There are more than 500 Orlando FL Million Dollar Homes for Sale currently just in Orange and Seminole County. These homes start at $1 Million Dollars and go all the way up to $28 Million. Add the surrounding counties in which to explore the Million Dollar market and it quickly becomes too confusing for any buyer to handle alone...
If you are thinking about buying a Florida Million Dollar Home, you need an Orlando FL Luxury Buyers Agent to guide you to the best buys. Call us for a no pressure chat about your needs and the best options available: 407-539-1053.
There are various home styles and lifestyles to choose from. Single family, condominiums, townhomes, waterfront, golf front, estate homes, vacation homes, and luxury homes with land. Not to mention, that about one half of these luxury home are on lakes...which may or may not be a desirable or quality lake. There are 200 homes on lakes and about 110 homes on a chain of lakes. For more information on lakes go here.
The highest priced Million dollar homes are in the community of Isleworth in Windermere Florida, a suburb of Orlando. That pricing is followed by Golden Oaks in Disney and Lake Nona in east Orlando. The town with the most homes Million dollars+ is Windermere and the city with the highest pricing per square foot is Winter Park.
Choosing an area to buy an Orlando Million Dollar Property
Where to buy is always the home buyers personal preference, but for investment and appreciation purposes, a million dollar home should be in a million dollar neighborhood. You never want to be the fanciest house in the community…
The choice of cities comes down to many factors: What do you need to live close to? Your work? Kids school? Disney? Want more land? A custom built home? What are your buying goals?
What about your budget? All this needs to be figured out before we talk about areas and what pricing you can get where. Occasionally, a buyer will say that the price does not matter, but I find that it always does...so let’s figure out your comfort level first.
Why hire an Luxury Home Buyers Broker?
If you want to save time, money and effort, you need the services of a good and experienced buyer broker. Listing brokers represent the seller and their job is to sell for the highest price and protect the seller. You need someone to advise you and negotiate in your best interest and tell you all the good, bad and ugly about the property....100% full disclosure.
Florida does not have mandatory agency disclosures, so brokers are not required to tell you that they don’t or can’t work in your best interest. A shocking discovery to most Florida homebuyers who are not familiar with agent duties.
There are very few brokers that specialize in representing only the home buyer. Most brokers will attempt to either represent only the home seller or limitedly try to represent both the buyer and seller at the same time as a transaction broker/facilitator. That means no loyalty, no full confidentiality and no full disclosure to the buyer.
Buyers Broker of Florida is an Exclusive Buyer Brokerage office that ONLY represents the best interest of the home buyer and never the seller, so we never have a conflict of interest. 100% loyalty, 100% confidentiality, 100% full disclosure to the home buyer.
Home buyers who understand conflict of interest choose to avoid it. This is the same reason that every courtroom has two attorneys...one for each side. Buyers and sellers each have opposing interests; sellers want the highest price and buyers want to pay as little as possible. Florida law says that a broker cannot have two masters...Consumer Reports says: if the agent is not working for you 100%, they are working for someone else.
Making an offer on Florida Million Dollar Home
Before our buyer makes an offer, we will research the property to see how long it has been on the market, if there were any price changes up or down, what the seller paid for the property, and what the comparable sales are showing. We do dig for additional information.
Based on what we find we will suggest an offer, but the buyer makes the final decision. Everything depends upon the attributes of the million dollar property and how badly the buyer wants it. Is this a one-of-a-kind property that checks all the boxes? Or is this one just one of many homes that could fit your requirements?
All offers are put in writing with either a pre-qualification letter for financing or “proof of funds” showing that you do have the cash to complete the transaction. The counteroffers are typically done verbally until there is a meeting of the minds and the contract is then revised to reflect what the buyer and seller have agreed to.
Negotiating an Orlando Million dollar home contract may take longer...
The more luxurious the property is, the more there is to negotiate. The home may come with furnishings, a car, boat, airplane or advanced technology which may be included in the sale or negotiated into the sale.
Typically a Million Dollar Home will not have multiple offers, so usually there is no urgency to decide quickly as if there were multiple offers on the table. Sometimes the owners are out of the country and they may want time to review your offer. Sometimes the offer stalls and is revived a week later, so it takes longer to conclude negotiating the terms. Every home is unique for best negotiations.
