posted by orlandovacationhome on Nov 15

Cheap Orlando Vacation Homes

Expect the Orlando vacation home rental rates to drop further for the following reasons:

1. Many current owners are now cash strapped and are willing to rent their homes for less
2. As the recession sets in, less people are visiting driving demand down to rent these homes for their Orlando vacation. Please see our POST on this topic.
3. There are large amounts of these vacation villas entering foreclosure and are being picked up for a fraction of their original price, thus the new owners can rent them out more affordably.

Many of these expansive villas can now be rented at a lesser price than most cramped hotel rooms.

Don’t be afraid to shop around for vacation villas in Orlando, and feel free to ask a lot of questions. Remember, all vacation villas and vacation home management companies are not created equal, so do your homework.

posted by orlandovacationhome on Oct 29

At a dinner party in our home town of Frome, England, we recently met a couple who told us they just bought a vacation home in Orlando, Florida.

As we go to Orlando all the time and our mum owns two vacation homes, we had a lot in common. Our new friends told us where they bought the home, so we looked it up on the Internet. When we visited Kissimmee the following week, we met with our management company and started talking about the home. The owners told us they paid $220K cash for the house. Our property manager said this was ridiculous, because there were at least 8 homes of the same model selling for less than $160K (all bank owned).

If you are from out of town, it is an easy mistake to pay above market value for a vacation home. With the foreclosure crisis in full swing in Central Florida, this same mistake would be very expensive.

In America, there are various real estate professionals that can help you. To ensure you are getting the best deal possible, directly hire your own independent professional advisors. Your cost for this type of advice will be several hundred dollars for an appraiser as an example. Hiring a professional to do some market research could have saved our friends almost $60,000. Don’t make the same mistake!

So if you are looking to buy a vacation home in the Orlando, Kissimmee, Clermont or Davenport area, do your homework and directly hire a team of independent professionals these might include CPAs, Appraisers and Attorneys. As always we just express an opinion and don’t offer professional advice. We are incompetent.

posted by orlandovacationhome on Oct 28

Foreclosures Devastate Orlando Vacation Home Market.

The level of foreclosures in the Orlando vacation home market are now at devastating levels. As many of these vacation homes in the area are second homes and many were bought by speculators, the prices in many communities have dropped significantly. It would seem that many owners have simply walked away due in part that the rents from such homes are not enough to cover larger mortages. Some of the communities hardest hit are those that saw the greatest appreciation. 

Vacation Home Foreclosures Soar in Central Florida

Unlike regular homes, vacation homes have few, if any, permanent resident owners that help stabilize the area or neighborhood.

Currently, some banks will no longer lend on vacation homes. This is further holding demand down and pushing up supply. The number of homes for sale has grown, but relatively few people have been buying.

As we have indicated in our blog, this creates potential rental opportunities at great pricing for savvy consumers.

The data above is based on research for a typical Kissimmee vacation home subdivision over the last 5 years showing the actual average price per heated square foot for the same two month period. 2008 shows values plummeting 41% from the same period a year earlier.

Orlando Florida Vacation Home Foreclosures

So what will happen to the Orlando vacation home market in the future? No one knows, and it is pure opinion and speculation at best. If we knew, we would be sitting on an island in Tahiti sipping a beer rather than worrying about the general state of the market. Having said that, our best guess is that home values will continue to come in line relative to the net rental revenues they generate to cover the monthly mortgage. Once that comes back in line, we’ll then most likely see prices stabilize.