Golden Oak - Living large in a new Disney home

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COProgressFan

Well-Known Member
WDW1974 said:
I'd rather see a story side by side about the real estate disaster that is Celebration and what this all means for Disney, which has become largely a real estate/timeshare/hotel operator in FL with theme parks as ancillary businesses, not the core. THAT is a huge change from 20 years ago. And likely why so many of us have issues with the core product because we still (quite erroneously) believe it's the MK and EPCOT ... it isn't!
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This would be a great story, in fact...and I don't know why no one in any major media has addressed the shift in the way Disney Parks are run. Most articles which discuss the parks seems to be written by Disney PR hacks....I wonder why no one in the press (or financial press) seems to address some major shifts in strategy.
 
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uklad79

Member
The off putting for me with these is they can't be rented out when not in use. I made an inquiry a while back and as I wouldn't be using it more than 6-8 weeks a year I would want to rent it and treat it as an investment as a couple of us would be investing. Disney doesn't want you wanting out a high end property you own because it would take away from guests who otherwise would be staying at Disney.

It seems they are for the mega rich who have no qualms about letting a place sit empty or retired people who have more time and family who are able to use the place.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
rljackson said:
WDW1974, I am curious about your thoughts on Celebration. I drive through while on vacation and it seems like a nice area. Has the housing crash and home values dropping caused disaster or has the experience of living there been not what was expected?
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Well, my original thoughts back in the early 90s when it was announced was ... this is a mistake, this is not what Disney should be doing with a large chunk of the Florida Project land. My next thought was maybe I should live there!:eek: ... Thought about it and realized that it was nice, but way too pricey and also surrounded by the tackiness of US 192 and Kissimmee. Call me an elitist, but I didn't wish to drive away from my $400,000 home (that would have been $250,000 or less anywhere else in the o-Town area) and have to pass by a Shoney's, an ugly group of strip centers and loads of lousy drivers headed to WDW.

Since the crash, though, Celebration is just a mess of foreclosures. They have little signs, so they aren't quite as obvious as elsewhere. Many public areas (beyond the nice town center area) aren't being maintained. When I was there last (think it was April) the main roads had not been repaved in forever (likely the 90s), Celebration Place was eerily empty (indeed many of the offices built and opened over a dozen years ago have NEVER had tenants ... entire FLOORS of offices are simply facades waiting for businesses that never came and never will). And many homes were being very poorly maintained (because obviously the economy has taken its toll).

Then, after Disney moved out and the economy tanked, suddenly the every home/development has to follow certain style guides got tossed out the window ... so you have a street of Southern traditional homes of various looks and then someone in 2007 put in a Med-style mini-mansion. The clashes are ridiculous.

It isn't a dump by any stretch, but if you go through there and actually spend some time paying attention to the details, you'll see it's a very troubled community.

I wish it had never been built because it started the push by Disney to 'build out' the WDW property. And not as a resort ... but more as a real estate development.

~It's all a lie~
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
COProgressFan said:
This would be a great story, in fact...and I don't know why no one in any major media has addressed the shift in the way Disney Parks are run. Most articles which discuss the parks seems to be written by Disney PR hacks....I wonder why no one in the press (or financial press) seems to address some major shifts in strategy.
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Media in the USA is dying in traditional forms and it also is being spoon-fed by PR and Social Media spinners.

TWDC absolutely doesn't want a mainstream media outlet talking about the fact WDW's parks are NOT in any way the focus of the resort and that Disney is doing (and has for over a decade) the bare minimum to keep them going. The focus is real estate sales (whether they are homes in Golden Oak for the top one percent or DVC sales for everyone else) and filling hotel rooms and selling meal packages.

That's why NEXTGEN and X-Pass are all so important. And why they are happening at WDW ... not in Anaheim or Europe or Asia.

I have suggested the story to a few folks in the financial press I know and got some interest, but when they went to higher ups the interest became tepid at best because those publications/organizations exist to pump up Wall Street and Big Business. This isn't a story that would do that.

~A sane person doesn't buy a $6 million home next to a theme park development!~
 
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googilycub

Active Member
COProgressFan said:
This would be a great story, in fact...and I don't know why no one in any major media has addressed the shift in the way Disney Parks are run. Most articles which discuss the parks seems to be written by Disney PR hacks....I wonder why no one in the press (or financial press) seems to address some major shifts in strategy.
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Because the majority of the public doesn't really care?
 
Mad Stitch

Mad Stitch

Well-Known Member
buyers in the current sales phase will get three years' worth of unlimited VIP-access passes to the parks for the homeowner and four guests, in addition to such services as door-to-park van service
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I hope so for all the money they spent.

This isn’t technically Disney property anymore, correct? This is part of the land that was sold off awhile back?
 
GrumpyFan

GrumpyFan

Well-Known Member
uklad79 said:
The off putting for me with these is they can't be rented out when not in use. I made an inquiry a while back and as I wouldn't be using it more than 6-8 weeks a year I would want to rent it and treat it as an investment as a couple of us would be investing. Disney doesn't want you wanting out a high end property you own because it would take away from guests who otherwise would be staying at Disney.
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I read somewhere else that they can be rented, but for a period no less than 180 days.
 
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COProgressFan

Well-Known Member
googilycub said:
Because the majority of the public doesn't really care?
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The majority of the public may not care, but I would imagine Disney investors would (or should), thus my comment that this would be an interesting article for the financial press. But as the Spirit commented, the financial press is primarily there to promote big corporations (of all kinds) and not really dig too deeply into the way they are run.

And to some degree, I think the public does care, even if only implicitly...park guests certainly do care when rides aren't maintained, new attractions and entertainment never arrive, and the value for their dollar is diminished...even if they don't quite know about how that all fits into the bigger picture.
 
wilkeliza

wilkeliza

Well-Known Member
I am interested in how much longer people will be able to put all the money down for these homes. I'm in NYC so I hear of people all the time paying in cash for million dollar homes so that doesn't surprise me I just didn't know that happens outside of NYC. I have to imagine that if it is anything like the families I know here in NYC that have that kind of money the house will sit vacant for half the year or for large chunks of time with just the live in house keeper occupying it.

I think another interesting thing to see is if the no rental aspect of the closing agreement means corporations will not be able to buy the homes. I know my original thought was that these will end up being bought up by big businesses like Morgan Stanley or Apple or something of those sorts and then be used as just a rotating business house where they send people they are wining and dinning into deals. If Disney is keeping an eye on who is actually living in the house I think it would prevent these companies from using it for such a thing.

Heck if I had enough money I would be buying a home. It is only a 4 hour drive to my boyfriends family in Boca Raton and just a days drive/ affordable flight over to my family in Texas so it would be worth it to have a luxury home close to Disney and much closer to the family than NYC. Just dreams though because I know I could never leave my cramped small apartment in dirty NYC haha.
 
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googilycub

Active Member
COProgressFan said:
The majority of the public may not care, but I would imagine Disney investors would (or should), thus my comment that this would be an interesting article for the financial press.
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Most Disney investors would only care about the profit of the company. If the sale of property not being used increases the profit (I would think it would),
the investors would be in favor of it.
 
Mike730

Mike730

Well-Known Member
I found something I thought was pretty cool. Just as Disney de-annexed Celebration before, it appears as though the new development is already no longer under the RCID, ensuring the residents have no say in Disney's plans.

screenshot20120226at655.png

Taken from the RCID Comprehensive plan being discussed in another thread, this map shows that the golf course land being developed is no long part of RCID. You can see the outline of it cuts into the property.
 

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