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Half of all homes in Celebration for sale?

2007-10-04

By Robert Niles: An Orlando TV news report claims that half the homes in Celebration are for sale. [Thanks to The Housing Bubble Blog for the link.]

Celebration is, as most TPI readers probably know, the town that Disney carved from Walt Disney World property in the mid- to late-1990s. Development continues there, even though Disney sold its share of the development to other companies a few years back.

The lure of buying into "Disney's town" drew speculators like ants on a picnic, driving prices far beyond those for similarly sized units in unincorporated Osceola County. (Though Disney promoted Celebration as a "town," it does not exist as a political entity. It is also unincorporated land, ceded back from Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District to Osceola County.)

With the real estate bubble bursting all over the country due to the elimination of too-easy mortgage money, "flippers" and other speculators in communities such as Celebration have been left holding the bag. From personal experience, I know that a significant number of properties in Celebration are unoccupied. And that many were, and remain, for sale.

But 50 percent? One out of every two? That number is stunning. [Full disclosure: my mother sells real estate in Celebration. So I'm feeling juuuust a little bit conflicted here.] What are our Orlando-area readers seeing?

Readers' Opinions

From David Sutter on October 5, 2007 at 2:52 AM
How does not suprised sound? When it was built every renter and home buyer was promised Utopia. A perfect town, with perfect houses, with perfect familys. A school district second to none. A dream created and shattered by
By the Public Relations of The Disney Machine. I work in a Major retail store..And when collecting the information on customers..I enter their zipe code and It always comes up as Kissimmee..not the town of Celebration but Kissimmee, Fl.
Dont get me wrong here its a wonfderful development, But its time that everyone admits thats all it is ..A subdivison in Kissimmee..Nothing more.
From E Edwards on October 5, 2007 at 8:48 AM
Themesters! --

Trouble in the (former) swamplands? Now, that's a shocker, ain't it?

A bit of fever-dream perspective can be found in an old (and, heck, aren't they all? Will there EVER be another issue? Darned if I know . . .) issue of DeScope that found the connections between Walt's familial ties to agrarian socialism, the future fair nightmare of The Firesign Theatre, and living the good life in Central Florida splendor. All this is pre-housing bubble, so go figure . . .

http://www.descope.com/features/waltsepcot.html

Yours,

-- E "Eddy" Edwards

From David Renteria on October 8, 2007 at 8:28 AM
Sure, it's pretty but the houses are small, overpriced, with weird floor plans. And when it comes to it, you are really kind of in the middle of nowhere.
From James Adams on October 10, 2007 at 3:17 PM
From my perspective, Celebration is a wonderful community - very well kept, that small town feel, nice properties. Sure it's overpriced but if your looking for a great place to raise your kids and have the money to pay for it, then it's great. The problem is that real estate all over florida has tanked - it's bad, REALLY bad. In one Tampa area county alone, there are over 1000 NEW foreclosure every MONTH. The "yuppie" transient communities, like Celebration, are being hit the worst because those people have jobs that are constantly moving them from one area to another. Not to mention, small time real estate investor love to buy in yuppie areas. So, it's not just Celebration, it's all over.

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