Category: Orlando Real Estate

Lake Nona Medical City Making a Huge Impact on Orlando Real Estate

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

It’s been referred to as the new chapter in the history of Orlando. Lake Nona Medical City is becoming a monumental landmark not just for Orlando but as a premier location for medical care, research as well as education. Meticulously planned out, it represents an obvious strategy to build a focused cluster of the world’s most sophisticated medical treatments, education, and research in Central Florida.

Over the next ten years, some of the country’s top hospitals, research institutions, and universities will call Lake Nona Medical City home while enhancing economic development and as well as build a job creation machine for Orlando. Also, speaking as an Orlando Realtor, I firmly believe that it will continue to positively affect Orlando real estate.

Lake Nona’s Medical City Economic Impact Could Exceed That of Walt Disney World!

Many people say that Orlando’s Lake Nona medical facility will produce a boost in the local economy that will exceed that of alt Disney World when it opened its doors in 1971. How on earth can that be considering Disney World’s Orlando location currently employs over 60,000 people?!

The reason is that Lake Nona’s 600+ acre “Medical City” contains a combination of some of the world’s most brilliant medical minds together with biotechnology-driven health care facilities. Located just 10 minutes from Orlando International Airport, this cluster will be an economic freight train for Central Florida.

The Lake Nona Medical City will bring over thirty thousand jobs to Orlando and will have a projected 7.8 billion dollars on the local economy over the next 10 years. This doesn’t include the small businesses that are and will continue springing up around the facility.

Some of the facilities located in Lake Nona Medical City

*UCF’s new health sciences campus at Lake Nona. This 50+ acre campus will employ over four hundred full-time and part-time employees.

*The Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute spent over $85 million on its state-of-the-art research center and will become home to three hundred of the country’s top scientists and staff.

*Veterans Affairs Medical Center is expected to serve over 400,000 veterans and is also the national site for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Simulations Center for Excellence. The total cost for building this facility was in the neighborhood of 665 million dollars and will employ more than 2,000 people.

*The University of Florida will have a 100,000-square-foot biomedical research facility worth over 61 million dollars.

It’s pretty amazing when you think about all of these medical and biomedical facilities located in one Florida community. This is great news for Orlando as well as the state of Florida. One thing is for sure the jobs that Lake Nona Medical City will create as well the small businesses it will help will do wonders for the local economy as well as continue to fuel the Orlando Real Estate market.

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Orlando Realtors Going back to Basics

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 

 

The Orlando housing inventory is at its lowest level in over a decade and buyers are constantly competing for a limited supply of homes. The lack of sellers in the market is forcing real estate agents to go to extremes that they would normally not go to in order to try and get more listings. Hungry real estate agents are going back to old-school real estate marketing techniques in order to get more listings.

 

Orlando Realtors are once again pounding the pavement for new listings. I know one agent that parks his car on a street located somewhere in his farm area and starts knocking on doors or putting outdoor flyers with his info on it. according to him, he’s lucky to get one listing out of every 20 doors that he knocks on. I personally think he’s insane and don’t like this way of marketing because it’s an intrusion of privacy. Let’s face it…Everyone hates an unannounced visit AKA the “Pop-in”. Besides, if I’m in my yard minding my own business or doing something in the yard, the last thing I want is a stranger coming up to me and asking me if I’m interested in selling my home.

 

Hungry real estate agents are going back to basics in marketing like calling on expired listings and “For sale by owners” with the hope that they are able to convince the homeowner to list the property with them. Other agents are resorting to sending out mass postcard mailers to entire zip codes praying for more listings. These conditions are not only affecting newer agents but experienced agents as well.

 

Another reason that I think is contributing to extremely low inventories right now is that homeowners who have a bit of equity are keeping their homes off the market. They figure that they’ve gone through the worst of it and they believe that prices will continue to rise for the next few years and intend on cashing in when it happens. The problem with this strategy, however, is that no one can predict what will happen with Florida’s real estate market and people that wait too long, will wait themselves out of making a profit from the sale of their house.

 

The reality is that if sellers aren’t truly motivated to sell, then they’re just not going to and I believe that it’s wrong to try and convince somebody to try and do something that they really don’t want to do.

 

Lenders that are holding on to thousands of REO properties are also reluctant to sell because they’re afraid of hurting prices. And when banks finally do release the properties into the market, they’re snatched up by the dozen by large investment firms. Most of the time, they never even hit the MLS.

