Help with Central Florida City Choices (Orlando, Palm Bay: HOA, insurance, crime rate)

[Steph876]

I'm really hoping people who understand the minutiae of Central Florida will be kind enough to give me the benefit of their experience.

We have to relocate from Ohio for work. The only real requirement is that it's within an hour of MCO (roughly).

2 house hunting trips: The first to Davenport. I liked Davenport because I could afford the houses there. I did not like Davenport because the traffic was so .... The second trip was mostly the Kissimmee/St Cloud area. There is so much to love about these two cities, however, the houses made me feel frustrated. There was always something wrong (for us). Either the HOA wouldn't allow a fence, or there was a high CDD on top of the HOA making it unaffordable, or there was (literally) a falling down shack with feral raccoons as the neighbor, etc.

We have younger kids and a dog. We want a fence, and we don't want feral raccoons.

I tried to do my own research, and I think I found 5 suitable neighborhoods I can afford. Though reading about these cities isn't the same as "knowing" these cities. For example, Davenport was described to me as an "upcoming neighborhood, convenient to everything". I found nothing convenient about constant U-turns and bumper to bumper traffic.

Before I waste more time and money on another failed house hunting trip to the wrong area, could I please get your opinions about which of these cities give you the most "midwestern suburb" type of vibe?

The neighborhood just needs to be a typical suburban neighborhood. Clean, safe, have a Starbucks and a Home Depot. Nothing fancy. I did try to figure this out myself, but when articles repeatedly listed Lake Buena Vista as the "Best Place To Raise a Family", I knew I was on my own. I'm pretty sure every city is the "best" when you're rich.

Here's where I'm thinking:
Tavares
Maitland
Winter Springs
North Deland (*I don't know why it's different from regular 'Deland'?)
and Mount Dora

Please give me your MOST candid and honest opinions and, if you're feeling super generous, any suggestions.

I would truly appreciate it.

[Arcenal813]

So… what made you pick that list? Those cities couldn’t be any more far apart, and any more distinct in feel, demographic, vibe…

What do you like about each of those? I am genuinely curious. What did you like about Tavares? Did you go through the residential areas? Same with Mount Dora… They have great downtown areas, but the older residential neighborhoods there aren’t for everyone. For the record, I lived in Mount Dora for 9 years. I don’t miss it. Some people like it. But again, it’s a love or hate thing.

[Steph876]

As I said, our realtor didn't take us to any of those cities. On our first trip, we were taken to Davenport and Poinciana. The second trip was to St Cloud and Kissimmee.

We're in the middle of planning the 3rd house hunting trip, and our realtor is suggesting Palm Bay.

I'll go and take a look, but I also wanted to have a couple suggestions of my own. I'm hoping people who really know the area can suggest some quieter, more residential areas that have the normal amenities people need (grocery stores, restaurants, drug stores, etc) so we don't waste more time.

Yes, lol, they're all over the place because the only criteria is that we live within an hour or so of MCO.

The cities I was going to ask the realtor to show me come from an admittedly faulty and unscientific process of elimination. I took the basic characteristics & demographics of the city where I currently live (in Ohio), which I love, and I tried to match those characteristics to cities in Central Florida. (i.e. livability scores, school ratings, crime statistics, amenities, etc). My reasoning was, if I can find a similar city in Florida, I should be just as happy there as I am here. Make sense? For example, if I feel perfectly safe in my current neighborhood (violent crime rate of 1 in 1606), then I'll feel equally safe in any Florida city with a similar crime rate. Hey, getting 2 months to move to a new state is hard. If anyone else has a better system ... I'm all ears. . If I had the luxury of time, I would explore all these areas for myself. Unfortunately, I don't.

So, I was asking if people (who actually know, and have been to these areas, like yourself) feel like any of those are good candidates.

I've seen pictures of downtown Mount Dora. I thought it was very cute, like a town from the 1950s. I'm perfectly fine with that, as long as there's nearby shopping. If that is the "main" shopping/dining area, I'd feel like I was too far out in the country. Why didn't you like Mount Dora?

[Buckeye77]

I'm retired so my priorities are way different than yours, but I've lived in Mount Dora and Tavares. Mount Dora is more "touristy" and yes the down town is nice with some annual outdoor arts/crafts festivals that draw 200,000 in one week end. On a practical level though, you won't do much shopping there. The high school is almost downtown. Don't know about grade schools. I enjoyed the time I lived there.

Tavares is the county seat for Lake county. It doesn't have the touristy feel at all, but is still a great little city. Nice little park downtown on the lake. City services seen okay. No idea about schools. It is about 50 minutes from the airport via rt 19 and turnpike.

Keep in mind that Florida loves toll roads, so budget for that for your daily commute to MCO

p.s. I'm originally from Ohio and still consider myself a Buckeye, hence the screen name.

Go Bucks!

[wp169]

I lived in Central Florida over 20 years ago, people avoided moving to Kissimmee because of high electric bills. I used to live in Volusia County and get caught in the middle of a drug bust when stopping in Deland (near the college) to use a public phone, the police told me to get off the phone and leave the area, I was mortified.

My friend lived in Clermont, somehow rats entered her house and caused expensive damage that insurance only partially covered, and she felt Clermont was too far out from everything so she sold it and moved to Winter Garden.

Maitland was nice when I lived there and it's near Winter Park, Lake Mary, etc.

