Orlando Vacation Homes Rentals

posted by orlandovacationhome on Nov 2

Orlando area vacation homes were given a credibility boost when they were featured in the Orlando CVB’s Orlando Makes Me Smile tourism promotion for the area.

The 67 Days of Smiles tour by Kyle Post and Stacey Doornbos visited a vacation home community on Day 62 of their tour. As we have blogged before, vacation homes are becoming a more mainstream choice for Orlando tourists. This promo choice exemplifies this fact.

Acadia Estates villas were also featured in a video tour of the luxurious Kissimmee vacation rental community on the Orlando CVB website. Acadia Estates is an exclusive community of 5 to 7 bedroom vacation rentals in a private gated cul-de-sac. Acadia Estates is located in a convenient location approximately 7 miles to Disney’s Magic Kingdom and 4 miles to Animal Kingdom.

We applaude the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau for carving out time for Kyle and Stacey to view and stay in a representative vacation home community. Acadia Estates is/was an excellent choice for the type of quality accommodations that vacation rentals have to offer visitors to the area.

Consult the community reviews section of our website for a review of Acadia Estates villas along with 80+ other vacation rental communities in Kissimmee, Clermont, Orlando, and Davenport.

Acadia Estates

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Sep 23

The Orlando Sentinel (1) recently noted that Orlando hotels are now facing the worst economic conditions since recordkeeping began over 20 years ago. These are business conditions possibly worse than the aftermath of 9/11.

We projected that many hotels in Orlando would be facing some type of systemic failure back in December of 2008 (2).

Checking rates for September 28^th 2009 for one night, we identified several major luxury hotel brands offering rates under $99 directly on their websites. The irony is that thousands more branded new luxury hotel rooms have either recently opened or are just opening, further increasing supply in an oversaturated market.

Some related articles are claiming that as many as one in five hotels are now in some stage of foreclosure (3). Hotels are now also facing their most aggressive competition from timeshare rentals and vacation homes.

Orlando vacation homes can now be rented for the price of a typical hotel room, but offer multiple bedrooms, living spaces, full service kitchens and even private garages, pools and game rooms. Based on personal experience, once a consumer has rented a vacation home and understands the concept, they will not rent a hotel room again.

What does this mean for our readers? We think that booking a vacation home with a reputed and accredited vacation home management company is always the best value and solution for travelers.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Aug 7

Those who have enjoyed vacation rentals are amazed that more people do not stay in vacation homes given the size of a typical cramped hotel room.

As we have indicated in prior posts, positive awareness of renting vacation villas spreads primarily through positive word-of-mouth referrals. Although vacation homes continue to become more mainstream, hotels continue to hold market share especially in destination locations such as Orlando. At this point in time, hotel brands are much more recognizable to the American consumer.

Why is this the case? In many foreign countries such as Italy and Spain, vacation villas are the first choice for many travelers. Europeans have been positively exposed to vacation rentals as a mainstream alternative. In America, the power of large household brands through repetitive advertising is very strong. Americans often don’t feel comfortable booking without some reassuring feeling of a brand name. In Orlando and other markets, a major factor people trust when booking a vacation home is the community they will be staying in. Thus, the actual resort community becomes part of the brand for vacation homes in Orlando and elsewhere.

Orlando is a unique market for vacation homes. There are well over 80 community subdivisions, and as we have indicated, the quality can change significantly between communities.

The quality of home maintenance may vary within an individual community, but the location, overall quality of homes, amenities and maintenance of the common areas typically remain constant, positive or negative in effect. Good examples of “vacation home brands” with a strong following include the Windsor Hills Resort , Windsor Palms , Bahama Bay Resort, and the Emerald Island Resort.

This website rates and reviews the major resort subdivisions in the Orlando, Kissimmee and Davenport markets on several important factors. This helps one evaluate the price-value-quality equation to determine what brand (i.e. community) you wish to book. This is a “brand” new way of looking at vacation homes that is unique in the industry.

