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Orlando, FL Real Estate News

By Dawn Pratt, East Orlando Real Estate
Avalon Park Home Sales for December 2007AddressListing PriceSold DateSold Price3835 Cleary Way168,00012/21175,0002204 Glossy Privet Dr.194,90012/04188,0003936 Cleary Way218,00012/11200,0004031 Alcott Cir.247,90012/27255,50014530 Cheever St.266,90012/28266,90012215 Lake Live Oak Dr.266,90012/28245,0002817 Silver River Trl.274,00012/07276,0002213 Three Rivers Dr.336,05812/14324,00014469 Salinger Rd.359,77712/14339,00014737 Tanja King Blvd.439,99012/03410,0002209 Wild Tamarind Blvd.595,00012/31585,0002221 Wild Tamarind Blvd.600,00012/21549,000        For more information concerning the East Orlando Areas of Waterford Lakes and Avalon Park, please Email me at: Orlando Real Estate Agent or vist my Blog at: East Orlando Real Estate and Current EventsDawn Pratt, REALTOR
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By Scott Podvin
(Florida Homestead Law Group)
The Crest at Waterford Lakes (http://www.TheCrestLife.com), Orlando's premier condominium community, announced today that the rent on its two bedroom, two bath luxury condominium homes is only $1,000 per month.  The Crest is conveniently located minutes from UCF (http://www.ucf.edu), the nation's sixth largest University, and is across the street from the Waterford Lakes Town Center, the largest outdoor mall in the U.S.This offer won't last long so call today for more information (407) 737-4442.   To learn more about this incredible community, visit our website at www.TheCrestLife.com.  
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By Drew Peterson
(Keller Williams Advantage II Realty)
We'd like to thank those of you who sent us responses to our last blog, "Finding The Bottom: An Open Discussion". As promised, we will present our alternate theory in this blog. First, however, a quick recap.In "Finding The Bottom: An Open Discussion", we discussed a theory of when and how the real estate market in Orlando would bottom out. To simplify, investors will ultimately have to step in and purchase the excess inventory. In order for this to make financial sense, prices in Orlando need to decline to the point that these investors can cover their expenses by leasing the property.The basis of the investor theory is essentially correct. Inventory will have to be absorbed before we can reasonably expect prices to bottom out. However, while the theory is intriguing, it ignores severa...
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By Lisa Spalding, REALTOR, CDPE
(Casa Latino Four Corners, REALTOR, CDPE)
Here is an example (see picture) of what needs to be written for most advertising in Central Florida rather than "100%" Financing Available.  With the "declining markets" here in Orange and Seminole counties (and MANY, MANY other counties in Florida--yesterday I heard that Sumter county was the ONLY county in Florida that's not considered a declining market--OUCH!), there are very few 100% financing loans out there.  But they ARE available for certain properties and for certain Buyers--but your typical, non-first-time Buyer will NOT be able to get 100% financing for the most part.  There!!  I said it.    Let me start off by saying the I'm a real estate agent and I do NOT do loans.  But I have to know enough about loans to sell real estate.  Kind of a catch-22.  So, I basically know enou...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
Levitt and Sons received permission from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to borrow up to $3.5 million from Wachovia Bank in order to finish building homes for which it has made commitments and taken deposits. Levitt filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last November, citing assets of $411 million and liabilities of $499 million. The bankruptcy left several hundred families with unfinished homes that they had already purchased and substantially paid for. Last November, the Orlando Sentinel reported that several hundred families throughout Central Florida purchased lots and homes in subdivisions that remain unfinished. This action should ease the minds of many panicky homeowners who left deposits and hopes on the bargaining table. Now, at least, they will get their homes completed. Other ...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
According to the Orlando Regional Realtor® Association, the median price of a home dropped in December 2007 from $235,000 to $223,900, which brought the affordability index back to 100%, actually 100.3%. The median price of a home a year ago was $250,000. With this decrease of median price and the improvement of the affordability index, buyers who earn the median income as reported by the state ($51,335) can now afford to purchase a median-priced home. Good news for first-time buyers trying to get into their first home. According to ORRA, "A decrease in the median sales price has spurred the area’s housing affordability index to reach 100 percent, which along with a reduction in inventory by nearly 2,000 homes indicates a swing toward stabilization of Orlando’s current buyer-favoring ho...
