SkyCity is the latest Orlando project to be approved by the Orlando City commission. Two towers, mixed use, 300 million.“They’re crazy!” I hear you scream. “More downtown condos? Those developers are out of their tiny, concrete-ridden minds!”

True, the current downtown projects are having trouble selling, but construction on this baby is not expected to start until 2009 and they probably won’t be finished until 2011. By then the current condo glut should be pretty much used up - just in time for the baby boomer invasion. YAY.

Besides, much of the space is devoted to business. The first tower will be a 25-story office building - and the first ten floors will be for parking. Gotta have parking. The 11th floor will feature a 20,000 square foot luxury fitness center. Nice!

The second tower will be an even larger, 35-story building featuring both a hotel and, on the upper floors, just 120 condominiums. I think we can handle 120 more!

According to data gathered by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, the median resale price of a home in Central Florida is about $250,000. At a quarter of a million dollars, most first time home buyers are effectively priced out of the housing market. But believe it or not, it is still possible to find an Orlando condo for under $100,000. And that could prove to be a vital first foot on the property ladder. In other words, condos are still affordable - just. But they probably won’t be in a couple of year’s time. Remember that between 2004 and 2005, the median resale price of a home in the Orlando area rose more than 60% according to ORRA and although prices are now dropping again, it is still likely that within the next decade, Orlando will be just another expensive city that regular folk can’t afford to live in - unless you’ve played your hand well today. Which means not allowing fear to make you keep your strongest cards until last.

Good card players play their cards at pivotal moments in the game. Aces are not your favorite pieces of candy in the packet, to keep until last so you can savor them at your leisure. When I did that as a kid, my friends would usually steal them right in front of me and then claim that because I wasn’t eating them, they figured I didn’t want them.

Like other markets, the Orlando condo market has suffered in recent months. A number of downtown condominium projects are now on hold – some have been cancelled indefinitely. But there’s also a sense that despite all the gloom and doom, the Orlando condo market appears to be weathering the storm better than many other urban markets. It’s fully expected that Orlando will be one of the first cities to exit the recent downturn, and there are reasons to suppose that even the mid-term condominium picture looks fairly healthy. Here are a few of them:

1.) Industry continues to move here. Last week, another simulation company moved to Orlando citing Orlando as the “capital of simulation.” Who knew? This week Lockheed Martin scored another $48 million contract.

2.) With so much industry moving here, unemployment is still at record lows. Unemployment was just 3.3% for January 2007.

3.) The number of Spring visitors are up. Last week, Orbitz placed Orlando as # 1 in it’s recent list of favorite spring break destinations - for non-students. How cool is that? An influx of cash, minus the beer and the hormones. Hotels are sold out.

For a variety of reasons then (including, of course, the… shhhh… m.o.u.s.e.) Orlando has been pretty well shielded from the brunt of the recent housing “correction” – at least, compared with other Florida cities and other condo-heavy states. And despite a slower market at present, the future of real estate and yes, even the condominium market, looks very bright for Orlando - which is slated for a massive amount of growth over the next decade.

When construction costs were lower and investors were still around (remember that?) developers took reservations for their condominium towers, requiring deposits of just a couple of thousand bucks to reserve their new home.

 

Now that both the real estate and construction markets have changed, developers nationwide are taking a different line: No reservations.

 

At several Orlando condo projects, buyers are being asked to put down anywhere between 5 and 20 percent of the purchase price. Unrealistic? Maybe, but with rising construction costs, some developers have found that their projects are likely to cost many times more than they expected.