I suggest you research the crime stats before deciding on an area in Central Florida.

[EscAlaMike]

Originally Posted by Steph876

Here's where I'm thinking:
Tavares
Maitland
Winter Springs
North Deland (*I don't know why it's different from regular 'Deland'?)
and Mount Dora

Please give me your MOST candid and honest opinions and, if you're feeling super generous, any suggestions.

I would truly appreciate it.

Tavares is a pretty normal, run of the mill town. Very livable. Mount Dora is beautiful and feels historic (in a good way) by Florida standards. It is quite touristy though, mostly other Floridians coming for the day. Will you be commuting to MCO every day? If so, Tavares/Mt Dora to MCO seems like a nightmare. I couldn't imagine doing that.

Winter Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, and Maitland are all pretty indistinguishable from each other. That's the part of metro Orlando that would be considered the most straightforward and standard suburbia. It's probably what you're looking for and where you should focus your search. Most of that area is Seminole County, so you could focus your search there.

DeLand -- and especially north DeLand -- to me is just getting too far out from MCO. If you were going to look in Volusia County, DeBary or Orange City make more sense.

[kyle19125]

OP given your criteria I would suggest Maitland. It's the most stable of the group in terms of desirability of neighborhoods and probably has the lowest crime rate. It's border proximity to Winter Park's massive amenities is a big perk as well. Traffic generally isn't bad either with the main artery (US17-92) well-traveled at rush hour, but never really to the point of standstill or stop and go traffic.

[wp169]

Originally Posted by wp169

I lived in Central Florida over 20 years ago, people avoided moving to Kissimmee because of high electric bills. I used to live in Volusia County and get caught in the middle of a drug bust when stopping in Deland (near the college) to use a public phone, the police told me to get off the phone and leave the area, I was mortified.

My friend lived in Clermont, somehow rats entered her house and caused expensive damage that insurance only partially covered, and she felt Clermont was too far out from everything so she sold it and moved to Winter Garden.

Maitland was nice when I lived there and it's near Winter Park, Lake Mary, etc.

I suggest you research the crime stats before deciding on an area in Central Florida.

One more thing, when I worked in Orlando many of my fellow workers took an extra job (and they were paid very well on their first job, almost like salaries in the Northeast) so they could afford private school for their kids, they didn't want to use the Florida public schools, so you might want to research area school systems.

[Steph876]

Thank you both! Sincerely. That's such great information!

So interesting about the electric bills in Kissimmee. We noticed property taxes and insurance were higher in Osceola county too; so it does seem like cost of living, in general, may be a little higher there.

I don't normally mind bugs and critters. Rats though? I didn't consider that. We saw rats in Davenport, and I assumed it was a one-off. The realtor showed us a house in the Solterra development, and we saw rats by the dumpsters.

Right now, I live in Brunswick, Ohio. I used the "compare cities" tool on AreaVibes hoping to narrow down my list even further. I didn't expect to find an identical city, just one that comes "close-enough". All this extra information is really helping because AreaVibes isn't that great - but it's better than nothing.

Tavares does seem to have a bit of crime for only 20k ppl. Brunswick has almost twice the population, but half the crime. Still, Tavares does better on crime than both Maitland and Mount Dora - and I think comparing Ohio to Florida is a bit 'apples to oranges'.

Maitland and Mount Dora have better schools, but we don't use the public school system, so that would only be a resale consideration down the road.

Tavares blows Mount Dora and Maitland out of the water for "Cost of Living". It even beats Brunswick. The only metric where Tavares is lagging behind is "Employment". I mostly ignore the employment scores because cities with larger populations of retirees have a statistical advantage. Retired persons aren't counted in workforce metrics; but their wealth is included in income metrics. Personally, I like living around retirees. Generally speaking, I think they're more friendly and keep an eye on the neighborhood. So for me, I use that score more like a "retiree detector" rather than an indicator of an area's economic health. I certainly wouldn't hold less retirees against a city though.

Well, thank you again. That was incredibly helpful information. Our realtor seems very optimistic about Palm Bay, but I think I'm going to ask to see some houses in Tavares too. Just in case.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by Steph876

I took the basic characteristics & demographics of the city where I currently live (in Ohio), which I love, and I tried to match those characteristics to cities in Central Florida. (i.e. livability scores, school ratings, crime statistics, amenities, etc). My reasoning was, if I can find a similar city in Florida, I should be just as happy there as I am here. Make sense?

Tavares
Maitland
Winter Springs
North Deland
and Mount Dora

The reasoning makes sense. The problem is that the demos, schools, and amenities of all of those places are quite different.

You didn't mention a budget but if you can afford a house in Maitland, you want proximity to the airport, want good schools, and want to avoid HOAs then I would look between I-4 and 436 north of the airport. Due diligence required because not every school is great and not every house is HOA free but generally, yes and the further north you go the truer it gets.

North DeLand is different from regular DeLand because, in addition to being north of DeLand, it's unincorporated Volusia County - at least for now. The City of DeLand has been annexing up there pretty aggressively. DeLand is a cool town but I wouldn't live there if you want to be to within an hour of the airport. Tavares is also very questionable in terms of a reliable 1 hour to the airport. On paper, sure, you can do it in just under an hour but as a practical matter it's unlikely. Especially DeLand because of Lake Monroe and the St. Johns River you have very limited access to points south. When there's a problem on I-4 you're looking at pretty big delays.