Builder’s sales on track despite cancellations [Central Florida]

Builder’s sales on track despite cancellations [Central Florida]

Steve O’Dowd, 53, president of Engineered Homes of Orlando Inc., an employee-owned production home-building company based in Winter Park. O’Dowd spoke with staff writer Jerry W. Jackson.

Question: Late last year, you were fairly confident about local home building for 2007. Has the extent of the slowdown surprised you?

Answer: I’m still very confident in what I see happening in the marketplace. What really surprised me more were the amount of people who canceled contracts. It appears the amount of sales we expected to take place continued to run the way we expected. But we had higher cancellation rates.

Europeans Still Buy Polk Properties

Europeans Still Buy Polk Properties

Despite the slowdown in the U.S. real estate market, there’s evidence that investors are still buying local properties, particularly vacation rentals. The buyers remain one of the markets that’s been most loyal to Four Corners from the beginning: Europeans, particularly the British.

When Feltrim Developments USA – which has an office at the Four Corners Plaza at Polo Park – recently opened two new short-term rental properties, most of the units had already sold out months ago. Greg Brown, Feltrim’s director of commercial real estate, said the new projects known as Tuscana and Secret Lake are resort/condominium developments that “catered to the European market.

“While there’s obviously been a slowdown in vacation sales,” Brown added, “these projects have done extremely well.”

Will property tax relief help you?

Will property tax relief help you?

The Legislature’s proposed changes to the way counties, cities and school districts levy property taxes could save you thousands of dollars per year.

Or not.

Some changes could mean dramatic savings for owners of businesses or second homes but do little for year-round homeowners. On the other hand, a proposal to double the $25,000 homestead exemption would help only homeowners. Eliminating school taxes — to be offset by higher sales taxes — would mean savings for nearly every property owner in the state.

Lawmakers haven’t decided yet.

Real estate slowdown is coming home across area [South Florida]

Real estate slowdown is coming home across area [South Florida]

Troubles in the market are acutely felt as home inventories rise, prices fall and expectations sink.

Green, 39, is a real estate appraiser. He used to live in Seminole Heights in Tampa. He and his wife, Leah, have a 2-year-old son.

Lester, 54, owns what could be the last dairy farm in Pasco County. He’s got 500 cows, a posse of Labradors and a big, rambling house just off U.S. 41 in northern Land O’Lakes.

But in the face of an imploding property market, both men have something in common: they are finding themselves with more space than they might need.

Lure of cash attracts investors [Indianapolis]

Lure of cash attracts investors [Indianapolis]

The lure is easy money. No cash down. Just use your credit rating.

That’s what got Tiamia Reese tangled in the failed 2002 real estate scheme that ruined Florida mortgage lender Oceans Funding and plunged 22 Indianapolis houses into foreclosure.

Now, Reese is set to testify against David Day Sr., Mark Roth and Marshall Welton, Indianapolis real estate men charged with mortgage fraud by Marion County prosecutors.

Many of the illicit real estate deals that have raked Indianapolis rely on a common factor: People like Reese, a former engine plant employee at Navistar International’s Eastside complex, want to get rich.

The big empty drop-off [South Florida]

The big empty drop-off [South Florida]

Retailers flounder as large stores abandon shopping centers

Television merchant Stan King is feeling lonely these days.

He stands in the parking lot of Park Plaza in Port Orange and looks out on hundreds of empty spaces in front of his store. It’s been like that, he said, ever since an Albertson’s supermarket closed its doors in the spring of 2005 and its discount replacement, Super Saver, failed a year later.

“It’s affected our walk-in traffic drastically,” said King, who has operated Royal Electronics at Park Plaza for 20 years. “Our walk-ins are down at least 50 percent. And the other businesses in here that depend on that kind of sales are all screaming, too.”