Lee Weaver, Director of Operations for the British Homes Group in Orlando, Florida,  has lived in Central Florida for the last 14 years. He is an ex-pat, owns a vacation home in The Manors at Westridge on Highway 27 and has been involved with thousands of British investors buying or financing property throughout Florida.

We asked Lee for his opinions on the current Real Estate market in Florida and what are some of the options available to existing owners…

As you have mentioned I have lived in and around Orlando for the last 14 years. The past 4 years have been dedicated to providing real estate, mortgage and other related property services to fellow Brits buying anywhere in Florida. I own a buy-to-let villa myself in the Westridge community, close to Walt Disney World. It was originally mortgaged with a U.K. Sterling home loan from GE Money’s U.K. subsidiary, British Mortgages Abroad, but it was recently re-financed to the innovative Lloyds TSB multi-currency mortgage. The home was previously used as short-term rental villa but now has a 2 year tenant.

Our company, The British Homes Group (www.britishhomesgroup.com) and staff members are well respected throughout the industry, both in the U.K. and in Florida and our General Manager, Chris Doran, appears in the ‘Buyers Guide to Florida’ on Real Estate TV’s home page.

Our customer philosophy has always been to ‘advise in the best interest of the client’. This basic principle, along with our British backgrounds, local Florida expertise and genuine concern for our clients’ satisfaction has enabled us to be recognized as the UK’s favourite one-stop shop for British villa owners in Florida since 2001.

The current market condition for Florida, quite simply put, is – great if you are a buyer – particularly if you are buying with British pounds at a current 26 year high against the U.S. dollar – but not so great if you NEED to sell.

One of the strongest factors driving this market turnaround has been inventory levels. 23,500 homes were on the market for sale in March of 2007. Compare that with the 2,500 available in March of 2005, and it’s easy to understand how this huge swing in the supply and demand ratios has influenced current market conditions.

For the buyers the benefits are readily apparent – greater flexibility in negotiations with the sellers, contributions towards closings costs, upgrades and incentives from builders and (although mostly from U.S. owners due to high loan to value ratios) foreclosure opportunities from defaulting borrowers.

Add in a 2 to 1 exchange rate and a settling (or in some cases a reduction) of prices and you can see why purchase enquiries are even stronger than ‘normal’. The scenarios are almost returning to that of about 2 years ago where you could buy a 4 bedroomed pool home for about £125,000. By the time you have paid the 20% deposit, payments can be as low as £600.00 per month and the costs are much more manageable.

Of course the flip side of ‘all that is good’ for the Florida buyer creates an unfortunate condition for the seller.  Nearly all of the owners we talk to want to retain their Florida asset and therefore should not be affected in this short-term lull. At the very least they want to be able to maintain ownership for at least the next couple of years and then re-assess, and there are a number of ways to achieve that goal:

Evaluate your current mortgage position

If you currently have a U.S. mortgage consider a U.K. Sterling home loan while the exchange rate is so strong – you can always switch back to a U.S. product at a later date.

Don’t forget, with the new multi-currency mortgage, you can go through these same currency conversions without paying recurring switching fees and/or closing costs!

Don’t just leave it up to your management company for rentals

Get more involved with the booking of your villa. We consistently talk to owners who are booking to capacity and the underlying element is always that they are actively involved in the marketing of their Florida rental property themselves – not just through U.K. papers and outlets but also through U.S. ones. Americans are increasingly warming to the idea of spending their vacations in a private villa, just as we Brits have done in Europe for years, and there are hundreds of free online and print listing opportunities when you start to consider the U.S. holiday maker. The British Homes Group also has an online rental programme to help our customers rent their properties as well.

Be different

Be creative in your property fixtures and fittings to encourage repeat bookings – use the latest ‘Accreditation Services’ for an independent assessment and rating of your property – find out how you compare to other villas and what you can do to improve the guest’s experience during their stay.

Think long term as well

Long-term rentals are becoming more popular – Kissimmee, Davenport, Clermont and Haines City are the four most popular areas for British short-term rental owners – all four also have large residential communities that provide 1 to 2 year long-term rental options for property owners.

Assess your management company

What are their average number of bookings per year? How do they advertise their homes for rent? Do they have a lot of add on fees? What do they charge to process your bookings? How do they compare with others?

There is a wealth of information on our website to keep all of our customers updated with Florida news and information – our Florida Blog (blog.britishhomesgroup.com), Property Sales and Rental Portals, Advisory Panel contacts and Newsletter subscriptions are all free and are excellent Florida resources.

We have established a freephone number from the UK to Florida – 0800 096 5989 – and welcome questions, comments and enquiries from existing Florida property owners or anyone that is considering entering the Florida real estate market.

Needless to say, all calls are in confidence and without obligation, and our advice, estimates and recommendations are always unbiased and free.

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Phone within UK: 0800 096 59 89 (Freephone)

Phone within US: 407 396 9914 (8 lines)

Email: Info@BritishHomesGroup.com

Web: www.BritishHomesGroup.com

Blog: blog.britishhomesgroup.com

With the gloom and doom across the pond in the UK it is interesting to note that the facts are quite different!

