This is one of the most common questions I get.
Someone drives by a house down the street that just sold. Or they pull up their address online and see a number pop up. And then they call me and say, “Ray, is that actually what my home is worth?”
Sometimes yes. Often no. Always worth a real conversation.
Here’s what’s actually going on when you try to figure out what your home is worth, and how to get a number you can actually use.
What the Online Estimate Is Doing
Every major real estate website has an automated estimate for your home. You’ve seen them. You type in your address and a number appears.
Those tools use algorithms. They pull public records: tax assessments, permit history, past sale prices, and run them through a formula. It’s fast. It’s easy. And it’s a starting point, not an answer.
Here’s the problem with that starting point in a market like Orlando.
The Orlando metro median sale price was $395,000 in March 2026, but that number hides dramatic variation across the city. A single-family home in Windermere lists near $995,000. A townhome in Horizon West closes around $550,000. A condo in downtown Orlando sells for roughly $300,000. The gap between the most and least expensive Orlando neighborhoods now exceeds $700,000.
An algorithm pulling “Orlando median” doesn’t know which part of that range your home sits in. It doesn’t know your street. It doesn’t know your floor plan, your updates, your view, or whether the house three doors down sold under duress last month and pulled comps down.
It knows your square footage and your last sale price. That’s it.
What Actually Determines Your Home's Value
Real home value is set by one thing: what a buyer will pay for it today, in this market, in this condition.
To get close to that number, you need to look at what’s actually happened around you. A few things that matter:
Recent comparable sales. What have similar homes: same size, same age, same general area, actually closed for in the last 60 to 90 days? Not listed for, closed for. There’s a difference right now.
Days on market. Homes in the Orlando metro are spending an average of 83 days on market, the highest figure since early 2016. That context matters when pricing. A home priced right sells in weeks. A home priced wrong sits, and sitting homes lose value fast in a buyer’s perception.
Condition and updates. An algorithm can’t walk through your house. It doesn’t know you replaced the roof two years ago, updated the kitchen, or that your backyard backs up to a conservation lot. Those things move the number, sometimes significantly.
Inventory in your price range. There were 8,200 active listings in the Orlando metro in March 2026, a 25% jump from the same month the previous year. That’s more competition for sellers. Where your home sits within that inventory affects how it’s priced and how quickly it moves.
Hyperlocal demand. Waterford Lakes is a different conversation than MetroWest. Oviedo is different from Kissimmee. Even within the same zip code, one subdivision can consistently outperform the next one over. An algorithm doesn’t capture that nuance. A local agent who works those streets every week does.
The Difference Between an AVM and a CMA
An AVM (Automated Valuation Model) is what the online tools produce. Fast, broad, useful for a ballpark.
A CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) is what a real estate agent prepares. It’s a manual process. An agent pulls the actual closed sales in your specific area, filters for homes that genuinely compare to yours, adjusts for differences, and arrives at a range that reflects what buyers are actually paying right now.
A CMA takes more time. It also gives you a number you can make real decisions with whether that’s listing, refinancing, pulling equity, or just knowing where you stand.
What the Orlando Market Is Actually Doing Right Now
For context on where things stand:
The overall median home price in 2025 was $385,000, an all-time high in the Orlando market. For comparison, the median was $370,500 in 2023 and $365,000 in 2022.
As of March 2026, the metro median sale price was $395,000, up 3.8% year over year: a pace that signals steady, sustainable growth rather than the double-digit surges of 2021 and 2022.
What that means for homeowners: values are holding. The equity built during the boom years hasn’t evaporated. But the market has shifted. Buyers have more options than they did two years ago, and pricing strategy matters more than it did when everything sold in a weekend.
The homeowners doing well right now are the ones who price accurately from day one, show well, and work with an agent who knows how to position a home in a market with more inventory and more discerning buyers.
How to Get Your Actual Number
If you want to know what your home is genuinely worth in today’s market, the right move is a conversation with a local agent who can pull a real CMA for your specific property.
I do this regularly for homeowners who are thinking about selling, curious about their equity position, or just want to understand where they stand. No obligation. No pressure to list.
It takes about 20 minutes. You walk away with a real number backed by real data, not an algorithm guess.
Ray Lopez Team | Keller Williams Advantage II Realty
📞 407-697-8298 | 📧 closings@raylopezteam.com
If you’re curious what your home is worth right now, reach out! We’re happy to take a look.
