A rooftop view of Orlando’s real estate market, trends and neighborhoods

Archive for the ‘Florida’ Category

Orlando’s Environment

Monday, October 15th, 2007

Today is Blog Action Day, which is about the environment this year.

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

For my part, I’d like to point out a great blog/site/publication about living “green” in Orlando. Easy enough to remember since it’s called GreenOrlando. It’s an interesting website that is focused on keeping Orlando a great place to live. They focus on eight quality of life aspects: Art, Balance, Ethics, Faith, Fitness, Nature, Teamwork and Sustainability.

The Green Orlando BlogSample stories cover everything from using natural Florida flora to do your landscaping to coverage of Florida’s greenways and trails.

Best of all, the Green Orlando site takes submissions for stories, events and thoughts from you on how to keep Orlando beautiful. Have a thought? Submit it to them.

There have already been some excellent posts written around the Orlando blogosphere about our local environment:

EKDAY - Clean up Orlando
Shaun talks about how the simple act of disposing correctly of the plastic 6-pack soda holders can make a big impact to our local birds.

Hojin Chang - Green Vision House Orlando 2008
“Green Vision Home will be a 4,900 square foot high end custom home to be built by Westmont Homes to demonstrate that green homes can be glamorous and durable enough to withstand the rigors of being in an active hurricane zone.”

[If you have an Orlando blog and wrote something for Blog Action Day, let me know and I’ll add it here.]

Real Estate Costs are Hurting Florida

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

This isn’t really news to anyone who lives here in Orlando. However, there is an interesting article in the RealEstateJournal about the reasons why Florida is having problems with attracting new people to the state.

Florida Population Chart over Time

Some interesting points:

Moving company Atlas Van Lines brought 6,700 families into Florida last year and took 8,000 out, the first time it has moved more out than in.

While foreigners continue to arrive at a rate of about 100,000 year, migration from inside the country is slowing. (RE Agents, you hear that? Better change your strategies…)

A two-tier tax system hits newcomers and part-time residents harder than long time homeowners.

Ms. Thomas and her husband bought a $168,000 house. The mortgage, with property taxes and homeowner’s fees, comes to about $1,500 a month — more than half a month’s pay.