By Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel
February 23, 2010
In a region where house prices have been cut in half in two years, a handful of investor-driven developments lost much more.
County property appraisers in Central Florida have identified the communities where values fell the most. Lake County's once-exclusive Bella Collina residential project, on the hills overlooking Lake Apopka, made the list. So did MetroWest condominiums in Orange County. Appraisers also cited plummeting values at several condominium conversions in Seminole and at a stalled golf-course community near Daytona Beach's LPGA project in Volusia.
County officials said those developments had largely been fueled by investors who drove prices so high during the home-buying frenzy that, when the market slumped, property values had much further to fall.
"Maybe, initially, they just had a higher price point, to be kind," said Seminole County Property Appraiser David Johnson. "Some have called it 'creative financing,' with investors putting no money down. … To be cliché, you had no skin in the game."
County by county, here are the property appraisers' choices for the "biggest losers" of residential property values in Central Florida.
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