The US housing downturn is on the turnaround. MSN reported on Friday that sales of new homes increased in July by 2.8%!

The south and west boosted sales, in the south by 22.4% and 0.6% in the west – this has often been termed by demographers as the US’s slow migration southward and to a warmer climate and booming economy of the southern states (the sun belt)

See the full article for more info!

This event is the event for Florida Realtors and was attended this year by three representatives from the British Homes Group.

The expo had representatives from all aspects of the regional Real Estate industry, including lenders, title companies and home warranty businesses. – and one guy in a a monkey suit!

The expo was a success and is still on going through saturday. There are many diverse seminars on topics such as market updates as well as web marketing – along with Blogging! – In fact the provider of the British Homes Group Blog www.realestateblogsites.com had a speaker at one of the seminars.

The show was attended by many of FAR’s members and is being held at Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

The region that once had the thousands of acres of Citrus Groves and then the spin off from the Space program is looking forward beyond its current gold pot: Tourism.

The real dynamo of the region is tourism, with fantastic weather year round and great attractions it is no wonder people want to visit here, however what if that were to change? All the thousands of low paid jobs would vanish and then what would be left?

New investments in fields such as healthcare and life-science lab work could be an answer (developments around Lake Nona for instance) however millions of dollars of capital investment are required.

However, we now have the new sporting arena at UCF and a possible commuter rail service, so the money is coming…we shall just have to wait and see what else occurs!

The name change has been expected but it is not quite what many thought….many thought that they would change the name to Disney-Pixar Studio’s in light of Disneys purchase of Pixar or Disney-ABC studios because of its ownership of the tv channel.

The new name is to be Disney-Hollywood Studios which is in step with the parks future development plans as well as the general theme of the park.

Disney and MGM had been locked in a legal battle over the usage of the MGM name but Disney say this has no bearing on the decision.

Star Wars fans locally and around the world will be overjoyed at the news that Disney is building a Stage to host Star Wars shows and Jedi Training at Disney MGM Studios!!

The stage is being constructed next to the existing Star Wars: Star Tours Ride (Which is great fun!! Looking a little dated..but still a great ride!)

The Ewok Forest and AT-AT look as if they are to be removed if the stage goes ahead although Disney have not confirmed this and they are outside the current construction zone – Lets hope it stays that way!

Look out for more updates!

Disney Year of a Million dreams was launched in October 2006 and has helped the company drive a large number of visitors to the parks. The Year of  Million Dreams has been such a sucess that Disney Executives are extending it through to the end of 2008.

So far 846,000 dreams have been awarded – including the selection of a family to stay in the Cinderella Suite in the Magic Kingdom Castle.

It is expected that they will reach 1 million dreams by the end of this month.  

Reedy Creek improvement District is a local Government that covers around 25,000 acres and is a city in itself, it covers most of Walt Disney world and some of the associated businesses and properties surrounding it. The entity is chaired by Disney and has an oprating budget of $52 million, they have told the Orange County Property Appriaser that it will not be enacting the property tax cuts as it would wipe $1.2 million from that budget.

The Reedy Creek Improvement District runs an ambulance service amongst other things such as building inspections amongst other services for Disney. With 67,000 cast members working for Walt Disney World the district needs to run itself like a city!

Other cities have voted to skip the tax cut proposals but Reedy Creek doesn’t stand to cause much of a problem by doing so as the Board of Supervisors which controls the Government of Reedy Creek is made up of 5 seats and Disney pays 90% of the property tax collected and as the largest landowner gets to say who sits on the board! This quirk of local politics is most interesting.

N.B For the uninitiated, Reedy Creek was re-named to what is now known as Lake Buena Vista.

After initial rumours of delays launch officials have confirmed this morning again that the launch will go ahead as planned tomorrow, Wednesday August 8th at an planned launch time of 6.36pm Eastern Time (5 hours behind the UK’s British Summer Time)

The mission, STS-118 will deliver another section to the ISS in its continued construction. The mission will also be the first to use a wireless tile inspection device, saving the crew from manually checking the tiles before re-entry.

As on our previous post you can visit NASA.gov and listen to Mission Audio over the internet (Windows Media Player Required) or watch the NASA public TV channel over the net to keep up to date on the mission.

We all wish the crew the best of luck and god speed!

Orlando, Florida as you have never seen it before! Google Maps has had the street level feature before for certain large cities such as New York but now the great minds that are Google have ‘done’ Orlando.

Their photography has stretched from I-4 Near Champions Gate all the way to Daytona Beach, the US 192, where it ends at Clermont South and in Melborne on the Coast, Through the winding streets of Celebration to the High Rise SkyScrapers in Downtown Orlando.. they have covered so much!

This something not to be missed out on. Check it out today!

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=28.598992,-81.101074&spn=1.138203,1.851196&z=9&om=1&layer=c

Anywhere there is a blue line is where you can zoom in and go to street level. Navigating through the streets can be slow but it is so interesting! What a great feature if you are considering a home here! They even stretch up to the towns in North Central Florida, Tavares, the Seat of Lake County as well as Historic Mount Dora.

Check it out today!