Villas In Florida

[dave&maria]

Has any one got any advice or experience of buying a holiday villa in Florida?

Many thanks, Maria

 

[vernon]

Sorry to be slow answering your question.
There are A LOT of things to think about and buying a house is a big commitment. That word, COMMITMENT really is the defining word when you're looking at buying a place abroad. It is almost certain that unless you are lucky or have a very large number of people you can get to rent your house you are going to have to find money on a regular basis to run a property, agents will tell you that they will get you bookings that will HELP to offset the costs, they may even say that it should cover ALL the running costs. In my experience that is not going to be the case.
If like me you think the Florida property market in undervalued, and you plan to spend a lot of time in Florida either now or in the future you may still decide that it is a good investment, but it does require a major amount of research into what are the best value areas, what type of extras help to rent your home, how big a house you need to maximise your rental potential and most of all where you would like to be.

I've done some emails that cover these issues and compare buying a house and a timeshare ( in this case it's Disney's DVC) if you'd like a copy of that please email me and I'll send it to you. It is a little old so some of the $$ figures are out of date but the arguements still have value and it's easy enough to recalulate using your own figures .

 

[MalcolmC]

Hi Dave&Maria,

As a villa owner myself, I would agree wholeheartedly with Vernon. Think very, very carefully about this.

It takes a lot of money to run and maintain a home in Florida. If you are renting, you need a licence and then have to pay state and county taxes. Some people seem to get (or claim to get) lots of rentals but if anyone in Florida guarantees you will get X weeks of rentals - walk away immediately, that's illegal. You're better finding your own bookings.

Many realtors, builders and management cos. will quote figures showing how it all pays for itself - take this all with a large pinch of salt.

For further information visit www.top-forums.com/forum where several hundred Florida Villa Owners will and have in the past, assisted potential owners.

 

[lisag1]

Malcolm,

Are there any other villa owner forum boards out there?

Thanks
Lisa

 

[SimonV]

Maria, like everyone else, I would advise doing a LOT of homework on this before you commit yourselves. Take a look at the relevant pages on two websites of holiday home companies which both list a lot of the pros and cons of the business. Greater Homes have sold more properties to UK buyers than anyone else in central Florida and have a solid, professional reputation, while Alexander Holiday Homes also have impeccable credentials. Their sites are:

www.greaterhomes.com (where they also 'translate' a lot of the American property jargon into the correct British terminology)
www.floridasunshine.com

Good luck!

 

[minnie56]

but thought I could add a bit here!
As you see, I live in Canada and am a former condo owner in Florida (St Pete's Beach actually) I also had land in a Golf Club community in Sarasota as I planned a move to the area. Well, that didn't last long, I moved back and sold the lot.
Now, most everything is expensive in Florida ie: Utility bills, homeowners insurance (especially on the beach) and when you are a long-distance owner relying on income from your investment
it gets tricky.In our case, we had an on-site management company that rented the unit, retaining a commission, which worked quite well.However, when something went wrong (and it was purchased brand new)we paid whatever price they named for repair or replacement, which was often a bit un-reasonable.A unit that rents well needs frequent re-furbishing due to 'traffic flow'.When you decide to sell of course the U.S government holds back a portion of the sale price for approximately 1 year at which time they assess your foreign investor capitol gains tax. Depending on the sale price, it can be steep.It's great to have when you go visit Florida, although I always ended up doing a 'proper' housecleaning on my holidays, because I didn't much care for the cleaning people's performance!!(Also, expensive in Florida).It's just worth a lot of looking into! Good Luck......

 

[Seawise]

Hi Dave & Maria,

For all the information you are looking for go to

www.top-forums.com/forums

and

www.floridabritsclub.com

Regards

Chris

Villa owner at Windsor Palms

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

Thanks for these helpful links Chris. I'm still thinking about buying a villa, and these websites were new to me.

Regards

Rob

 

[UKDEB]

The links posted seem to be for those who already own properties in Florida. Or am I missing something?

 

[MalcolmC]

Originally posted by UKDEB


The links posted seem to be for those who already own properties in Florida. Or am I missing something?

They are also for people who want to know the truth straight from the "horse's mouth" about buying and renting.

Top Forums has several (older) threads which cover the pros and cons of investing in property in Florida.

The Florida Brits Club (also represented on Top Forums) has about 1200 members and offers unbiased information relating to owning and renting - although you have to be a member to get it (about £15 - £17 one off payment).

It could save a lot of expensive mistakes!

 

[Sue F UK]

Just caught up with this thread...

We purchased our villa in May and are, to be honest, still finding our feet with it all. The links listed by Malcolm are run predominantly by owners but we joined and posted some questions before and during our purchase and were given some honest, straight answers - which was more than the realtor gave us!! The main point being that NOBODY will get you many bookings - you have to get them yourself.

The main thing to remember about buying a villa is that, unless you have limitless funds and no mortgage, you are essentially buying a business. This makes the villa an investment first and a holiday home second.

You should approach it with this in mind - you cannot rely on anyone else to get your bookings for you - a management company will do little more than fill in a few gaps. So the questions you must ask yourself are: Do you want to spend a lot of time at home finding and managing your own bookings? Do you want to spend your holidays visiting DIY shops and dealing with management companys/banks etc? If the answer is 'No, I just wanted somewhere nice to stay on holidays' then you are probably better off renting someone else's villa and putting your money in the bank.

We don't regret buying our villa and we love the idea of having it enough to put in the extra work that it entails. We did our research and found out what we were getting into - but it's certainly not for everyone.

Just PM me if you have any specific questions.

 

[benny2bunny]

We have just purchased our home, and when I say just purchased the ink is still wet.

I am not sure what I expected but well it is cetainly proving to be lot more work than I expected.

Don't get me wrong we looked in to it long and hard spoke to many people, worked out fingure, each and every one has there own tails to tell, if you are commited to hard work and a long term investment, then perhaps it is right for you, but there are also plenty of people who have tried and failed, and hundred of re-sales to prove it. We purchased new, and in my opinion more fool us, we should have looked more seriously into re-sales, as you can pick up some greatones with bookings in place and the furniture etc also included, these could up for many reason divorce, or lack of commitment and didn't like the continually phone calls and enquires sending out info that leads nowhere.

We love our new home and have paid attention to detail to make it alittle extra special, we have the will and the way to make it work and big circle of friend who spend alot of time in Florida, and 3 businesses which push through lot of people, I know it is going to be hard but well I think it is worth it, only time will tell.

I wish you luck, check out Alan from .wwwfrontlineflorida.com if you tell him that Bernie put you in touch I am sure he will go out of his way to help you, we found him to be straight talking and very good, infact another brit who now lives over there full time with his own management and realtor company.