Eagle Landing vs Rolling Hills (Orlando: middle-class, for sale, real estate market)

[blong2trvl]

My husband & I just returned home to Orlando today, after going up to visit our daughter & family in Watermill area. We are planning on relocating up there to be close to them, and looked at Rolling Hills, which has about 10 homes built, and then on to Eagle Landing, which is about 15 minutes closer to family. Just feeling nervous about the amount of for sale signs in EL, and whether it would be a big mistake to buy there. There are some awesome deals there right now, but the CDD fees are also a bit heavy. Anyone have any insight? Thanks a bunch.

[mawipafl]

I actually was wondering the same thing -- not just the amount of signs in Eagle Landing, but in other communities and neighborhoods across the First Coast. Sometimes it appears as if one particular community/neighborhood has an over abundance of For Sale signs than others, but then I wonder if it's a proportional kind of thing - does it appear like there's more because the community/neighborhood is smaller than another, so to compare apples to apples, should one look at the total number of homes and figure the percentage of the total that's for sale?

[riveree]

Maybe you can rent for a year in Eagle Landing and see what happens with those homes. Do they eventually sell? Do they get taken off the market? Do they go into foreclosure?

You'd also get a closer look at those CDD fees and whether they are worth it to you personally and whether they are stable or going up.

I prefer to own than rent, but considering the particulars you're looking at, renting might be well worth the money.

[R1v3rRat]

We looked in Rolling hills as well. We really like one of the floorplanes from Cornerstone...but... that was almost 2 years ago they had about 6 or 7 houses built. So if theres only 10 homes built now.... not a good sign IMHO. Sounds like it will take a long long time to fill up the community. (For comparison we signed a contract to build our house on Feb 2nd 08. When we did, there was 1 house built on my street. We moved in Aug 08. We were the 4th house built on our street. As of Feb 09 there were 13 houses. Now there are 17 homes and 2 lots sold. And were not even counting the other streets in the neighborhood, which are filling up fast too.)
Plus they had some pretty substantial CDD fee's there. And it isn't exactly a convenient location either....

Another thing to consider is... whats your long term plan? Do you plan on only living there for a short while < 5 years? Long term > 10 years? Or "This is it... we're staying put".

Don't even get me started on CDD fees.....

[joninclay]

Eagle Landing is awesome, but I am personally opposed to CDD fees. I mean, a developer wants to build a bunch of homes (which is fine), needs the county to come in a provide infrastructure like roads and water (which makes sense)...but then wants the homeowners to pay for his development, above and beyond the selling price of the home (not to mention any property taxes and HOA dues)?

I mean, developers are making tons of money (which, as an entrepreneur myself, I can more than respect), or at least they were before the real estate market tanked. But to ask homeowners to subsidize the deal they made with the county is not something I'm interested in doing.

Here's a good explanation of how CDD's work (and read some of the potential pitfalls of living in a CDD area). Excerpt:


As Florida's population boomed, CDDs were created to shift the burden of building roads and utility lines away from cash-starved municipal and county governments. The massive costs of building the infrastructure are financed by the developer with a key CDD incentive: tax-free municipal bonds.

The bonds pay for not only roads and utilities, but also amenities such as clubhouses, pools, tennis courts and golf courses that entice middle-class buyers yearning for a more lofty lifestyle.

Rather than paying everything up front, homeowners pay the ultimate costs for the amenities over a span of 15 to 30 years.

A five-member CDD board, chosen by the developer, issues the bonds and levies taxes and assessments on the homeowners, who pay the added fees along with their county and city taxes. It is only when most of the homes in a development are sold, and all the crucial initial decisions have already been made, that homeowners can begin to sit on the board.

There's little downside for either politicians or developers.

Elected officials get to add mammoth swaths of upscale homes that contribute to a government's tax base while bragging they did so without raising taxes to build or maintain the infrastructure that's needed.

Developers bear little risk in borrowing millions of dollars, knowing that serious miscalculations can be covered by a generation of homeowners.
It's little wonder that CDDs have become the most popular development tool in Florida for new home construction.

There's more in that link, so check it out to make an informed decision.

I personally wouldn't live in a CDD area, but that doesn't mean that no one else should. If you love the area and it's in your budget, then by all means, go for it.