a queston for all American citizens!

[ali_alic]

I need your opinions please. We are hopefully going to buy a holiday rental property in Florida. The company that we are speaking to (based in America) say that the best property to buy is a townhouse rather than a villa as 95% of Orlando holiday rentals are to Americans (apparently 40% of Americans don't even own a passport - tho I can understand that with the wealth or terrain, climates etc that you have there). Is this true? We Brits would probably prefer a villa (ie with a swimming pool) but apparently you guys don't want the hassle of that on your vacation, you own houses with pools anyway and would prefer a townhouse in a complex where everything is catered for. Are these stats fairly accurate, or are they bulling us green limies?? Appreciate your input. Thanks in anticipation.

Alison

[dannydingbat]

I checked earlier this year and It s only 26% who have passports so 74% do not.

[KARL]

Be very careful to research this thoroughly - there are a lot of vested interests that will happily mislead you. There are many sources to use for this, make use of them. My understanding is that there is a surplus of property going and that rental is by no means assured.

[essexbiker]

KARL, you have obviously done this before, what company did you use, and what problems did you have? I am thinking of doing this too, what sources of information did you find?

Thanks

[ali_alic]

Thank you for your responses. It also seems that dannydingbat has also looked into it as well as Karl. Or did you check on the passport situation for an entirely different reason??

[metagirl]

I would be wary. From my understanding a townhouse in a complex would require also an upkeep and/or membership annual fee. So they probably get backhanders from the property management company. Also, a pool in Florida is key.
Would there be a shared pool in the complex with the townhouse? Not all Americans have swimming pools (especially if they don't live in Florida!) and common sense would have it that if you are going on holiday you would want a pool.

There must be objective advice out there for you to do proper research - don't rely on the sellers.

[ali_alic]

Cheers metagirl. Yes, there are management costs re the upkeep, but we would get that anyway as we can't "do it" ourselves. Its just that our natural tendancy is to go for a property with a pool, because that is what we would choose ourselves. We have done a fair amount of research but as you say metagirl a lot of the info is from the sellers!! We have also researched the holiday brochures to see what appears in there and again villas, with pools, seem to be popular. Its just that I don't know what the American holidaymakers want, hence asking on this site to get objective views from others other than sellers. The townhouses without a pool are in a complex with a shared pool, restaurants etc More of a resort really.

Any more insights or views welcome!!

[spudqueen]

I don't know what sort of vacation accommodation that Americans would usually choose, though I do know that they only tend to have two weeks holiday from work a year (unlike our four or five weeks) and that my friend who lives in Kentucky doesn't have a pool.