Luxury Homes Orlando : : Real Estate News - Page 1

With record inventory, million-dollar homes still selling

Rising prices, strong job market viewed as reasons
By Kurt Schultheis Orlando Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET June 4, 2006

While the inventory of single-family existing homes is at an all-time high in the Orlando market, some area builders and Realtors say they are having no trouble unloading million-dollar homes.

Patrick Higgins, Realtor/broker associate with Winter Park-based Kelly Price & Co., says "the luxury home market is doing quite well right now."

A recent Orlando Regional Realtor Association report shows that homes priced at more than $1 million climbed 270 percent in metro Orlando during the past three years.

In the metro area -- Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola -- 448 homes sold for $1 million or higher in 2005, up from 121 sales in 2003.

Anthony Lightman, a custom luxury home builder and vice president of MetroWest-based Osprey Homes, says he "can't get $1 million homes out of the ground quick enough."

"I have 30 million-dollar homes under construction in Orange County and 25 of them are sold," Lightman says. "There is not much sitting around right now for more than a million dollars."

The reason?

"Most of my million-dollar buyers are taking the nest egg they accumulated from their northern homes and cashing it in before interest rates climb higher," Lightman says.

Higgins cites an expanding local job market that "causes executives to relocate to the area."

Industry analysts attribute the increased sales of million-dollar residences to the general rise in prices and a trend toward building larger homes.

New 'bedroom community'

Higgins says a search of the ORRA's Multiple Listing Service for Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties -- which he says makes up the most dominant market for luxury homes priced at $1 million or more -- shows 570 existing luxury homes were active on the market as of May 26.

That's roughly 3.6 percent of the 16,036 single-family existing homes available in the Orlando area.

"There are obviously not as many luxury homes out there than more moderately priced homes. But the luxury homes that are out there are not staying on the market for long," Higgins says.

In the last six months, there were 157 million-dollar homes sold in Orange County, the MLS search showed. And in that same period, the average home selling for $1 million or higher was on the market an average of 60 days -- about the same amount of time that the average home in Florida was on the market.

Luxury home buyers also are spreading their boundaries.

Jeff Gersh, vice president and project manager for Jacksonville-based The St. Joe Co., says that the company's Volusia County community of Victoria Park is seeing luxury home buyers who commute into Seminole County each day.

"Southwest Volusia County is becoming a bedroom community for the Seminole County workplace," Gersh says.

Lux living in Volusia

A master-planned community that eventually will make up more than 3,600 single-family houses on 1,850 acres in four quadrants, Victoria Park sells homes from the $200,000s to more than $1 million.

But Gersh says in the last few months, it's the luxury home sales that have been strong.

"We have sold a few homes in the $1.5 million range recently," Gersh says. "Volusia County is becoming an area where it's not unusual to have luxury."

And in areas like Seminole that are close to buildout, Gersh says a commute from Victoria Park to Seminole County looks better and better.

"People in Orange and Seminole think of DeLand as being way out there," Gersh explains. "But it takes 15 minutes from our property to Heathrow."

Higgins, who had a home listing in Victoria Park during the annual Parade of Homes, has noticed the luxury home market expanding into Volusia, too.

"We had 750 people come through that home in a two-week period and one-third of those people were from Orange and Seminole counties," Higgins says. "People are branching out to other areas and checking out homes in several markets."

But Lightman says most of his customers are still looking for $1 million homes in Dr. Phillips and Windermere area. "Nine out of 10 people with that kind of budget want to be in Orange County," he says.

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