What is the availability of rental homes? (Orlando, Winter Park: real estate market, apartments)

[Parrotrosie]

Are there many homes for rent in the Lake Mary, Oveido, Winter Park area? I updated my original thread to indicate that the hubby is going to interview with the company in Winter Park the week of the 20th and we should be making a decision shortly thereafter....so..the wheels are turning in my head and it is ready to explode!

How am I going to put a down payment on a house there...until I sell my house here? At least not a downpayemnt that will make much difference....so we were wondering...maybe we can rent a house for six months or so...make sure we like the area,...etc.

What do the prospects look like for that? I only have one child, but my husband's mom lives with us, so we need at least three bedrooms and I would prefer four....

[hgebel]

There are a LOT of rental homes down here, and the rents are very favorable. Check http://orlando.craigslist.org/apa/ for an idea of what's available, and be sure to pick up some papers while your husband is interviewing down here.

-Harry

[Parrotrosie]

Have I been on Craigslist for three days??? Yes... Have I looked at rentals???duhhhh...NO!!! LOL...Thanks!


Great Idea about the papers as well...thanks!

[aneftp]

Originally Posted by Parrotrosie

Are there many homes for rent in the Lake Mary, Oveido, Winter Park area? I updated my original thread to indicate that the hubby is going to interview with the company in Winter Park the week of the 20th and we should be making a decision shortly thereafter....so..the wheels are turning in my head and it is ready to explode!

How am I going to put a down payment on a house there...until I sell my house here? At least not a downpayemnt that will make much difference....so we were wondering...maybe we can rent a house for six months or so...make sure we like the area,...etc.

What do the prospects look like for that? I only have one child, but my husband's mom lives with us, so we need at least three bedrooms and I would prefer four....

Be very careful about private party rental properties down in the Orlando area. I do not know your living situation/kids. But 2 of my colleagues who had been renting single family houses have been kicked out because the landlords have had the homes foreclosed on them. One of them got back from vacation 2 weeks ago and than realize the house was a bank foreclosure noticed and a lock on the door. He called the bank and they told him he had 48 hours to get his personal belongings out.

Make sure if you sign from a private party to have a clause in case of foreclosure.

As for us (we are from the DC area), we are in the same situation. We have decided to rent out our home in Maryland and move into a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Lake Mary.

[Parrotrosie]

oh...that is a very good point...in fact we had friends here that had just moved into a house that got foreclosed on in very short order and had little time to vacate. I guess one would want to go through a real estate agent or property rental companies to avoid such issues?

[PrettyMissAshley]

Originally Posted by aneftp

Be very careful about private party rental properties down in the Orlando area. I do not know your living situation/kids. But 2 of my colleagues who had been renting single family houses have been kicked out because the landlords have had the homes foreclosed on them. One of them got back from vacation 2 weeks ago and than realize the house was a bank foreclosure noticed and a lock on the door. He called the bank and they told him he had 48 hours to get his personal belongings out.

Make sure if you sign from a private party to have a clause in case of foreclosure.

As for us (we are from the DC area), we are in the same situation. We have decided to rent out our home in Maryland and move into a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Lake Mary.

Ditto...same thing happened to me, but it was in South Florida. Alotttta lotta homes being foreclosed, beware of privately owned rentals. While Orlando is great for having a good quantity of large single-family homes for rent, unfortunately due to the real estate market, you will want to be very careful and take into consideration a clause as the previous poster mentioned.

You might want to consider renting a 3BR 2BA apartment if you're only going to be renting for 6-months or so. Just do your research before you rent from a community. Apartment Ratings - Apartments for Rent with Ratings and Reviews from Actual Renters is a good website. Arbors at Lee Vista was a great community, I used to live there. It is near the Airport though, which is about 20mins south of Winter Park.

[hgebel]

Originally Posted by Parrotrosie

oh...that is a very good point...in fact we had friends here that had just moved into a house that got foreclosed on in very short order and had little time to vacate. I guess one would want to go through a real estate agent or property rental companies to avoid such issues?

Don't count on that, most homes you would rent through a real estate agent are privately owned, and homes managed by a property management company are often privately owned as well. In any case, while this is a very real possibility right now, I doubt a privately owned home is more likely to have this happen to it than an apartment building. Search on Google News and you will find tons of recent examples of apartment buildings being foreclosed and the tenants all evicted. If anything this may be more likely in an apartment as I suspect that many real estate investment companies are even more over-extended than many private landlords. In todays financial environment I think the increased risk of foreclosure-related eviction is just something that must be lived with whether you are renting a home or apartment and whoever you are renting it from. As the last several poster suggested, plan accordingly.

-Harry

[Parrotrosie]

What would such a 'clause in case of foreclosure' look like? I am wondering how such a clause could supercede any foreclosure procedings or would be legal or binding anyway? Now I am a little nervous about this thought...I am glad I posted this question....

[ko1212]

Try www.vrbo.com. I have a few friends renting out their Orlando homes on this site and have been very successful. You can locate short term, long term or vacation weekly rentals.

[hgebel]

Originally Posted by Parrotrosie

What would such a 'clause in case of foreclosure' look like? I am wondering how such a clause could supercede any foreclosure procedings or would be legal or binding anyway? Now I am a little nervous about this thought...I am glad I posted this question....

I'm assuming they are talking about a clause specifying that the landlord is responsible for paying the mortgage; this will allow you to break the lease if he doesn't and get out with your security deposit before the eviction happens (assuming the landlord still has the money which is likely not the case since the house is going into foreclosure). You can't put a clause in the lease saying you can't be evicted because the mortgage predates the lease and therefore overrides whatever the lease contains. (In the rare cases where the lease is older than the mortgage the lease takes precedence and you can stay to the end of the lease regardless of whether such a clause is in the lease.)

According to Florida law the bank has to notify the tenant the foreclosure proceedings at the same time as the landlord, therefore giving the tenant at least several months notice of impending conviction. Unfortunately, banks frequently do not do this. If they don't the tenant can ask the judge in charge of the foreclosure to delay the proceedings because they were not notified. Illinois has the same law about notifying the tenants and so few banks actually do that the Cook County Sheriff has stopped serving eviction notices until the banks prove they provided proper notification. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any sheriffs down here doing that, but you can still go to the judge and have things delayed. That is why it is so important when you are a renter to be familiar with tenant law in your state. Really, it was always important but the current situation is making people more aware of the situation.

I think renting is a much better option right now than buying, but you must be very careful to know your rights.

On a side note, I have seen several home rentals recently with good prices in nice areas that were advertised with short term leases because they were going into foreclosure. The advertisements specifically said the lease was only for a few months (the number varied) because the house was going to be foreclosed on. So a person who needed a short-term lease could actually profit from a landlord being foreclosed on. But they would have to make sure that they were renting from the actual owner, there have been several scams lately were people rented out empty homes that they did not own! Needless to say, that resulted in the person who thought they were renting the home being quickly evicted with the supposed landlord nowhere to be found.

-Harry