About Davenport's Westridge

We've gone through dozens of applications and viewed numerous homes to bring you some of the best vacation homes and owners that Orlando has to offer. We're proud to compile this list of unique vacation homes and outside-the-box thinking owners. We think each of these homes deserves to be recognized and certainly should be at the top of your list for those of you traveling to Orlando. Check out this week's Vacation Home of the Week!!

Sunshine Villa Orlando

Location: Davenport, FL

Neighborhood: Westridge

Owner Booking Weeks: 48+ (WOW!)

Management Booking Weeks: 0

Website: www.SunshineVillaOrlando.com

Westridge Vacation Homes For Sale

Why Owners Chose This Home: "We chose this home because it has great structure - 4 roomy bedrooms, formal living room and dining rooms, plus an open concept kitchen, breakfast nook & family room. Lots of windows that face the extra large southwest facing pool and lanai. The biggest pool and lanai that we found on our house hunting trip! We chose Westridge Community on HWY 27 because it is centrally located - close to shopping, restaurants, golf courses, and major highways providing a quick trip to almost any attraction - especially Disney at only 10-15 minutes away."

What Makes This Home Unique: "Our home is unique because we care, we provide personal service and always put our guests first. We have refurbished and decorated the villa personally with all the upgrades and extra touches that each one of our guests takes notice of and appreciates. We have an extra large southwest facing pool / spa and lanai. The villa's private and newly fenced lot provides privacy while enjoying the pool and lanai with views of greenery and plam trees. The villa hosts a fully stocked kitchen with all new appliances, blender, cappaccino machine, pizza pan, and more ... The games room is ready for action with a pool table, ping pong, darts, billards table, foos ball, darts, and a large chalk board wall !! Provided is a Disney DVD library, board games, books, and playing cards."

Marketing Strategies: "A host of marekting tactics and strategies enrich the bookings at our villa. We like to tap into niche markets, use popular advertising websites like Homeaway and VRBO and by making the guest feel welcomed."

Westridge Vacation Homes For Sale

The Pink Flamingo's Review: First of all, anyone who can pull in 48+ weeks per year without a property manager deserves a standing ovation in my book! That alone is quite impressive. It doesn't surprise me though, when I first met Lisa she had a vision of what she wanted her vacation home to be. She didn't just want a rental house that she could put people in and generate income from, that seemed like more of a bonus to her. She wanted a home that she could pour her style, emotions and talents into and that she certainly did! Sunshine Villa Orlando feels like a home not a house, it's not your typical vacation rental that people get herded in and out of like a bunch of cattle. You can tell this home is different from the minute you walk in. It's the home of people who care about the type of experience their guests are going to have while staying here. One of the best features of the home (and believe me there are many) is the huge over sized pool in back. It's one of those pools that makes you just want to jump in and lounge on a giant pink raft while sipping a mai tai. I also love the hot tub, it's big and very inviting as well. What I also really liked was that there is a cabana bath leading out to the pool from the third bathroom which is probably one of the most convenient things a person could ever ask for!! The house will not let you down, it's just not possible. I've seen so many vacation homes and this one has it all. That's a fact! Lets talk a little bit about the owners, Mark and Lisa, they purchased the home in 2010 and have completely renovated it. I know Lisa poured her heart and soul into this home to make it what it is. She was dedicated from day one to make Sunshine Villa Orlando a reflection of who she is and in my opinion, if I had to choose just one word for her and her home it would be quality. She's a quality person who goes out of her way to make sure other people are taken care of. You can see by the guest reviews that I'm not the only person who thinks this!! I love that she incorporates niche marketing into her booking strategies and that she really leverages her website and Facebook page as well for marketing. She always updates her Facebook page when she is at the villa or leaves updates when she is running specials. Be sure to connect with Sunshine Villa Orlando on Facebook also!! I highly recommend this vacation home to anyone looking to rent a nice property in the Davenport area. I think you'll really like the community amenities and more importantly the home itself!

Westridge Vacation Homes For Sale

Enter Your Home Today in Our "Vacation Home of the Week"

Riddle me this Batman...what has 3 months of wasted time, a frustrated buyer, a frustrated seller, and one really frustrated Realtor? If you said a short sale...ding, ding, ding! You are the big winner! I would love to tell you that I have a prize for you, but I really don't. You'll have to settle for hearing me rant for a while. LOL

I am representing a buyer on a Davenport, FL short sale. We initially got it under contract in February. By March the BPO (broker price opinion) was done and the case file had been assigned to a negotiator. At that time we were glad things were going along quickly. A title company is handling the processing of the short sale, and, at the time, I hadn't heard of title companies doing that yet. I figured, OK, let's see how this works, maybe it will make things easier.

The listing agent emailed and the bank gave us a net figure they would work with and the buyer decided to go ahead and raise his offer a bit so that we could move the deal along. Fast forward 3 months to yesterday. I got a call from the title company letting me know that the negotiator was closing the file because he never received a response to his request. Initially I thought there was just some confusion so tried to explain to the title company that we had a contract for the requested amount and that it is dated March 30th.

She was completely surprised by this. Apparently the listing agent never even sent the new contract to her. So here we are (seller, buyer, and me) waiting around wondering what is taking so long to get an approval since we already came up to the bank's terms. The whole time (3 months) I was getting regular updates from the listing agent about where we stand. OK, that's entirely accurate, I was regularly dragging updates out of him, but it's the same result. And the whole time he was feeding me a load of crap. He had no clue about where we were with the bank negotiator.

We got the negotiator to hold off from closing the file so we could try to get this deal back on track. He agreed, and went back to the drawing board. He came back to us and asked for another $3,500 because the sellers are not paying their HOA dues, and that obviously has to be paid, and it is eating into the lender's share of the pie.

At this point the buyer has decided to walk away from the deal, and I don't blame him. He has been waiting almost 6 months to close on this property, and would have if not for the miscommunication between the listing agent and the title company.

Short sales require attention to detail and organization. This could be a case of too many chiefs and not enough indians. But the moral of the story is...if you are selling a short sale, choose your short sale agent wisely. If you don't, it could cost you time and money.

If you need more information about selling your home as a short sale or would like my help, you can find me at Short Sale SuperStars.

Photo courtesy of Moria of Flickr.