{"id":222788,"date":"2026-04-08T01:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/222788\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:22:14","slug":"ucf-economist-warns-about-iran-war-uncertainty-affecting-floridas-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/222788\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF economist warns about Iran war uncertainty affecting Florida’s economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cbiggest cloud of uncertainty\u201d facing Florida\u2019s economy is the Iran war, as some prices are already rising and affecting consumers, a University of Central Florida<\/a> economist warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens with the Iran conflict is going to sort of shift the path that we\u2019re on, for better or for worse,\u201d said Sean Snaith<\/a>, the Director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting<\/a>, as he gave an economic update during Tuesday\u2019s Orange County Commission<\/a>\u00a0meeting.<\/p>\n

Snaith said consumers are affected first by rising prices in transportation-related industries. He pointed to airlines raising baggage fees or delivery companies adding fuel charges for shipping packages.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are still trying to recover from that episode of inflation and now here we go again with some costs of living being impacted by the conflict here with Iran,\u201d Snaith said. \u201cThe impact we\u2019ve seen immediately (is) certainly at the gas pumps. We\u2019ve seen it in the price of oil, price of natural gas. We\u2019re starting to see it work its way through the economy, these higher prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snaith dug into the latest figures for Florida and the Orlando area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s unemployment rate in 2026 posted at 4.2%, similar to the statewide rate of 4.3%. Even though the unemployment rate remains slow historically, the growth in new jobs remains sluggish, Snaith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not really hiring; there\u2019s not really firing,\u201d Snaith said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of suspended animation in the labor market.\u201d<\/p>\n

For housing prices in Orange County, the median sale price in February 2026 was $491,000, according to his presentation<\/a>. Closed sales were down 753, compared to 828 in February 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Orange County, it\u2019s still a seller\u2019s market,\u201d Snaith said.<\/p>\n

Statewide, the median house sales price was $412,000 with closed sales up, at 18,379 in February 2026 compared to 17,697 in February 2025.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPrices have flattened out,\u201d Snaith said. \u201cCould they come down? Certainly. Would I anticipate the kind of drop that we saw in 2009, 2010? I think that\u2019s highly unlikely just because of the difference in the financing environment, but supply and demand will determine affordability is out of the reach of many people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cbiggest cloud of uncertainty\u201d facing Florida\u2019s economy is the Iran war, as some prices are already rising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,100873,21539,4775,100874,2103],"class_list":["post-222788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-institute-for-economic-forecasting","tag-iran","tag-orange-county-board-of-commissioners","tag-sean-snaith","tag-university-of-central-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}