 

One thing that I learned a long time ago about the Orlando real estate market is that you have to learn to adjust to the market which also means adjusting your marketing strategies, take what the market gives you. Over the years I’ve seen real estate agents that refuse to change their marketing as the market changes and most of them are now no longer realtors. You have to go with the flow if you’re going to survive by buying and selling real estate.

 

 

Orlando Real Estate Broker

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Top 5 Orlando Home Renovations that give you the highest a return on your Investment

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Renovating a home can be tricky if your goal is to get a return on your investment. Just because you spend money on a property it doesn’t always guarantee that it will increase in value. It’s important to know how to spend your renovation budget wisely in order to get the highest return on your investment. Since 2004 we’ve successfully rehabbed well over 300 Orlando properties. In that time we learned a heck of a lot about Orlando home renovations and unfortunately, some lessons were learned the hard way. By knowing what the return on your investment will be on different renovation projects that you may want to complete on your property, you will be able to maximize every dollar that you spend. Going off of my own experiences as an Orlando Realtor, we’ve put together a list of what has given us the biggest return on our investment dollars on any renovation project.

 

Top 5 renovations for getting the biggest bang for your buck

 

1-Clean and De-clutter- Removing the clutter from a house and making it spotless should be at the top of your list of any renovation. By removing bulky or furniture from a house you will give it an automatic facelift and not only that, your house will appear to be much larger. I once had a client list their house with me and when I instruct them to clean and de-clutter their home for showing purposes, she fell in love with her newly de-cluttered home all over again then decided not to sell after all. And with the exception of a few cleaning supplies, there is really know other cost involved because this is something that you can easily do yourself.

 

2-Paint- A new paint job will by far give you the highest return on your investment. Not only does paint make a huge difference in the overall appearance of the house, but it’s also the cheapest improvement that you can do to a home with the exception of cleaning it. The best part is that it’s something you can do yourself and save even more money. Painting might seem like a daunting task to some, but with the right tools and a little internet knowledge, you can do the job yourself and save even more money. Youtube is a great place to go for any instructional video that you can think of. In this case, you would just type “How to paint a house” into the search bar. Another place you can go is the Home Depot and ask when their next painting class will be. It’s a free workshop and good for people who prefer the hands-on learning approach.

 

3-Landscaping- By improving the landscape of a home you give it great curb appeal and give a potential buyer a reason to want to see more. You don’t have to be a professional landscaper in order to do a great job in your own yard. You do however, need to learn some basic landscape design. Just like most things today, there are a million free resources available to you online on landscaping tips and ideas. You should start by trimming up any existing landscaping that you decide is worth keeping, sometimes that may be all you have to. I always like to add annuals to the landscaping for a splash of color. Annuals are cheap and really bring any landscape design to life, make sure that you install plants that are in season to get the longest life from them. Although I use general contractors on all our re-habs, I always do the landscaping myself because it’s something that I enjoy doing.

 

4- Upgrade the Kitchen- OK , now it starts getting expensive. However, nothing will sell a house like an amazing kitchen. It’s very well known in real estate that in a couple’s situation, the lady of the household usually makes the ultimate decision…”To buy or not to buy”. This is a room where you don’t want to go cheap, but you don’t want to go broke either. Try to salvage anything that’s worth salvaging, appliances, cabinetry, etc. On one of my very first re-habs , I made the mistake of renovating the entire house except the kitchen trying to save a  few bucks. The property ended up sitting on the market for 6 months and I didn’t get the purchase price that I was hoping for. Again don’t go cheap, even if you have to re-do the entire kitchen with wood cabinetry, granite counter tops and high-end appliances you should have to spend more than 5 or 6 thousand dollars which is money well spent for maximizing the return on your investment dollars.

 

5-Upgrade the Bathrooms – You won’t need to spend near as much on a bathroom upgrade as you would on renovating a kitchen. Like a kitchen renovation, investing in a nice bathroom is well worth it when it comes time to sell the house. You can get pre-made vanities that come with stone countertops in the 6 to 8 hundred dollar range and I suggest that you always replace the toilet unless it’s in “like new” condition. No one wants to see, let alone sit on an old dirty toilet. Even if you had to replace everything in the entire bathroom with high-end fixtures and furnishings, you shouldn’t have to spend more than a thousand bucks to complete the project and you can rest assured that it’s money well spent. People spend a lot of time in the bathroom that’s why it’s important that they enjoy their surroundings while they’re in there.

