There’s a new club in town called Southwest Orlando Tennis (SWOT) that meets Monday nights at the Lake Cane Tennis Center on Turkey Lake Road. It looks like a good way to find someone that can play on your skill level which makes the game that much more fun.
I’ve played tennis competitively from my younger years to graduation from high school and always glued to the TV during the grand slams. I just wish Federer can figure out how to beat Nadal one time at the French Open. At the very least, I wish I could see him get up on him big like McEnroe did against Lendl. I’ll never forget watching that match nor the Borg/McEnroe match at Wimbledon.
“You can not be serious, that ball was on the line. Chalk flew up”.
Anyway, Lake Cane is a great facility and the club looks like a good way to meet people that play tennis. Check it out if you’ve got the itch. Tennis is fun, but can be frustrating. It’s the only game where you can win more points and still lose.
I think I found my new dream gadget. It’s the life|ware digital & home automation control. It controls practically everything in a home which can be the music, lighting, thermostat, television, kitchen appliances, security system, or anything else for that matter. Homes of the future will have a digital network that controls everything and that technology is available today with this product. It makes the Jetsons look ancient.
The controls can be integrated through any device with a Windows Vista Media Center operating system which includes televisions or personal computer. The Life|point Touch Screen Controller is another option that can integrate into your home like any light switch. It’ll just look way cooler.
Disney integrated Life|ware technology into the new House of the Future attraction at Disneyland which is scheduled to open this month. It is ironic that it integrates technologies that are available today.
I’m not too sure of the pricing, but I’m sure it’s not cheap and only the finest new homes will have this technology for the time being. All I know is I want one.
Every once in a while I get a weird craving for gas station chicken. Anyone who’s been on a road trip knows that gas stations in the middle of no where have the best fried chicken. I’m not saying you won’t need some Tums to get you through afterwards, but it sure is tasty.
It’s no different here in SW Orlando. The best fried chicken can be found at Dodge’s Store on highway 50 in Winter Garden. The address is 12961 W. Colonial Drive, Winter Garden, FL 34787 if you wanna get directions. I swore to myself never to eat gas station food again when I got sick from a Blimpies sub that I got at a gas station once, but gas station chicken is another thing altogether.
With gas prices around $4 a gallon, it makes the fried chicken at Dodge’s seem like an outright steal. For $1.99, you can get 2 hot wings and a chicken strip which make for a quite a tasty snack. You can also get plenty of zings, dings, jo jo’s, fries, turkey legs, and of course, good old apple pie for about the same price as a gallon of gas. The price of gas is getting out of hand.
Everyone there is super friendly and it feels like you’re in a small town eatery where everyone knows your name and they’re glad that you came yet you’re at a gas station. There’s just something about the smell of car fumes and fried chicken that appeals to me I guess.
The Dodge’s Store is the reason I crave gas station chicken.
The Orlando Regional Realtor Association released the latest statistics for Orlando today and it shows some promising signs. For the first time this year, the inventory of homes is less than the level seen in the same period for 2007. There’s currently 19.6 months of inventory on the market which seems like a lot, but at least we’re headed in the right direction.
The number of total properties under contract show a distinct trend upward in the graph and the number of sales has increased every month in 2008. We had 1,276 sales and 3,225 properties under contract in May 2008. I believe this means more homes are selling.
Another promising statistic is that fewer homes are coming on the market. We definitely don’t need to add to the glutton of inventory already on the market, so I’m excited to see this. For the market to truly reach a point of stabilization, we really need to see an inventory level that’s far less then 19.6 months.
We’re not there yet, but the statistics show that there definitely is a steady march towards improvement underway for the real estate market in Orlando.
The Windermere home on Lake Down belonging to star Yankee left fielder Johnny Damon that was featured on MTV Cribs just went under contract to be sold. It’s located in the Sunset Bay subdivision located just west of Apopka-Vineland Rd. on Conroy-Windermere Rd..
If you’ve seen the episode, you’ll know it’s quite a property with 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, 7,471 square feet, 9,206 total square feet, 2 bonus rooms, sauna, library, steam room, well lavished exercise room with wet bar, multiple kitchens, multiple master suites, and a resort style pool. You get all that on 1.5 acres and a dock on the second largest lake on the Butler Chain, Lake Down. The home was built by Prestige Home Builders in the year 2000.
The section of the lake that this property sits on is one of the shallowest sections of the lake and for a long time considered less desirable until lakefront properties on the chain became a more precious commodity.
The asking price of the property when it went under contract was $2,999,000, but the original asking price when the property went on the market in February of this year was $3,350,000.
The Waterstone community has finally released pricing of their lots on Lake Butler. It’s supposedly the last gated community that will be approved on the Butler Chain and their prices reflect it. The lots on Lake Butler range from $2,378,000 to $2,550,000. Whoa! They’re sure proud of their stuff. The sad part is that most of the lots don’t even have a wide open view. The lake views on most of the lots are impeded by Story Point in the Kelso subdivision. All the lots are over an acre and have a minimum of 100 feet of lake frontage. Any way you slice it, it doesn’t look promising for me to be living on the Butler Chain.
It certainly sounds like a neat development, but the prices are definitely on the pricey side and I’m sure you’ve heard that the real estate market is not that good at the moment. They’re priced pretty similarly to The Sanctuary at Lake Butler Sound so it’s not ridiculous. I think I prefer Lake Butler Sound just because of the fact that there’s a lot more homes completed and less construction messes to deal with. If I were paying $3-$5 million for a home (not that I could even afford the property taxes for that matter), I wouldn’t want to deal with all the debris and noise from construction for too long.