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By Dawn Pratt, East Orlando Real Estate
UPDATE--------- THE MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELED BECAUSE THE BUYER HAS BACKED OUT. EMAIL ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE DETAILED INFORMATION- DAWN PRATT, ORLANDO REAL ESTATE AGENT Let your voice be heard! Thursday, January 31st at 6:30pm, a public hearing will be held to discuss zoning issues for land parcel N-19. The hearing will be held at Waterford Lakes Elementary School.Parcel N-19 is roughly 20 acres of land located in Waterford Lakes, off of Lake Underhill Rd., just east of the Waterford Chase Pkwy. and Lake Underhill Rd. intersection. Orange County Schools is selling the land back to Waterford Property Holdings, Inc. and the land must be re-zoned. The Orange County Commissioners will soon be voting on how this land will be used. Please take action- if not for you, then please do it for ...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
According to the National Association of Realtors® in their “2007 Profile of Florida Homebuyers and Sellers”, 21% of homes were purchased by single women last year. The statistics showed a sharp contrast between single women and single men, where women purchased homes two-to-one over men. According to Fannie Mae, the number of women heading households with no spouse will increase to 31 million by the year 2010. Not too surprising when the women of today are better educated and more self-reliant than their mothers and grandmothers. Add to that the influence women have in the decision-making of purchasing a home when couples buy together, and anyone can see the importance of catering to their whims and preferences. Homebuilders take heed. The way to a home sale is through the discriminati...
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By Lisa Spalding, REALTOR, CDPE
(Casa Latino Four Corners, REALTOR, CDPE)
  FREE REPORT!How To Buy A Lovely HomeIn Orlando With Zero Down or Low Down Payment Click here:        www.OrlandoAreaPropertySource.com Did you know about the special financing that Orange County has for first-time homebuyers?  How about the loan assistance money available for certain career professions such as nurses, teachers, firefighters?You may be thinking about buying or selling a house right now but we think about and handle real estate transactions all the time; it's our focus!   On your team,www.WinterParkHomeFinder.com          
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Scott L. Podvin, President of Podvin Development Group plans to build a smart growth, LEED Certified mixed-use community in East Orlando.  In support of his decision to adhere to the smart growth principles Podvin cites to many studies that show the environmental benfits of smart growth.  "Development guided by smart growth principles can minimize air and water pollution, enourage brownfields clean-up and reuse, and preserve natural lands," Podvin says.Smart Growth pracitcies can lessen the environmental impacts of development with techniques that include compact development, reduced impervious surfaces and improved water detention, safeguarding environmentally sensitive areas, mixing of land uses (e.g., homes, shops, hotels and offices), transit accessibility, and better pedestrian and...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
Fishkind & Associates released their 2008 Real Estate Forecast, which was commissioned by the Florida-based Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund’s Consumer Education Campaign. Collecting data from several Florida counties, the report came to several interesting, even positive conclusions, regarding the future of Florida’s, and in particular Orlando’s, real estate market. As we all know, the real estate market in Florida slowed in 2007. But what was interesting in the report is that sales flattened out in the spring of 2007, BEFORE the subprime mortgage crisis hit in August. According to the Fishkind Forecast, the Florida real estate market was knocked down another 10%. In Orlando, however, monthly sales took a 33% hit, this according to statistics put out by Orlando Regional Realtor® Associa...
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Smart Growth Initiatives, Sustainable Development Movement. Smart growth in the United States has been  defined as environmentally sensitive land development whose goals are to minimize dependence on automobile transportation, reduce air pollution, and make infrastructure investment more efficient. The movement was started to combat sprawl, a form of urbanization earmarked by growth centered disconnected patterns of development, commercial strips, low density, separated land uses, automobile dominance, and minimal public open space.  Today, cities around the country have adopted "the smart growth movement" as a framework for urban, and at times, suburban revival.The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education recently published "ten principles of smart growth", which support...
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By Heather the Realtor Orlando, Lake Mary, First Time Home Buyers, Bank Owned Homes
(LemonTree Realty)
Well as I know most of the country has an unseasonably warm January I am sure more then 50% of the country has temperatures below 40 degrees. Some of you might even been shoveling some snow.I however am sitting out on my balcony in Thornton park in Downtown Orlando Florida. It's some where in the 70s cool breeze, partly sunny and well just amazing. Today is one of those days were you could spend the entire day outside.  I am watching the people and their dogs walk around without a care in the world, while the cars slowly roll down the brick lined sidewalks. (I just took this picture w/the built in camera on my mac. One of the views from my balcony over looking Summerlin ave and Wildsides Restaurant) I love urban living.  I think once I get myself cleaned up I am going to walk downstairs...
