Calling all vacation home owners!!

[act1980]

Hi everyone!

I am looking for information on owning a home in the Disney World area.

I would very much like to become an owner but I worry that it will become a money pit. Is there money to be earned as an owner? The area is saturated with vacation homes so I don't know how easy homes are to rent? Is there something I should look for in particular? A resort community that's gated with a communal pool for example? Is there a certain sized home that rents better? Kissimmee or Davenport? Is a swimming pool a must?

Basically I'm looking for any advise you could give me as I really don't know where to start.

Thanks for your help!

 

[supamaki]

Are you looking to buy a time share or a second home that you will rent?

 

[act1980]

It would be a second home. I don't think timeshare would be for me to be honest.

 

[Woodview]

Do you want to hear the truth ?

If yes ...... forget the idea.

Why ? Well it is a bottomless money pit and the area is ,as you say saturated with villas .

.........

BUT

You can make it worthwhile IF you do all the hard work ... doing bookings & being Haggled by Guests who have been advised

by others to seek Low rents .. so as you the villa owner can subsidize their vacation .

You will have to be available 24 hrs a day .

AND spend a lot of your Vacation Time working / cleaning the Villa.
....................................

BUT

A better idea is to have a management co to do all the maintenance & maybe bookings for your Villa

Just make sure that YOU & Your family & friends Can stay at Your Villa When YOU wish to travel down to Orlando.

................

As an Owner of a 5 bed Villa on Hwy 27 for the last 15 years I know a lot & Try and

give an honest & sound advice & guidance


How many Vacations can you have in say $ 100,000 ? ( Deposit on a Villa )


.........................

As an Overseas Owner have we regretted Buying a Villa in Orlando ....... No

Do we make Money ............. No...... BUT we Do have A Villa which is Mortgage Free


OTHERS may Not agree with me ....... and that is O.K. They might be making Money

And good luck to them.

 

[NH-to-FL]

Woodview, I agree with you!

act1980, I sent you a PM with some additional information but as Woodview says buying a vacation villa is not an investment opportunity. Especially if you are a remote owner.

We bought our villa 4 years ago during the dip in the real estate market with an eye towards having a retirement home near Disney. The rental income provided some offset to the expenses until retirement. But renting also brought increased expenses and wear and tear and repair costs. And as Woodview noted, we would spend part of our time when we visited cleaning and repairing beyond what our property management did.

We did not make money, even after factoring in the savings in lodging for our 3-4 weeks per year we were staying at Disney.

On the other side of the equation, it was very nice to have a 'home', a familiar place to come to, during our Disney visits.

We are retired now so we are done with the short term rentals and enjoying our Florida home.

 

[quagmire0]

Great post and input. I had been daydreaming about this myself. I kind of figured that there would be issues with market saturation and just having to be on call 24-7 to deal with issues. Being on the other side, when I do searches for Windsor Hills, I see SO many properties and I usually go with the ones that have the most reviews. If people are like me, then it's going to be hard to really build up that clientele base early on. I think that if you could build up a good reputation and get people to write numerous positive reviews for you, you may be able to thrive a bit more.