The $7.1 million dollar house that was reportedly on contract is now back on the market. The Orlando Sentinel reports:
The sale of the 9,000-square-foot home near Windermere on Lake Butler last month to Orlando plastic surgeon John Choi fell through after he was unable to obtain financing, said Denise Dell-Powell, attorney for court-appointed bankruptcy trustee Soneet Kapila.
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.
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.
Even with a cooling condo market, Tradition Towers overlooking Lake Eola is back on track. This time however, half of the building will be a new top end luxury hotel. Developer Steve Walsh claims that their hotel will be even more exclusive than Orlando’s Grand Bohemian. I’ll be interested to see if that is the case.
It’s a brave move to continue building into a slumping condo market. I certainly hope to see Orlando continue to grow though, so am glad that it’s happening.
(more at the Sentinel)
Florida Super Homestead Tax Exemption might be thrown out. (via Rob and Sentinel):
Choosing the “super” homestead exemption would mean the homeowner would forever lose the Save Our Homes cap. And as Orange County Property Appraiser Bill Donegan and others have shown, many people who stay in their homes more than four years would save more with Save Our Homes limiting future tax bills.
Maitland city council wants to make some big changes, but have their hands full with local citizens (via Orlando Sentinel):
The centerpiece of Maitland’s downtown makeover would be 675 condominiums and apartments, shops restaurants and offices built by the Brossier Co. Those buildings would rise on land that is now home to City Hall, the Police Department and other city offices, a shuttered Winn-Dixie supermarket and parking lots.
[Hojin Chang guest authors a post this week, he is a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker who specializes in Southwest Orlando (Dr. Phillips, Windermere, Gotha, Celebration, Winter Garden, Ocoee, Clermont and Hunters Creek) and writes a blog at sworlandoblog.com. ]
With the state of the current real estate market its becoming harder to find places to invest in real estate that will not be falling in value for the next few years. Perhaps a farm that receives subsidies is a great real estate investment. Farm subsidies that were originally designed to keep farmer afloat during the Great Depression is now a 16 billion dollar a year program being abused by the wealthiest who are farmers in name only.
Paul Allen, co founder of Microsoft, Ted Turner, and the Prince of Lichtenstein are among the recipients of this subsidy. They’re not farmers by any means, they just own land that used to be farms and qualifies for this subsidy. As long as the land you own is designated to receive the subsidy, the government pays even if the land is no longer a farm. Heck they keep paying even when you’re dead.
Another way to abuse this subsidy is that big farmers can subdivide the farm into as many separate entities to get more subsidies. There are cases where a single farm is subdivided into 60 farms to get 60x’s the subsidy and its perfectly legal as long as you legal subdivide the farm.
All of this is being paid by our tax dollars. I don’t see an end to this scam any time soon because the politicians in the Midwest will never get reelected if they even mention anything about reforming this program.
I guess the only thing you can do is buy a farm that qualifies for this program.
Learn more about subsidies for the rich:CNBC video link.
IDX Realty is having an auction of $100 million worth of property on October 6, 2007 at the DoubleTree Suites Hotel in Orlando from 11am - 6pm. Find out more on their website, or on the Orlando Sentinel.
The properties for sale range from vacant land and commercial buildings to multimillion dollar estate homes.More than 60 properties, in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey, are being sold by investors, builders with too much inventory, lenders with foreclosed-upon assets, Realtors, and regular homeowners who need to liquidate assets.
Condo Metropolis reports 40 condos were sold at auction in the Lake Mary.
The day saw some great and some not so great deals. One lucky bidder was able to grab a town home which was left by accident on the offer board at a lower price, while one lady who couldn’t make up her mind fast enough on a bid and ended up paying $18,000 more simply on a time rule technicality. I don’t think she even realized what had happened.
The Orlando Regional Realtors Association puts out monthly statistics for the MLS in this area. It covers Orange and Seminole Counties and shows a month-to-month comparison for a number of data points.
The chart below is a snippet from the report that compares August 2006 to August 2007. Inventory has gone up, while the average days on market has extended by over 40 days. The number of sales closed is down by about 1000 from this time last year.
You can download the full August MLS report here.
Tomorrow (Saturday) HOPE, or Help Our Park Expand, in Winter Park is planning a rally with music and a free breakfast in Central Park between 9 and 11 a.m.
The Residences at Ravinia, a new condo development in Maitland has begun showing its plans to the local realtor community. Marcus Burke at Condo Metropolis thinks they look good, so find out more there.
Rob Arnold of Sand Dollar Realty Group has a word or two to say about flat fee MLS listings:
“If you look at MLS statistics you will discover that 70% or more of all listings are sold by another Realtor and not by the listing agent, so the big key is to get it into the MLS to dramatically increase the exposure.”
“Welcome to Orlando, part of your house could disappear into a sinkhole at any moment”, or so you would believe if you watched the news. If you’ve lived here long enough, you start to grow used to the idea that the further West you go on our little peninsula, the more you hear of Sinkholes.
Apopka, on the Western outskirts of Orlando had one appear just a couple of days ago. 611 Erroll Parkway in the Erroll Estates subdivision started with a bang as the floor in the bathroom disappeared, and then it spread to eat the kitchen. Time will tell exactly how large it will get. (full story with video)
A Little Research
Wanting to know more about the number of sinkholes in the Orlando area, Orange County in particular, I jumped on the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection website and downloaded their data. Of the nearly 2800 sinkholes that have been reported in Florida, Orange County accounted for less than 1%, with a total of 189 sinkholes between 1961 and 2006.
The fear that we feel is probably due to some deep visceral reaction to being swallowed alive by the earth. However, it turns out that your chances of having a sinkhole on your property in the Orlando area are pretty slim.
[related: the Southwest Florida Water Management District has the best looking government site I’ve seen - it is also chock-full of information about sinkholes and information for that part of Florida (including Tampa)]
Originally listed at $8.5 million, Lou Perlman’s 12,000 sq/ft home “Chaine Du Lac” on Lake Butler in the prestigious Windermere area of Orlando is now reportedly under contract for $7.1 million. It looks like someone is interested in living in the same pad as the famous manager for the Backstreet Boys and NSync.
[Update: the home is under contract to John Choi, a local plastic surgeon. (via TampaBay.com and St. Pete Times)]
(Via WFTV)
The Florida Association of Realtor’s annual convention and trade show is converging upon Orlando this week. Starting today and going through Sunday (August 22-26, 2007) all the players in the Florida real estate space will be meeting at the Buena Vista Palace Resort in Lake Buena Vista.
I have to state here - the new FAR website is about 200% better than last time I looked. I believe it was updated this year, and kudos to their team for a job well done. It’s actually useful now.
I’ll be there tomorrow.
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