Investing Orlando

K

keen

Guest
Hi,
Has anyone heard of Liberty Property Management Hidden Forest Developemnt in Kissimme, Florida, 8 miles from disney, 300,000 usd, 4 weeks personal use per year. 5 year rental guarantee. 50,000 upfront, (deposit, fees etc)
our SSIA is maturing shortly and thought it sounded like a great investment
Any advice?? would be welcome
 
Don't know much about the rental in Florida but as far as I'm aware there is a lot of availability.there have been recent reports of drops in prices in parts of the U.S. for condos. I guess the questions that you would need to answer are - at what rate(s) can this be financed. What are the closing fees ? Insurance, taxes - any payments to the local town, state for property ? What is your expected rental p.a. - best and worst (and most likely case).. How difficult would it be to flip the property if things didn't work out ? What about currency fluctuation - probably one of hte greatest risks. What about fees - are there monthly maintenance fees and insurance that could really hike up the costs ? Not meaning to sound negative on this, but these would probably be the type of questions that I would want to have some idea of . Also - bear in mind that you will have to declare the rental income and pay tax on it also. I think you may need to do tax returns in the U.S. as well ( but I'm not sure) so you would need to build in a couple of hundred dollars p.a. for this if you wanted to go through a tax advisor.
 
always worry when I see guarenteed rental...
makes me think inflated price
with 50k you get a lot better investments I feel...maybe a syndicated property fund like on www.orf.ie
I am not recommending them as such but worth thinking of.
It seems to me if you have lump sum of 50k or more it opens the door to leveraged equity or property products.
Unless you know the area and market in detail and you have seen at least 20-30 similar properties as part of your due diligence I would avoid a punt on this as market seems to be going south there.
That said if market is tanking you could always get a panic seller.
I think a private sale would be the best chance of getting this kind of seller.
good luck
 
Re: Investng in Orlando

Hi Keen, don't know about that particular development but my own belief is that you pay for "rental gaurantees" ie. it's built into the cost so discount that. Bottom line is that you should do research on the web and check out property prices / rental prices and maybe something like orlandovillas.com where there are forums like "would you buy again?" and you hear some good and some bad stories.

Best of luck

PS. I'm not down on Floria in fact quite the opposite but investing might be a different issue especially as i would expect the $ to drop significantly over the next few years - but that's just my gut!

Roy
 
Keen

I live/work a few minutes from Kissimmee and am a realtor. The short term rental market here at the minute is flooded. Most all of the guaranteed rental programs for short term rental that I have seen are not all that they seem. Many of them will guarantee you a certain number of weeks but the amount of money per week is left to their discretion. I would advise steer clear of the guaranteed rental programs for the short term rent homes. It is a buyers market here at the moment so if your looking to invest in property in the Florida attractions area they are some bargains to be had at the moment, however do not buy with the idea that rental coming in will cover your total monthly outgoings. Plan on making an investment with the intention of being able to cover the costs out of pocket and you will be OK. The problem at the moment is to many people bought with the speculation that rentals would be plenty and profitable. However with the inflating purchase prices and mass amount of homes available for rent only the strong are surviving. At present I am putting my money into property where long term rental is strong. Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions. Thanks
 
Hmmm.... Do you want to listen to someone who sells real esate in Florida or someone who is TRYING to sell real estate in Florida. I have a beautiful house in southeast Florida that CANNOT SELL. Realistically, I will have to drop my asking price by 40,000 next week to get someone to even view my house.

[Needless obscenities removed by DrMoriarty. Please respect the posting guidelines]

If you don't believe me, read what the newspapers say....



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/sfl-pcjafford02apr02,0,6927689.story?coll=sfla-busrealestate-headlines

[broken link removed]
 
Thanks for all the replies, it certainly has made me think again on that investment.
 
The Wall Street Journal has an instructive report on the malaise in the Florida market. Worthwhile reading for anyone not too familiar with the sudden turnaround in the property market there.
 
Anybody seen [broken link removed] advertised in the Sunday Times 'Homes' section?
Half page colour advert - the blurb boasts (in Capital Letters) a "RETURN OF 50% OVER 3 YEARS".

Sounds too good to be true.
 
Apart-hotels as the Americans call them are mighty risky, concerns have been voiced over the credentials of the companies set up to run these fractional ownership operations.

But the Sunday Times is not alone in 'advertising' questionable Floridian investments, the Irish Times has a recent 'feature' on Miami condos. I suppose this is another 'long term' no brainer.





