Originally Posted By kennect <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://live.wsj.com/video/you-can-now-live-in-disney-world-2013-10-30-121155423/7EDE4E5B-AE26-437B-9D37-F44A0BC674A7.html">http://live.wsj.com/video/you-...4A7.html</a>#!7EDE4E5B-AE26-437B-9D37-F44A0BC674A7 I hope the link works!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I'm at work and can't watch the entire video, but from what I've seen the homes at Golden Oaks are stunning. I still don't quite understand what the difference is between this and Celebration, Eisner's pet project and Disney other planned community.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance Wow, they look absolutely beautiful. But is it enough to offset living in Florida? You be the judge.
Originally Posted By Disney Joy Absolutely YES. I would buy one in a hot minute when I get rich. I think most people buying them have enough money to live other places as well. So you could go whenever you want or send family. It on my list of TO DO. he he he
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Just looked it up. Lead in prices start at $1.4 million. Um... yeah. There's no way in heck I'd spend that kind of money on a fancy house in the middle of a Florida swamp.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros From what I've seen, the biggest difference between Golden Oak and Celebration is that Golden Oak is more of a regular (though high-end) gated neighborhood, while Celebration is an actual city. As far as I know, Golden Oak won't have any real amenities like shops, restaurants, schools, or entertainment; at best they might have a clubhouse of some sort that residents can use The other difference is that the Golden Oak residents won't have to deal with the pesky upper-middle class neighbors. Sheesh, those are the worst!
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh "Golden Oak won't have any real amenities like shops, restaurants, schools, or entertainment; at best they might have a clubhouse of some sort that residents can use." I am pretty sure I read they will have access to the Four Seasons' pool and spa.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh As far as schools, it doesn't sound like these houses are designed for full time living. More like really expensive vacation homes. If anyone did live there year round with school age kids, I would guess they would attend the nearest public school or, more likely, some nearby private school.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 When I was out on property the other day I passed Golden Oaks a couple of times. My first thoughts were: 1)You would have to be amazingly rich to want to live right on Disney property at those prices. 2) Why? 3) I wonder who the audience is for these homes. Based on location I would say that kids who lived there would either go to a school in Celebration or to a school in the Clermont area.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost I'd buy one, but I don't think that I can step down, socially, that far. Those places aren't much more then tar paper shacks. What we in the upper .00001% would call Shantytown. ;-)
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I agree that it's a very strange development. They're clearly intended for the ultra-wealthy, but those people tend to not like being in the heart of all the action quite like that. It may be fun to see the fireworks from your balcony, but after the 3rd or 4th night in a row I imagine it would get pretty passé (at best) or annoying. I've heard reports of people in Anaheim finding fallout from the nightly shows in their yards; seems like something the Golden Oak people just wouldn't be okay with. Which leads to that whole question about what rights they actually have on Disney property. That was a big deterrent from building the original EPCOT plan (and Celebration, to a certain extent), since the residents could begin to demand changes regardless of what Disney wanted I also think it's interesting that they're only selling 450 homes. With a project like this, it seems like they would need a reasonably large number of investors to make it feasible. Plus, I've been getting constant internet ads about it for a long time, so I question who they think they're marketing to; I don't have enough money to buy a first home, let alone a high-end second one.
Originally Posted By kennect Ferret, I had wondered how many homes they were planning to build. That sounds like a lot of land. My question is why WDW would want to do this.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Because it's an easier short-term investment than a new park. It requires relatively little upfront cost from Disney (a couple new roads and some advertising), yet they get to roll around in the piles of money that it rakes in. Long-term is where the issues will begin to spring up: ultra-wealthy landowners aren't going to put up with any crap, and Disney may be paddling itself up the proverbial creek here. Given how much effort Disney put into buying that land so that they would have control over it, it really seems like an interesting decision to me Disney used to love having ultimate control over everything: its characters, its music, and its land. Under Iger it seems like they're more willing to blur the limits of what exactly it controls, and how much direct input the consumers get into the process. We'll see how it turns out.
Originally Posted By kennect here's a more indepth article about the place. sounds like these people must be nuts. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mouse-house-011200200.html">http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...200.html</a>
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "They're clearly intended for the ultra-wealthy, but those people tend to not like being in the heart of all the action quite like that." Tell that to the people here in San Francisco where the median home price is over $1 million, topping home prices in Manhattan. For that reason alone I can't understand why anyone would spend that kind of money for a home (albeit a very nice one) that's basically in the middle of nowhere. The only real appeal to me would be if I were retired golf fanatic or wanted a second or third home near WDW for some reason. "sounds like these people must be nuts." The Gina Rice's blouse tells me all I need to know.
