The last bit of good news vanished from the gloomy Orlando housing market last month, when the median price of the houses and condos sold fell from a year ago for the first time in more than five years. (more…)
There’s an Orlando housing market slowdown? Tell that to a Florida mortgage broker group in the city.
Twanda Thompson doesn’t want to lose her home. But unless she can solve her Florida mortgage woes, she and her four children may have to start looking for an apartment.
Engineered Homes isn’t worried about the recent slow-down in Florida housing market.
Florida construction industry employment fell in March for the first time since 2002 as the Central Florida housing market faltered, but demand for workers remained strong statewide and in the region.
Organizers of this year’s metro Orlando Parade of Homes want you to stroll through the 140 or so homes and communities on display, take in the latest innovations and amenities, and maybe get a little excited about the possibilities.
But that’s not all they want. They hope you take out a Florida home mortgage in order to buy.
Median home prices in Orlando tumbled sharply in March, just at the start of the critical spring buying-and-selling season.
After hovering at about $250,000 for most of 2006 and early 2007, the median sales price for existing homes and condos sold by local Realtors fell by $15,000 from February to March, to $240,000, as sellers increasingly cut prices.
While some developers may be holding back in light of a weak Florida housing market, others are going full speed ahead.
On on Thursday, Avatar Properties Inc. introduced six new plans for single-family home buyers at Solivita in Poinciana.
The active-adult community in the Orlando housing market now offers buyers 24 plans, 20 of which are what Avatar calls detached single-family homes and the remaining four the company calls attached homes. The homes range from the upper $100,000s to more than $500,000, Avatar says.
Four new plans are available as part of Solivita’s Keys Grande Collection, featuring two- and three-bedroom homes ranging from 1,285 to 1,625 square feet. Home prices range $194,900 to $227,900.
The two other plans, meanwhile, were added to Solivita’s Gulfshore Collection, featuring two- and three-bedroom plans between 1,545 to 2,008 square feet. Prices on those homes range from $245,900 to $277,900 for prospective Florida mortgage borrowers.
Solivita has recorded more than 3,200 sales since it opened six years ago, Solivita Vice President and General Manager Rick Woodley said in a prepared statement.
How can a builder respond to a challenging Florida real estate market? With sales plummeting and prices on the downslide, what does a new-home builder do to survive?
Less experienced and undercapitalized developers are selling their projects. Others are choosing to wait until conditions improve. And many are looking for opportunities in other parts of Florida and the United States.
Seasoned builders have seen the ups and downs in the real estate market before and know how to respond. Jerry Krystoff in Fort Lauderdale, for example, has been developing and investing in real estate for 35 years, and he’s had to adjust his business strategy several times to make the best of market conditions.
Recent conditions have been disappointing at best. According to the National Association of Home Builders, U.S. sales of new single-family homes fell 3.9 percent in February, to the lowest level since August 2000. Existing-home sales last month were disappointing as well.
In the South Florida housing market, sales of existing single-family homes dropped by 20 percent in Broward County, 31 percent in Miami-Dade and 21 percent in Palm Beach County in February, from a year ago, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.
So Krystoff is developing a massive project in Orlando called Palazzo del Lago. The $1.2 billion project will include the InterContinental Resort & Residences Orlando, the world’s largest InterContinental hotel, with 1,215 hotel rooms, of which 778 will be sold as hotel-condominiums. It will have 121,000 square feet of convention, meeting and banquet space.
Palazzo also includes The Villas at Palazzo del Lago, 800 condominiums in four towers, and amenities such as a world-class spa, tennis courts, six restaurants and 300 feet of beach frontage on Lake Bryan. Krystoff expects completion of the project in 2009 and that many Florida home mortgage applicants will be attracted to it.
“It’s probably the most exciting project that Orlando has ever seen,” said Guy Bouchard, president of Global Real Estate Services Inc., a brokerage and property management firm in Clermont. “There are others that are similar, but none has the lakefront amenity as well as a big hotel flag. It’s exactly what this market needs.”
Before launching the Palazzo project, Krystoff was developing condominiums in South Florida. His projects included the W Fort Lauderdale Hotel and Residences and two condos: Infinity at Brickell in Miami and Europa by-the-Sea in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
Then the condo market in South Florida grinded to a halt. So Krystoff looked to Orlando, where condos were booming. And he decided the time was right to focus his attention on the 42 acres he and his partners in Fort Lauderdale-based Hospitality Development Group Inc. purchased there in 1999.
Krystoff, a Miami Beach native, started buying land in the Central Florida housing market when he was 18, around the time Walt Disney World was in its planning stages. “My mom told me that there’s a little mouse up there called Disney, and it might make some sense to buy property,” he recalled recently. “So I started slowly investing up there.”
He still has significant holdings in the Orlando area.
Krystoff attributes his success in a tough market to timing. “The timing now is a little iffy for the South [Florida mortgage market],” he said. “But in Orlando, the timing is just right.”
SOURCE: The Sun-Sentinel