The prices for lots on Lake Cypress are a lot more affordable, but let’s not fool ourselves, it’s no Lake Butler. Prices for lots on Lake Cypress range from $950,000 to $1,300,000.
Their website claims that the developer for Waterstone also played a part in the development of Keene’s Pointe. For some reason, I always thought Castle and Cooke developed Keene’s Pointe. If anyone has any info about this, please make a comment.
I’ll be curious to see how long this development takes to build out and how it will look in the end. I’m sure it’s gonna look nice, I’m just wondering how long it’s gonna take.
Huge price reduction. I’m talking huge. The third floor corner condo overlooking the golf course at Reunion Resort for sale at 1354 Centre Court Ridge #304 has been reduced today from $575,000 to now only $489,900. It’s a fantastic value. Hurry!
The FCAT scores were recently released for 2008 and you may be wondering which schools in SW Orlando ranked the highest. Among elementary schools, Windermere Elementary ranked the highest with 77%. Hunters Creek Middle ranked the highest among middle schools with 67%. Dr. Phillips and Olympia High Schools beat the competition by a pretty healthy amount with scores of 64% and 69% respectively.
The 2008 FCAT scores for schools in SW Orlando are as follows:
A Guest Post by Spencer J. Fisher Photography. They specialize in architectural and commercial photography here in Orlando.
Good real estate photography does not come along serendipitously. There are many factors which will cause a photograph to be poor or mediocre. Let’s briefly go over some of the elements that make an interior shot either fail or succeed.
Lines: Crooked lines fail; straight lines succeed. Slanted walls and crooked lines suggest the photographer did not care enough about the room and the client to take the time to make sure everything is level. A tripod is mandatory. Occasionally, even using a tripod will produce an image with a slight slant. If this is the case, it can be corrected post processing. The rule of thumb is use a tripod; keep it straight, keep it level and you will be heading in the direction of a good image.
Distortion: This is caused by using a wide angle lens and a 35mm camera. When using a wide angle it is very important to keep your lines as straight as possible. By squaring up the room and keeping your camera level you can limit some of the distortion caused by a wide angle lens and a 35mm camera. Again, use a tripod; keep it straight; keep it level. It is tempting to shoot as wide as possible with the idea to make a room appear overly large. But this urge needs to be tempered if overt distortion is occurring. If shooting 35mm consider using a perspective control lens such as a Nikor PC-E 24mm or a Canon TS/E 24mm.
Angles: When photographing a room try to not to immediately get in a mindset of which angle you want to shoot the room from. Walk around the room. Look at it from all sides. Shoot it from all sides! Do a straight on shot, a diagonal shot, a side shot. Determine what you think a focal point is in the room and play with different angles leading to this focal point. Even if you believe you have the perfect angle on the first shot take other angles. Do not be lazy. The better angle might be on the other side. Work the room.
Camera Height: If you want to keep your photographs from looking bland or like a point and shoot MLS listing then try not to shoot at eye level. Most interiors are better served by shooting at around the chest height. This is easily accomplished by shooting on a tripod. Play with different heights. The height of the ceiling often comes into play. Do you want to show the chandelier or ceiling fan in the shot? Adjust your height of the camera accordingly.
Less is more: This old adage works very well for interiors. If the room appears cluttered and you have authority to do so by all means remove the clutter. Clutter could be the extra chair in the family room. It could be a planter. It could be any element which prevents the room from opening up and breathing.
Creative is nice: It is easy to focus just on the wide view when shooting an interior. A good practice is after all overalls have been photographed then to walk around the interiors looking for interesting angles and elements. You do not need to use a tripod. The idea is to create interesting free flowing angles that tell a story. For example, you can get close and eye level with a plate or a glass on a dining table. You will focus closely on the dining ware but with an angle that allows you to see other elements across the room. If you shoot fairly wide open (aperture set to a smaller number) you can create a nice blur of the elements in the background. This type of creative photography is not always needed but it is easy and fast to accomplish and provides your client with additional photos they may not have anticipated.
Lighting: Lighting is the bane of all interior photographers. Here is a little secret. Most photographic assignments do not occur over the course of the whole day. Most assignments are time sensitive and limited to a set of hours. Interior photographers need to be skilled enough to handle any time of day and any lighting situation. For example, let’s say you are at client’s home in the afternoon when the sun is very bright. They are proud of their custom pool, deck and landscaping and would like to have a photograph from the perspective of looking outside to their gorgeous property. This is where you need to be prepared to balance the light of the outside with the light on the inside. If the light is not balanced the interior portion of the photograph will be grossly underexposed.
One method to balance the lighting is to use studio lighting or strobe lights. To read some more thoughts on lighting please visit: http://spencerjfisher.com/lighting.html. Another method is to expose for the exterior and then expose for the interior and merge the two exposures in post processing using software such as Photoshop. This is quite an effective method but it is not one hundred percent. Caution should be used if you are relying on post processing to correct exposure issues.
Every photographer has their own style and technique. It’s important to nurture that style but remain true to the assignment. When shooting interiors for real estate it is most important to think of what the end product is. Keep your lines straight, limit distortion, adjust your camera height, find the focus point, remove clutter, get the lighting correct and you will be well on your way to being a better interior photographer.
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There’s a new club in town called Southwest Orlando Tennis (SWOT) that meets Monday nights at the Lake Cane Tennis Center on Turkey Lake Road. It looks like a good way to find someone that can play on your skill level which makes the game that much more fun.
