Florida Property a Tale of Love, Loss and Resurrection

Florida property will forever be remembered as one of the biggest stories of our generation. During the last boom tens of thousands of British people bought Florida property; some were buying holiday homes, some making investments, and some making a new life for themselves.

Little did they know when they were making these decisions, that the US housing market would become so inflated that its bursting would send a shock-wave throughout the American economy, and the rest of the world.

The result of this madness was to leave hundreds of thousands of Floridian home-owners unable to meet their mortgage repayments, and forced to either sell up quickly or watch the bank foreclose on their lives, and, for those who had started businesses and/or made lives in Florida, their hopes and dreams as well.

This led to a massive surge in the availability of Florida property for sale at rock bottom prices. And this is where the biggest part of the story comes in, foreigners became the biggest buyers of these properties; that foreigners were buying properties that people of their own nationality had loved and lost was an irony hard to miss.

According to a recent study by the American National Association of Realtors, foreign buyers had spent some $41 billion on American real estate in the year ending March 2010. The data showed that British buyers accounted for a third of sales, beaten only by Canadians and Mexicans.

It is hardly surprising; there have been some fantastic deals on offer. At the start of the mini-boom; a few buyers got caught out on properties offered at 40% below market value, only to find out that they had actually paid over the odds for it, because the 40% was below its peak value. There was a real problem ascertaining a fair price when home values were so fluid.

To combat this, buyers quickly learned to judge the price of a property against its build replacement cost, and since then the best opportunities literally rise to the top.

A prime example of the moment is the Village at Town Center development. A fully gated community, a few minutes from Disney World, the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter and many more Orlando attractions, the Village at Town Center development offers 2 bedroom condos from just £35,000. The price represents a discount of 50% on build-replacement costs, and the resort is uniquely zoned to allow residential and holiday lets.