Real Estate Buyers are Eco Aware

Orlando area Real Estate buyers are looking toward more Eco friendly homes.
Just outside downtown Winter Garden, on the south shore of Lake Apopka, sits the tiny town of Oakland. The sleepy rural enclave of 1,100, which was first settled more than a century ago, is now poised to make local history—at least in the realm of environmentally-friendly homebuilding.
Oakland Park, a new subdivision by Castle and Cooke, is the first Certified Green Community in Central Florida. The designation was awarded by the Florida Green Building Council.
Of course, that means all the homes in Oakland Park will be green. But it also means the entire project has been blessed by the council based on eight criteria ranging from site planning to landscaping.
"It’s something no other community in Orlando is doing," says Bob Hennen, vice president of sales and marketing for Castle and Cooke.
But others will likely follow suit. Green building, once a somewhat vague real-estate catch phrase, is now regarded by developers as good social policy and good business.
According to the latest research by the National Association of Realtors, 65 percent of buyers now view energy efficiency as an important consideration and 46 percent of buyers would prefer a green home.
Orlando Home Buyer Magazine

Market Takes Off On Lower Prices

Naples & Bonita Springs Florida - Pending sales have reached their highest levels since August of 2005, nearly three years ago; while median home prices are at four year low. They have hit month over month highs the last two months, with April sales even outpacing March sales, bucking the normal seasonal trend.

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Naples Florida Real Estate Market Turning Around

With the more affordable prices and lower interest rates, showings and sales for homes priced at $300,000 or less have picked up over the past four or five months in Naples Florida.

"Certainly you can help a lot of people right now," said Michael Sopka, a broker-associate for Amerivest Realty in North Naples, who found a home for DeMinico.

At 31, DeMinico longed to buy his first home and decided the time was right after watching prices fall. Though he's only lived in the area a few years, he knew about the ups and downs of the market because his parents bought a home in Naples in 1989.

His home, which cost him about $207,000, is new and in a gated community with basketball and tennis courts, and a fitness center.

No one else has lived in the home. Like so many others investors, the original buyers purchased it in hopes of turning it around for a quick profit and then got caught with a home they didn't want when the market soured. The home sat on the market for more than a year, DeMinico said.
"I got lucky," he said. "They just wanted to unload it because they wanted to sell it. They couldn't really rent it."

His Realtor also worked with TIB bank to get him a loan that only required a $600 downpayment.

In south Lee County, deals can be found at such upscale golf communities as Bonita Bay and Pelican Landing.

A few weeks ago, Mary Catherine White, a Realtor at Amerivest, had floor duty. She got a call from a couple from Chicago looking to buy a retirement home in the area where they could spend part of the year. She took them out the day they arrived in town, and by the next day they had made an offer after finding a great deal on a two-bedroom condo at the Brooks, a gated community in Estero.

They got more than they wanted and paid $180,000, a price that even seemed to surprise White.

"Nobody can believe that we got something for that price in the Brooks," she said.
The home was once listed at $369,000.

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Posted By Amerivest Realty to Naples Florida Real Estate Blog