estate activity.
“This report is something our agents have that sets them apart and makes them unique. For us, we’ve recovered what we lost in April and are set to have another record year.” Today’s version of the report has developed since 2013, when Schmidt began compiling a quarterly document of three or four pages as a valuation analyst for Isleworth Realty, part of the Tavistock Group that created the posh Isleworth community in Windermere and is also developing Lake Nona. The report helped the firm’s real estate agents by providing basic information about economic indicators that affected the luxury market, such as number of sales, volume of sales, inventory and median value. It contained no analysis.
