You may have heard that throughout Central Florida there is a surplus of housing and commercial property available. Obviously, that’s not news. But, what you may not have heard as much about is the way that East Orlando has dealt with the recession, the real estate burst and how the area is positioned to grow and become stronger than ever.

For starters, East Orlando is inhabited by thousands of smart, talented individuals and families. In the 32828 zip code alone, which houses Avalon Park and Waterford Lakes, 15 percent of the population have a bachelor’s degree or better - Metro Orlando sits at only 8.5 percent. Because East Orlando is so densly packed together, there are 784 individuals with advanced degrees per square mile, which is roughly four times the Orange County average at 216 per square mile.

Why does that matter exactly? Well, according to local experts, these statistics are some of the main reasons that the recession and real estate fallouts have played out somewhat different in the community. “When we talk about East Orlando, we’re talking about an economic environment that really doesn’t exist anywhere else in Central Florida,” says Jim Spaeth, president of Remora Partners, a capital investment group focused on East Orlando.

Anchored by the major metropolitan research entity that is UCF and the Orlando International Airport, Spaeth says the area has taken on a new shape, spurring a new type of economy known as the “innovation economy” that revolves around the mass production of ideas rather than the mass production of products.

“The influence of those two large economic drivers is pervasive,” says Spaeth. “What they end up doing is creating industries and offspring industries that otherwise wouldn’t appear in the scheme of things.” He is referring to industries that create high-paying jobs such as optics and photonics; modeling and simulation; digital media; and even biotech and life sciences in Lake Nona.  These industries and the thousands they employ, at least partially, help fill the void of houses and commercial space in the area.

According to Spaeth, East Orlando has experienced a different recession than the rest of Central Florida. “I think that there hasn’t been the recognition in the community that East Orlando has gone through a different manner of the recession when compared to Central Florida,” he says. “The media hasn’t really shown that so, consequently, the perception in the community is that East Orlando is struggling - and certainly some people are - but, if you dig behind that and look at vacancies, foreclosures and the state of real estate stock, you’ll find that the area has weathered the economic storm better than any other place in Central Florida, at least that I’ve been able to find.”

Again, Spaeth contributes the resilience of the area to the innovation economy harbored there. “East Orlando will stay ahead of the curve because of the evolution taking place there; someone will come up with an idea that was better than the last and it takes hold, thus pushing the economy forward,” he says. “The key is to have plenty of smart, motivated individuals living and working in your community that are engaged in those new industries or working to create new ones; and East Orlando has done a good job of attracting them there and fueling those innovations.”

Compared to the rest of Central Florida, whose growth was often stimulated mostly construction, East Orlando never relied as much on families moving into the area to create income. “Unfortunately for other areas, when the recession came and people stopped moving here, that’s when you saw vacancies go way up and prices go way down,” says Spaeth.

In East Orlando, however, the educated population leads to stronger job retention, according to Spaeth. “The people that live in East Orlando live there because they are employed in good industries that are still hiring today,” he says. “Those regions that relied on the housing and construction industries to fuel their growth are in much worse shape than East Orlando.”

For the future, Spaeth says that the area is definitely on the right path. “As long as you’re creating a place where those smart, talented people want to live than the real estate in the area is going to be in good shape, because they’ll need somewhere to work and a place to call home,” he says. “As far as recovery goes, I think that we’ve never really gotten off the path of progress, we just haven’t recognized that yet.”

Article by Corey Gehrold