Once a contract is agreed to and signed by both the buyer and seller, the escrow deposit is due and the clock starts ticking for the due diligence period and inspections. Depending upon the complexity of the property, we may ask for 30 days or more to complete due diligence.
Home inspections on Million Dollar Homes in Florida
Million dollar and multi million dollar properties are not inspected like a typical house sale. A general comprehensive inspection is just the beginning. In a Million Dollar home there are elevators, extra fireplaces, gas lamps, wine rooms, electronic gadgets, waterworks and complicated convenience items.
The house may have 6 or more a/c units; different makes and models with complicated electronic air filters which may be outside the expertise of a general home inspector, who usually does a cursory examination.
The pool person that cleans the pool does not look for problems other than dirt or the pool finish. Not only can there be problems with water levels, colors of the pool lights, but also the KOI pond may be losing hundreds of gallons of water a month. Inspections on large homes will always reveal some deficiencies.
Licensed Florida home inspectors are only required to eyeball the roof from the ground, which may not be adequate. Even if you get an inspector that is willing to do more, almost no one will get up on a steep or 2-story roof. You will need to hire a good roofer to walk the roof.
Depending upon the particulars of the home, you may need specialists for the elevator, Lutron system, masonry, electrical and more. It is not unusual for a property inspection to take more than one day and run into a few thousand dollars. A small price to pay to learn about the multi-million dollar home that you are buying. If there are deficiencies that you are not willing to accept, we will either renegotiate the contract or you may simply not buy the property.
Yes, Million dollar home buyers do need to hire their own title attorney
The buyers title insurance is a negotiable item in the purchase contract. Who pays for it gets to control which title company will issue the title insurance and prepare all the paperwork for closing.
Most real estate listing offices have “controlled business arrangements” with a title company where they funnel them all their business in exchange for “perks”. Sometimes, the title company even shares space with the listing office. While this affiliate relationship is a “legal” arrangement, it is for sure not in the best interest of the buyer.
It is a well known fact that most title companies do not diligently scrutinize the buyers closing documents. They are biased toward the hand that feeds them, which is the listing agent who has the seller. They have no interest in finding or resolving any issues for the buyer.
Studies have shown that 70% of title work is flawed and many title companies are having the buyer sign a “compliance agreement” or “hold harmless” which releases them of any screw-ups whether accidental or intentional.
I find that routinely they overcharge the buyer hundreds of dollars, or simply put some sellers charges on the buyers side. Most of the time, they cannot explain what the additional charges are for... their answer is usually that no one else complains, and that’s just the way they do it. For sure, they do not read or follow the contract. They also don’t look at the survey. Some title companies are loosely run and have clerks (not attorney’s) that do everything...most are not trained to do careful title work or resolve any problems.
Worse then that, if there is a title issue, they do not bother to correct the problem….they simply make an exception to the title policy and exclude coverage for that problem. That dilutes the protection that you have under your title insurance. If you complain, they will simply charge you for adding an endorsement to cover what they just removed.
I have had a title company:
- Not pay off $12,000 in liens against the property
- Not request an estoppel for what was owed to the HOA
- Skip doing a municipal lien search, even when it is in the contract
- Blatantly lie about sending a check to the bank
- Bounce a check
- Not mention the survey encroachments to the buyer.
When the title company does sloppy work, takes shortcuts and omits paying off something, the buyer could end up liable to pay even if it is not their debt.
Then there are the more serious problems: One time I bought a property that was on two lots, consisting of two parcels. I was careful to make sure that both lots were listed in the contract with the correct folio number. The title company ordered the survey which to me looked confusing, so I hired an attorney to review all my documents...
I quickly learned that the seller’s title agent was transferring only one parcel of property, not both. I also learned that the seller was trying to sell my 2nd parcel to the next door neighbor!
What do you think would have happened if this transaction closed with only one parcel? Or if the other parcel was already sold to the neighbor? Or the seller was already back in another country?
When you are paying a million dollars for the house of your dreams, this is not the time to cheap out and use a title company that is obligated to the listing agent and the seller.
Besides, title company underwriters are rated just like car insurance, so you do want to only have “A” rated title insurance company.
Every buyer needs to have a Buyers Broker that works solely for them, and also a title agent that is not biased for the sellers side. Pay your own title insurance and hire your own title attorney to do your closing. Peace of mind. Then can you enjoy your Orlando FL Million dollar home in paradise.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.