Vacation Home Brands

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Jun 21

We have received several reader questions lately regarding a detailed explanation of the “community reviews” area of our website. Although we consider the exact ratings formula award weightings to be proprietary, our community quality awards are based on the following:

• The quality of common area amenities (playground, pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc…) as defined by the cleanliness and maintenance of those amenities at the time of the on-site evaluation.
• The cleanliness and general maintenance of other common area grounds including buildings, landscaping, etc… at  the time of on-site evaluation.
• The cleanliness and maintenance of homes in the resort subdivision.
• Location to major parks and restaurants with an emphasis on proximity to the Disney parks.
• Other factors are also considered including whether the resort community is gated and/or guarded. The ratings system is dynamic in the sense that we will re-review each of the communities every six months in case of major community refurbishment which happens from time-to-time.
• The “overall” rating for a resort community is derived from all of the factors above.

Vacation Home Rentals

Our system is similar to the Mobil 5-Star Awards and AAA Diamond Awards for restaurants, spas and hotels albeit an adapted format for vacation homes. The critical component is that these awards should be based on objectivity as much as possible to the benefit of the individual travel consumer. The award system is also formulated to reward resorts for maintaining quality amenities also to the benefit of Orlando vacation rental guests. 

Vacation Home Ratings

Since word-of-mouth and referrals are key to building the repuatation of the industry, our 80+ independent community reviews and profiles are compiled to achieve this goal. The quality of the actual vacation experience with this product will ultimately be the reason whether vacation home rentals continue to emerge in the mainstream of travel and tourism accommodations.

Orlando Vacation Rentals - Do Your Research

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Jan 13

Villas at Seven Dwarfs Lane Vacation Homes - Orlando Kissimmee

Villas at Seven Dwarfs Lane is located a little further away (approximately 7.5 miles) from the Walt Disney World ® property than some communities, but is still within a short drive of restaurant and shops.

The Villas at Seven Dwarfs provides for a great resort type community in a clean, well maintained and pleasant setting.

Review the location on our interactive map below. Also review the video of the Villas at Seven Dwarfs Lane below.

View Larger Map

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Nov 20

Let’s be clear, no one can predict the future. If we could, we wouldn’t be writing a blog. This post is  just an opinion. DISCLAIMER. As with any economic opinion, take it with a grain of salt. The authors of this blog are not professionals and do not give out professional advice.

The Orlando vacation house market has been hit hard, especially for many buyers who purchased vacation homes around the years 2005-2006. Prices have dropped in some vacation home subdivisions over 30% from their peak 2 to 3 years ago. For the metro Orlando area as whole, prices appear to have dropped. Click HERE STATISTICS(1).

There are arguments that prices will continue to DROP(2):

Vacation homes are much harder to finance than primary homes, and in the current market even primary homes are now hard to finance (2A).

Foreclosures are piling up. As people struggle with their primary home mortgage, they may give up their second homes.(2B)

There are large inventories (2C).

A few vacation home subdivisions struggle with upkeep of resident exterior areas. Vacation home managment struggles to keep this under aesthetic control for vacationers.(2D)

Banks will begin to compete against each other to sell foreclosed homes, and this could negatively effect vacation home pricing (2E)

Tourists are cutting back big time on Orlando (2F).  Thus, the demand for vacation rentals is also dropping. This means that owners have less income to pay the current mortgage which increases the risk of foreclosure.

In a depressed economy, the last thing people often want to do is buy a vacation home, but the first thing they may want to do is sell if they own one (2G).

Homeowners unable to refinance their vacation homes (they may owe more than the home is now worth) might let the home foreclose if they are unable to modify the loan terms (2G1)

When the world is facing an economic crisis (2I), discretionary items such as vacation homes are no longer in demand. If the USA enters a severe recession, the demand for some vacation home products could dry up.

There are arguments that prices will STABILIZE(3):

It would appear that the rate of price decline in some subdivisions is SLOWING(4) down, but prices are still dropping.

Some subdivisions are making the transition from primarily a short term rental market to subdivisions that cater to full-time owner occupiers as the prices drop, and the vacation homes become affordable relative to regular homes.

The government is reacting on a massive scale to solve the problem(4A).

There are some SIGNS(5) that the number of home sales has been increasing.

In conclusion, vacation homes in the Orlando and Kissimmee area face a unique set of circumstances that has allowed for significant price drops from their peak prices over the last 2 to 3 years. Forecasting the future with absolute certainty is an impossibility.

Subscribe to our blog for in depth graphical analysis and forecasts scheduled to be released next month. Click here to subscribe.

As always, please consider the people writing this post/bog to be unprofessional and incompetent at all times. Due to your own due diligence at all times.

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