REAL ESTATE INVESTOR DECISION-MAKING IN CENTRAL FLORIDA

Jonathan Gonyea
Shauna Hemler
Saint Leo University
Dale Mancini
Lindsey Wilson University
ABSTRACT
The significant rise in Florida’s population has increased the demand for housing in
Florida, which was met with housing shortages that started during the 2008 recession (Taub, 2016),
but grew during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns (Yun, 2023) making the affordability of housing in
Florida more difficult (Greater Tampa Realtors, 2024) which could lead to riskier investments in
the Central Florida housing market. With an industry of $2.04 trillion in sales and a high failure
rate (National Association of Realtors, 2023), it is essential to understand what may cause this
industry to falter so that leaders can preemptively avoid another Great Recession, such as that in
2008. Understanding real estate investors’ decision-making may help illuminate how external
market factors affect their strategies.
This study will use a qualitative grounded theory approach to examine how real estate
investors make investment decisions, based on interviews with real estate investors in Central
Florida. Further research from this study could delve further into the factors real estate investors
use to determine which decision-making processes are more successful than others.
Keywords: Real estate, Central Florida, decision-making, process of real estate investors, factors influencing real
estate investors, housing market, investors’ cope of uncertainty