[broken link removed]

This from the Orlando Sentinel on the Apart-hotel market.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-condo1706apr17,0,4669832.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
 
SORRY, ILL TRY AGAIN


If You Really, Really Wanted To Invest In Orlando Right Now(which I Wouldn't Reccomend.) What Do You Think Would Be A Better Long Term Investment For Your 250,000 Euro (= $307,000 Dollars)

A. A Hotel Room

B. OR A HOUSE LIKE THIS


BY THE WAY, WITH THE CURRENT CONDITIONS OF THE MARKET IN ORLANDO, YOU COULD PROBABLY GET A PLACE LIKE WITH A LOW BALL OFFER OF 30-40K LESS THAN THE ASKING PRICE BECAUSE THERE ARE ABOUT 3,000 HOUSES JUST LIKE IT ON THE MARKET THAT HAVEN'T SOLD FOR THE PAST 9 MONTHS.
 
Slappy, from my reading of the deal its not a room you'd be investing in, but in a refurbishment project which is being funded via public investment.

I have doubts over the inflated return they promise. If the improvements they plan on making will give a guarenteed 50% Capital Increase in value of the investment after 3 years, why aren't the banks loaning them the money?

Besides that though, buying your house means taking care of it. Management, Lettings etc and no capital appreciation in a depressed market.
The other option appears to be 'fire and forget'.
 

Compared with the Gulf Coast and Miami Orlando is behind on growth. AGree with comments on guranteed rental income others have posted. WIth any deal like this it is just an increase in the price that they give back to you effectivly over the 5 years. it is within gthe margins on the property they are tryint to sell you.

If is good rental returns you are looking for take a look at a Condo Hotel Project.
 
Hi,
Has anyone heard of Liberty Property Management Hidden Forest Developemnt in Kissimme, Florida, 8 miles from disney, 300,000 usd, 4 weeks personal use per year. 5 year rental guarantee.

It states in the brochure that you have an option to take a €20,000 rental subsidy if you don't want the 5 year rental guarantee.

[broken link removed]
 
G123 said:
It states in the brochure that you have an option to take a €20,000 rental subsidy if you don't want the 5 year rental guarantee.

[broken link removed]

Havnt looked at your link, no time at mo but
Does the 20,000 equate fully to what the 5 year rental gurantee would equate to? NOrmally you will find that you can take around 90% of the figure so lets say they are going to give you 5% pa for 5 years on 300k property this would equate to 75,000 over the 5 years. They goive you 90% of this which would be 67,500 which you can take as a discount agianst your property. Crunch the numbers based on the % income pa they are offering and see if it stacks up.
 
G123 said:
It states in the brochure that you have an option to take a €20,000 rental subsidy if you don't want the 5 year rental guarantee.

[broken link removed]

Just took a look at the brochure not to sure what rental rebate is ask them to explain this to you.

I dont think this is what i was talking about. Guranteed rental incoem though is as i stated before is built into the margins of a property.
 
Eddie Hobbs has this scheme on his website too. We looked at buying a Florida property last year and decided against it. It looks really appealing at first - rents are usually around €750 per week, multiplied by, say, 40 weeks a year gives €30,000 p.a. on a property costing less than €300,000. The big problem is in the occupancy rate - the brochure says that occupancy rates are c. 94% - a quick search will show that it's nothing like that. It is really tough to get consistent rentals - a lot of management companies will guarantee a certain number of weeks a year but they usually sell Christmas and Easter (which a muppet could sell) as part of their guarantee - leaving you to fill January, November etc.
Location of this development is not great either - we stayed out on Highway 27 and were shocked with how long it took to get anywhere - the '15 minutes to Disney' must be at 3am when there's no traffic around - one night it took us over 90 minutes to get back to the villa.
Finally, a quick visit to the Orlando area generally and the Highway 27 corridor in particular will show you that land is one thing they have no shortage of there - they will keep on building and building and building. The rental guarantee runs out after 5 years which is around the age when holiday-makers get a bit picky about staying somewhere so 'old'. When we were picking our villa, we wanted somewhere with a nice shiny new pool - and a lot of the villa ads play up to this - 'built 2004', 'brand-new pool' etc. In 5 years time, there will be newer developments available so (a) your capital appreciation may not materialise and (b) your rentals in terms of amount you can charge and occupancy levels will be heading downwards.
Sorry if this is all doom and gloom - as I said, we were really taken with the idea at first but it all hinges on the occupancy level and any quick internet search will provide discussion forums of disillusioned investors. It can work for some people but you have to be willing to put in huge marketing effort yourself - a good site to look at is orlandovillas.com and its discussion forums; also look at villa rental websites - many have rental calendars so you can see how other people are doing in terms of occupancy.
 
I haven't really looked at investing in Orlando, so this is just a general observation. I was there lasy year for a holiday.

There's so much space which will allow building to continue forever in Florida. Yes there will be many more millions living there in years to come because of retirement etc. However as far as I can see materials are cheap and more and more houses will be built endlessly. I don't there will anywhere near the capital appreciation there is in Ireland, as limited space pushes prices up ... whereas in florida, it's just so big, not far off the size of France or Germany.