Home sales in the Orlando market jumped nearly 48 percent, but values fell by nearly 40 percent, according to the March report from the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

Association members reported 1,653 existing home sales in March, compared with 1,120 in the same month a year prior. Realtors also put 2,956 homes under contract last month, a far cry from March 2008’s 1,679.

The median price of all Orlando homes resales fell 37.7 percent from $217,000 in March 2008 to $137,000 last month. The area’s average interest rate fell to a record low 4.67 percent.

Association members also reported 4,906 pending sales — considered a leading indicator of future sales — in March, more than double March 2009’s 2,398.

March home resales in the Orlando area — Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties — jumped nearly 58 percent, from 1,354 homes last year to 2,139 homes this year.

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Commercial real estate prices in the U.S. dropped by almost 15 percent in 2008, more than home prices, with fourth-quarter depreciation the greatest in the national apartment market, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report.

The price decline eliminated the gains seen in 2006 and 2007 and returned values to 2005 levels, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices. Prices fell 2.2 percent in December from November, said New York-based Moody’s.

Commercial values are now down more than 16 percent from their peak in October 2007, said Moody’s. The deepening recession is causing tenants to cut jobs and vacate space, bringing down building incomes, while the credit freeze is making it difficult to finance property purchases.

“The commercial real estate market has followed the larger economy into a downturn that is likely to last through 2009 and possibly into 2010,” Prudential Real Estate Investors said in its quarterly outlook in January. “With unemployment rising, consumer spending falling and home prices dropping, the recession will impact all sectors of the real estate market.”

Commercial real estate prices fell more than home prices last year. The median price of a U.S. home declined 12 percent to $180,100 in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for 45 percent of all transactions, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

London luxury home prices had the second-biggest decline on record in January as would-be buyers struggled to secure mortgages from banks hurt by the global financial crisis.
The average value of homes costing more than 1 million pounds in London’s most expensive neighborhoods fell 3.7 percent from a month earlier, Knight Frank LLP said in an e-mailed statement Jan. 31. In the past 12 months, prices have slumped 21 percent, the biggest annualized drop recorded by Knight Frank.

“The sudden restriction of mortgage finance” was the main cause of the market’s decline last year, Liam Bailey, head of residential research at London-based Knight Frank, said in the statement. “This factor is continuing to cause problems for the housing market and the wider economy.”
The cost of buying a luxury home in the U.K. capital has fallen for 10 straight months, declining 21 percent since the market’s peak in March. The biggest drop since the broker started the survey in 1976 was 3.9 percent, recorded in October.

Financial-services companies in London may cut as many as 60,000 jobs by the end of 2010, according to research firm Oxford Economics. As a result, the market won’t rebound soon, Knight Frank said.
“Price falls should begin to level out towards the end of 2009, although 2010 is likely to see prices move sideways at best,” said Bailey. Knight Frank now expects prices to fall as much as 35 percent from their peak, compared with its previous estimate of 30 percent.