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By Lisa Spalding, REALTOR, CDPE
(Casa Latino Four Corners, REALTOR, CDPE)
There's nothing worse than walking into the kitchen of a basically remodelled older home and seeing the original fluorescent lights behind that ugly, dark, dry-rotted grid stuff!  I have no idea what it's called but I don't care to research it to find out because it's ugly and should in most cases be yanked out and replaced.  Take a look at the culprit:    So, the obvious question is--What can a homeowner do to ditch the ugly and bring in the new and updated in order to capture the most amount of money and get a return on what is spent on updating the kitchen ceiling light source?  At the Open House I held yesterday, the homeowner has come up with a classy-looking fix to the ugly lighting in his kitchen.  Taking out the old grid-thing and opening up the "square of height" is exactly wha...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
According to Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, there’s a tug-of-war in the real estate marketplace. “On the one hand, we have a pent-up demand from the four million jobs added to our economy over the past two years of sales decline,” he says. “On the other, consumers continue to wait for additional signs of market stabilization. There are more people with financial capacity now than in 2005, but many are trying to market-time their purchase (blogger’s emphasis). As a result, the exact timing and the strength of a home sales recovery is a bit uncertain. A meaningful recovery in existing-home sales could occur as early as this spring, or it may be further delayed toward late 2008.” Click for full article  What can we draw from this statement? Buyers and sellers are waiting for a thumbs-u...
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By Heather the Realtor Orlando, Lake Mary, First Time Home Buyers, Bank Owned Homes
(LemonTree Realty)
As a first time home buyer you often have lots of questions and fears about financing your first property. Here are some common fears and answers to those fears.Question: We have heard that it's cheaper to rent than buy.A rent payment on an apartment is often lower than a house payment would be, but it is not cheaper in the long run. While your rent payment could be $100-$400 lower then a house payment, you would receive no tax shelters or equity build-up. Your rent will continue to increase while a house payment will remain the same. Le's say that your current rent is $1000/mo and you would like to get your own home with more space for $1200/mo. If we assume a 5% inflation rate, over the next five years your rent would be $1000 year 1, $1050 year 2, $1102 year 3, $1158 year 4, $1215 in...
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By Simon Conway
(Orlando Area Real Estate Services)
I have been suggesting the Central Florida real esatet market has been on the bottom for about three months now. All the available data I had suggested that this was the case. Others scoffed! Others pointed fingers! Others continued to tell the tale of woe! I kept believing and kept repeating what the data was and what it was telling me. Stable inventory for three months in a row. An increasing numbers of buyers in the market month on month; A stable median price. That was the data that was out there for all to see, and yet my loan voice was saying "this is it - we have reached the bottom". So today the latest data comes out and boy is it good news. Inventory DROPPED by 2,000 between November and December. Overall price decline in our market for 12 MONTHS was just 1.21%. Median sales pr...
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By Drew Peterson
(Keller Williams Advantage II Realty)
Each month, the Orlando Regional Realtor Association publishes its Market Pulse, a report containing essential market data. Here is our breakdown of the January edition (you can read the full report by clicking here).We always start with the bad news:1.) The average number of days a home is on the market continues to creep upward, from 114 in November to 116 in December.2.) The number of sales closed is still low, with just over 1000 transactions closing last month. In comparison, there were almost twice as many sales last December.3.) The number of properties withdrawn from the market dropped from 1849 in November to 1462 in December. Before we can return to a "normal" market, we need about 15,000 homes to either sell or be withdrawn.Taken as a whole, the bad news is actually pretty mi...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
According to the National Association of Realtors® in their “2007 Profile of Florida Homebuyers and Sellers”, last year 21% of homes were purchased by single women. As a single woman, I applaud this statistic, but I have to admit, I’m more than a little surprised. I never knew there were so many women out there who, like me, have taken on the responsibilities and financial risks of homeownership. In my lifetime, I’ve owned four homes. The first two were condos, a compromise with the apartment life I’d been used to. But let’s face it. A condo isn’t a house. A house sits on a piece of land. And the floors, the roof, the four walls aren’t connected to anything but the land. So my next two homes were single-family detached homes with garages and back yards, HVAC units and hot water heaters,...
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By Judy Chapman
(Referral Network of Illinois LLC)
The Great American Dream has, and always will be, home ownership. Sixty percent of people in the U.S. own their own homes. Why shouldn’t the other 40% come along for the ride? Well, they could. And they should. But only if they can afford to. Only if they’ve worked hard to make it happen. Only if they understand it isn’t a right but a privilege to own your own home. Unfortunately, attitudes have changed in recent years. When it happened, exactly, I can’t pinpoint. But somewhere along the way, everybody began to expect to get something for nothing. Maybe it’s that credit card mentality. Buy now, pay later, to hell with the consequences. Perhaps, even, it’s the way our Federal and local governments manage their own budgets. Carrying huge deficits. Purchasing wars while ignoring at-home in...
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