Tag Archives: Florida Blog

Florida Real Estate: Orlando Area Prices on the Rise

Orlando Area Home Sales may have slowed but the median price is on the up again! The median price for existing home sales in the area is up 1.61% on June 2006. This is great news, however inventory is at a historic high topping 25,000 homes – inventory has risen by 41% this year alone! Now it would take 18 months to clear inventory when 2 years ago there was only 2 months of inventory.

This is great news, home values are stable and on a slight increase fueled by international buyers and wealthy buyers purchasing second homes. All taking advantage of the huge selection of home. A true buyer market.

From an international buyers perspective – especially a Brits – the exchange rate is at its best, with the dollar the weakest in over quarter of a century.

The time to buy is now!

None of the information contained in this blog/blog post constitutes, nor should be construed as Financial Advice.

Florida Blog: Hotel Update: Peabody Orlando development back on track

The Peabody Hotel on International Drive has long planned to expand its room number due to its proximity to the Orange County Convention Center, The plans which have been in the pipeline for around a decade include building a 32 story tower with just short of 1000 more rooms, which will overshadow the exisiting 27 story tower. More parking and facilities are planned including a walkway ‘skybridge’ over International Drive to the Convention Center on the other side.

This is great news as development of International Drive Continues more convention quality hotel rooms are sought. The recent Real Estate Boom coupled with the downturn in travel after Sept. 11th, meant that the plans were put on hold until they were more viable.

This development will be watched closely as this luxurious hotel expands!

Just another Disney Guide Book? Don’t bet on it!

The Neal Family of Celebration, Fl are lifelong Disney fans but their decision to write a guidebook was regarded by many as a fools errand, with bookshelves bursting with Disney guides why would you try and take on that kind of competition? Well the answer is simple. To provide a broad based guidebook which focuses on it all rather than niche markets.

This 320 page wonder has sold so well that they are planning on a reprint in August!! The couple have previously written about Captiva and Sanibel the gorgeous islands on the west coast of Florida. This venture into the Disney guidebook genre required more than just a couple of trips there, in total they think they visited Disney 700 times!! Wow.. Amazing!

Florida Property Market Turnaround!

FAR (Florida Association of Realtors) reported that the worst of the houseing slowdown may be over with UCF’s Economics Professer Sean Snaith reporting that the market will grow in the near future through 2009. He said the may be a "slow upward climb through 2009"
This news come amongst figures of unemployment nationwide, however locally as reported previously CNNMoney picked the Orlando Metro area top in its forcasted job grow poll for cities.

All great news for the area…

Shuttle Launch Blasted Off Without A Hitch!

The launch blasted off as expected on Friday, for those who want to keep on top of the mission they can listen to the mission audio between Houston and Atlantis using the NASA Media page from this page you can watch NASA’s local public TV channel or my favorite listen to the Mission Audio and hear in true "one small step for man" hiss and crackle audio style live audio!

The launch itself was seen throughout Central Florida and was an awe inspiring sight as always.

We all wish the astronauts well and await their return home.

Space Shuttle Prepares for Blast Off!!

It has been a long time coming but finally Space Shuttle Atlantis is ready to go! After lengthly repairs to the external fuel tank which was damaged by a freak hailstorm in February were carried out the launch is now finally ready and is scheduled for 7.38pm tomorrow (Friday) night. There is a 70% chance that the weather will be favorable. STS-117 is a go!

The launch is the first shuttle launch this year and will be an awe inspiring sight as always. It is broadcast on the local Public Service NASA TV channel – although minor launches like the rocket carrying satellites earlier this year was broadcast on Central Florida News 13 (A BRIGHTHOUSE cable channel) which also allowed streaming audio over the internet. However, NASA TV is also broadcast over the internet. Click on that link or the one below. It has different formats (Windows Media player for full screen is very impressive, you get the full countdown and everything!)

However, if you want to experience the launch you really can’t beat being here, even if not on the beaches at Titusville or Cocoa from Clermont or Davenport which are 60-70 miles from those locations you can see the launch (ok the rockets look smaller but it still lights up the sky.)

Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders & their retirement to Florida sketch

This clip, which I found out about from the ‘Across the Pond Blog‘ on the Orlando Sentinel parodies two women in their late 50′s from Bideford in North Devon retiring in Florida and the things they find funny about it.

This comedy sketch is a fine example of dry British humour…enjoy it!

This sketch is especially funny for me, the blogmaster, as I spent 8
years living in Devon before moving to Florida…the characters they
portray are a very stereotypical Devonian

– the accents are spot on and the remind me of neighbours I had! Jennifer Saunders in fact lives not far from Bideford, in Devon. I knew the guy who sold her her house – small town communities see!

We hope you enjoy. Remember life isn’t all work and no play!

Note: British Homes Group does not claim copyright for this piece, it is embedded for personal 
entertainment as allowed by the user who posted it on YouTube. If any copyright infringement 
has occured it lies soley with the user on YouTube and not with the British Homes Group.