Hey everyone! We are seriously considering relocating to the Orlando area! We are coming 4th of July weekend to check out neighborhoods around Disney. Does anyone who lives there or has relocated there have any suggestions? I need to be under $200,000 with great schools and as close to Disney as possible. Do any of you recommend any real estate agencies? We are taking are time about this decision and likely won’t buy a house right away, probably just rent to make sure its right for us. Any advice is welcomed, thank you!!
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I don’t have any advice to offer but I’m going to tag @pod4christ. He was very happy with his real estate agent.
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Thank you. It is very overwhelming, I am not sure how to tackle this whole thing!
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Relocating is very stressful! Good luck to you!
I think I have at least narrowed it down to 4 areas, at least on this trip lol. Celebration, Hunter’s Creek, Windermere, and Dr. Phillips. I think I need a good Real Estate agent to help, hopefully someone will respond :).
That’s a decent price point, but I will say you’d be fairly hard pressed getting into Celebration or Dr Phillips under that amount. Do a lot of research in the schools. A LOT. I would say also consider some of the areas that are a bit further away like Lake Mary or Winter Garden. There are some really nice areas in the suburbs of Orlando.
Thanks. Winter Garden was on my list but the schools didnt have very good ratings :(. Ill do a little more research. We arent picky about the type of home we are in either, a condo will be fine. I will check out Lake Mary.
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With home prices at an all time high, renting might be the way to go until the market relaxes a bit. When the fed increases the interest rate, home process will surely reduce. It’s a sellers market for certain. Renting and investing could be good for a bit.
Orlando has plenty of apartments.
We don’t live there but my wife did as a kid. The school district issue is a bit tricky. We have friends in FL (orlando and Jacksonville) and the only real alternative to them was Private - so you may want to explore that as well. Celebration will not be available for $200,000. I have looked there for retirement options and $200,000 will be very hard. We live in a very similar type development (neo-traditional) and we love it - although it is not for everyone. Try Reunion as well perhaps. I may also suggest being a bit further from WDW - it gets awfully congested and prices in the area are higher than elsewhere.
I obviously don’t check the forums often.Sorry! Vanessa Barnes was amazing! I highly recommend her if you’re still looking for a realter. http://simplyflrealestate.com/home/about-us/
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I have just lived through what you are about to live through. We moved from Iowa in December. My husband works in Lake Mary so we looked in the surrounding communities and could not find anything but condos under $250k that were not in ill repair. We looked at 20 houses. Seminole county is a nice community with the best schools, but I have to say that we decided to move to Lake County. Lake County is beautiful and you can get a lot more house for your money. We moved to the Sorrento area and bought a 1/2 acre 2300 home in an upscale neighborhood for $275000, and we love the community. We have made many friends already and the kids are very happy here.
Most of the people I know here that have kids have put their kids in private schools, and Florida has many educational options, umbrella schools, charter schools. We home school have had a great supportive homeschooling community here.
Our drive to Disney is 45 minutes but it’s a very easy drive because we can take a 2 lane country road to the toll road 429 and the drive is very pleasant.
It took us an hour from Lake Mary on I-4 and the traffic was so hard to drive in.
I have several friends that commute to Disney from here and they don’t mind it. The communities surrounding have very nice new housing, Mt. Dora, Eustis, Mt. Plymouth.
Nicole Van Treese with Century 21 is the best. She has expertise in relocating and she worked really, really hard for us. As you can tell, we put her from looking at 20 houses, and she never complained.
The only community I would consider that is close to Disney would be the Davenport area, as the others that are close that are also nice and safe are very cost prohibitive.
Lake Mary is very cost prohibitive. See my comment below.
I moved here from Iowa about 1.5 years ago. I work in Sanford and originally had an apartment right on the border of Sanford & Lake Mary when I moved here. I wanted to buy a house in Lake Mary because I really like the area. But, I found much better pricing in DeLand, even for brand new construction so that is where I’m now living. I love it because I’m only 25 minutes from the beach in New Smyrna and only about 50-60 minutes from driveway to bag check (depending on which park).