The company is actively recruiting real estate talent in the region to execute its business model, which is known as the S.M.A.R.T. system. That's an acronym for Sales, Marketing, Advanced Training, Recruiting and Tiered Compensation. The idea is to help realtors do away with the distraction of self-promotion so they can focus on selling. Arterra gives realtors an 80/20 split in sales commissions.

Another competitor is Canopy Walk, an affiliate of Home Dynamics Corporation. Canopy just snapped up 55 acres of land at US 192 and Nora Tyson Road in Saint Cloud for $3.22 million. Canopy is proposing a 193-home single-family residential community there. If approved, it would mark Home Dynamics' fourth such project in the greater Orlando area.

Indeed, the area around the property is booming, thanks in part to the growth of Lake Nona Medical City, a 650-acre health and life sciences park in Orlando, a premier location for medical care, research, and education. The Orlando VA Medical Center alone is creating 600 new jobs with its opening in Medical City later this year.

AV Homes is also active on the single-family home front in Orlando. Hector Lopez, AV Homes' foreign national liaison to South American homebuyers, is seeing plenty of foreign investors in the region.

“There's no doubt that South Florida's high home prices is one of the main reasons South Americans and other foreign buyers are looking for alternatives with prices in south Florida nearing the 2008 levels,” says Lopez. “Over the last few years South Florida's real estate market has rebounded, largely due to foreign cash, which has led to a continuous uptick in prices.”