Do you want to know what your house is worth? Visit us at https://orlandorealtyconsultants.com/

 

Realtor in Orlando, FL

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Online Property Searches in are More Popular than Ever! – Orlando Real Estate

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Several years ago in the not-so-distant past, potential home buyers would start searching for a house the traditional way which was by calling up an Orlando realtor in the area where they want to live. The next step would be for the buyer to give the agent all the criteria that they were looking for in a home and wait for the agent to provide a list of great homes to go see. However if the buyer chose the wrong agent to work with, there are several things that can go wrong such as the agent coming back with a list of properties that the buyer doesn’t like, or maybe the agent won’t call back at all. Either way, this was very frustrating for homebuyers but unfortunately, they had no other choice than to search for properties by using a realtor. The whole key to finding the perfect home all hinged on finding the right agent first.

Buyers are now able to search the MLS just like a real real estate agent

The web has truly changed the way that the Orlando real estate business is done. Potential homebuyers benefit from this just as much if not more than real estate professionals. Homebuyers are now able to search the MLS on their own without even speaking to a realtor first.

Anyone and everyone are now able to search for properties on the MLS at their own convenience from their own home at all hours of the day or night. All the buyer has to do is present a list of homes that they have chosen to their Orlando realtor and go see them. By doing this, the buyer saves time and so does the agent.

Online Property Searches are also a huge advantage for realtors

Realtors also benefit greatly from people being able to search the MLS on their own. It’s a huge time saver if a buyer comes to the agent with a list of homes they want to see instead of the other way around. All the agent has to do at this point is make the appointments to show the properties.

In our office potential buyers are instructed to click on the “Find Florida Properties” tab on our home page. Here they are able to search the entire state of Florida for all the properties that are listed on the MLS at their own convenience.

Recent studies show that 9 out of 10 potential home buyers begin their property search online long before contacting a real estate agent.

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House Hunting Tips To Make Your Life Easier

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

House hunting is a process that takes a lot of time and quite a bit of effort on your part. In addition to setting a budget that you can work with, you also need to create a list of must-haves, while also keeping in mind things that you can do without. For example, while you may hope to get a house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, you may realize upon further reflection that you really don’t need that extra bedroom or that you can manage with just one bathroom after all.

Continue reading for some more tips that are meant to help you make the process of hunting down your new home easier than you would’ve imagined.

Work with a Professional Real Estate Agent

When it comes to finding your dream home, whether you’re looking for your very first home or your third home, you should definitely employ an experienced real estate agent in Orlando. Someone who will be able to show you the very best options that are currently on the market in your price range.

While you can certainly look for homes on the many real estate websites that are available, a real estate agent has access to homes that may not be listed right away and he or she can also be there at every step of the way to answer all of your questions about a property before someone else is able to swoop in and purchase it before you have a chance to even see it in person.

Know the Type of Home You’re Willing to Purchase

Are you looking for a condominium, a townhouse, or a single-family home? Or would you rather invest in a multi-family home that you can use for extra rental income each month? No matter what type of home you wish to move into, you should be able to make your decision before hiring a real estate agent to help you. This will save you time because you can focus only on the types of properties that you want to invest in.

Keep in mind that there are benefits and drawbacks involved with each type of property out there, so weigh the pros and cons before coming to a final decision. For example, even though you may think a single-family home is the only way to go, you may realize that you really don’t want to be mowing the lawn every two weeks and you would rather have someone else take care of the landscaping. In that case, a townhouse or a condo would be more appropriate.

Look for Homes Outside of Your Target Area

Although you may have a specific suburb or city that you really want to live in, open your mind to surrounding areas as well, which may be surprisingly charming and affordable. Once again, working with a real estate agent will really help you in finding homes that are perfect for you, even though they may not be in the town you hoped for.

House hunting can certainly be a tedious process. But by making your decisions ahead of time and working with a professional, you can find your dream home more easily and quickly.

This post was written by Jenny Wadlow; she is a freelance writer and often writes articles for ORC, one of the leading real estate brokerages in Orlando. She enjoys sharing her views and opinions on various issues related to house hunting.

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