The Orlando Condo Blog

Our recent blog “Where is your Personal Bottom?” looked at how fence-sitters risk losing out on the “waiting-for-precise-bottom” game due to the way the housing market is always three months ahead of where it appears to be at any given time. Let’s use some real numbers using data just released from the Orlando Regional Realtor [...]

Sunday, June 29th: Harbor Vista lake front condos in Leesburg (just north west of Orlando) will host an absolute auction (no minimum bid). This property has been listed for $289k and up. Every unit comes with a deeded, covered boat slip on the Harris Chain of Lakes. The developer looks likely to move at least [...]

Most of you who bought investment condos in 2005-2006 have told me the same gut-wrenching story: You’re desperate to sell and wouldn’t even mind taking a small loss if that’s what it took. At that point, I usually ask you what you paid - and what you are asking - before telling you that [...]

One of the most serious misconceptions for potential home buyers right now is the idea that they’ll qualify for a mortgage “no problem”. If you’re an all-cash buyer, you can ignore everything that follows, but if you’re an investor looking to leverage, listen up - because the days of telling your Realtor “Don’t worry about [...]

This week’s OBJ reports that the owners of Orlando’s Palazzo del Lago may be selling their 41 acres of condo hotel entitled land, suggesting that this may be the latest I-Drive project to go belly up. International Plaza dropped it’s sales efforts last year and others are not looking so good - with loans becoming [...]

This turned out to be the most “interesting” auction to date in Orlando. A complete contrast from downtown Solaire last month, and nothing like the Lake Mary auction of last year, the Tradewinds auction in MetroWest finally solidified the notion that right now, your average home buyer is both terrified - and somewhat clueless.
A pre-auction [...]

It has been another crazy week in the financial markets. This time, however, there is a nice balance of good news and bad news. Hey, half and half is a better ratio than we’ve seen in recent days. So let’s get to it.
Tuesday, March 11th marked the best single-day gain in the [...]

Tradewinds Condo Auction
100 Will Sell Absolute!          [...]

A couple of weeks ago, we forecast the mass buyout of cheap condos by investors which could reduce condo inventory and begin to threaten Florida’s “buyer’s market.” Now, the Miami Herald reports that Jorge Perez, south Florida’s condo tycoon, is setting up a $1B fund to purchase some of these troubled condo developments. As this happens, condos become [...]

2007 saw many condo casualties. We reported regularly on Orlando’s downtown condo scene - and were obviously concerned about 55 West’s lack of recent activity.  
2008 has got off to an ugly start with the Lexington in bankruptcy court.
Now, the lender for 55 West, SNS Property Finance of the Netherlands, foreclosed on the property on January 7th 2008, according to [...]

A recent report by the Florida Association of Realtors suggests that for the month of November 2007, Orlando saw a 35% decline in sales of single-family homes compared with November 2006, while condo sales plumeted by a massive 55%. Orlando condo sales were a meagre 125, down from 276 sold in November 2006 (already a bad year!). Median [...]

Seller’s expectations are still too high when it comes to price. How do I know? Look at our Zip Code of the Week (below). November to December 2007: 163 Orlando condos listed - 6 sold = 157 unhappy sellers. True, there may be several reasons for the lack of sales - one of which is that buyers can be incredibly slow [...]

We’ve posted over 250 articles on the Orlando condo scene since we went live just over a year ago, covering every conceivable condo angle from financing to home owners’ associations, to the very best deals Orlando has to offer. To celebrate the end of our first year, we’ve picked the TOP TEN posts that we thought were the funniest, most newsworthy or [...]

Coming to a neighborhood near you - maybe - is a $625 million 49-story condo project which will sit near Universal and Sandlake on Lakehurst Drive. It is slated to accommodate over, wait for it… 1,188 condos (no, you read that right). Convention space and retail are expected to swallow up another couple of hundred thousand square feet.
Planned at 500 [...]

In April, we brought you news of Knightsbridge at Stoneybrooks demise. This week’s Orlando Business Journal reports that TA Associates, a Boston firm, has now purchased the 396-unit condo conversion for $45.3 million. Not bad for a community built in 2000 on 25 acres.
The same fate will await many of those Orlando communities which are marked “Off [...]