Nicest Orlando area (Sanford, Hunters Creek, Windermere: mortgage broker, tornado, insurance)

[KelsBelles]

Hi there! We are thinking of moving to Orlando. We LOVE the sunshine, love Disney, love the idea of a swimming pool ... our price range for a house is between 500,00 and 800,000 *wide range
depending on the areas.
We like a really nice, clean area (newer homes I guess you could say would be nice) and nice landscaping, of course GREAT schools (junior high and high schools) - nice shopping areas, good churches, etc. Any ideas?
Traffic is not an issue - husband would work from home but travel once in a while.
Would love to hear feedback! Thanks so much!!
Belle

[AJ67]

sounds like either Windemere or Lake Nona would be good for you...

[jujufromNice]

Originally Posted by KelsBelles

Hi there! We are thinking of moving to Orlando. We LOVE the sunshine, love Disney, love the idea of a swimming pool ... our price range for a house is between 500,00 and 800,000 *wide range
depending on the areas.
We like a really nice, clean area (newer homes I guess you could say would be nice) and nice landscaping, of course GREAT schools (junior high and high schools) - nice shopping areas, good churches, etc. Any ideas?
Traffic is not an issue - husband would work from home but travel once in a while.
Would love to hear feedback! Thanks so much!!
Belle

Hello on the north Orlando in Sanford Astor farms you can find some very beautiful house around 500.000 and 800.000 $ have a look in this area i have bought my house around 550.000 $ 3100 SFt .
Bye.

[loansinflorida]

Just bought a home in Lake Nona. The area is pretty vacant now but there are many things planned for the area: UCF medical school, VA hospital, Children's hospital, and many other projects. If you need a realtor, let me know I am a mortgage broker and work with many realtors in the area.

[leaving-orlando]

Also a big Disney fan and now moving back north after living here for nearly three years. Just wanted to mention that Disney is not the same to visit as a day-tripper vs coming down here for vacation. It loses a lot of the "total immersion magic" feeling. That's not to say that we didn't enjoy visiting the parks, but to be honest, the longer we've been down here the less we get over there. We're only about 20 minutes from Downtown Disney.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you really, really want to get an outstanding deal on any home you buy here in the next year. Prices are still dropping and once we hit bottom, homes aren't likely to appreciate anywhere near the rate that they have in the past five years.

As for decent areas to live.....I'd look in Windermere if I was you. Close to Disney (if that's high on your list), and lots of new neighborhoods out there where builders are dropping prices/offering incentives like crazy to unload their very high inventory.

We're leaving due to the very high crime in the area that is now spilling over into the nicer areas. We just got to the point where enough was enough. Lots of break-ins and far too much random violent crime in shopping/business areas for our taste. We feel relatively safe in our home, but won't go out in our community at night due to the crime. It's just insane.

Keep in mind that living in Florida is not like vacationing in Florida. Soon after you live here the "newness/excitement" of being here wears off and it simply becomes the place where you happen to live. For us, at first, it was great, and exciting and we loved the weather....all that good stuff. But soon the bad (crazy crime rate, escalating cost of living and so on) started to outweigh the good. And so we made the decision to head back north.

[CalisterKaley]

Originally Posted by KelsBelles

Hi there! We are thinking of moving to Orlando. We LOVE the sunshine, love Disney, love the idea of a swimming pool ... our price range for a house is between 500,00 and 800,000 *wide range
depending on the areas.
We like a really nice, clean area (newer homes I guess you could say would be nice) and nice landscaping, of course GREAT schools (junior high and high schools) - nice shopping areas, good churches, etc. Any ideas?
Traffic is not an issue - husband would work from home but travel once in a while.
Would love to hear feedback! Thanks so much!!
Belle

@ $800k you can get a dream house well NO almost a dream house well much better than most - i mean most people in c.fla get houses for $260k in deplorable 'hoods you @ $800k will live in a great place

now have you added the home insurance/car insurance costs it is very high here much higher than you think - can you even GET insurance?

good church is first baptist church of orlando on john young pwky - it is a excellent church i love it

things to buy for your new house: propane generator $5k so you can have a/c running after the hurricanes - alarm system (get the best you can you WILL need it) - noaa radio for tornado updates - storm shutters for all windows for storms and hurricanes - MRE military quality food supplies for hurricane times (and they taste good too and last 10 years if out of fun) - gun when burglar or rapist breaks in and you need to protect yourself - lots of batteries - change/upgrade roof for hurricanes in 2007 which are going to be bad as it will be hottest year in record

where to live - windermere or lake mary/heathrow

[NO1LKME]

My family just moved from AL to FL last July. We moved to Olde Windermere. VERY VERY nice area. Great Schools and beautiful area.

Good luck. It is all worth it.

[arctanx]

Yes, Windermere is very nice, and a great location.

[WCFORME]

Try looking in Hunters Creek area - lots of beautiful homes, great new restaurants and shops and somewhat faraway from the worst crime areas.

[Pigsty333]

I love where I am - close to everything, 7 miles from the airport. We are getting a new high school in 2009, elementary opens in 2007 (August), you can buy a huge house (there are still building new ones here. Check out www.ryland.com and www.lennarhomes.com and look at the North Shore at Lake Hart community. In Sparrow Landing they are still building new homes. The house behind me is 2747 sq. ft. 6 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a pool (2 car garage) for sale for $399,000. This is in a gated, golf course community. We have 1049 homes in our community.

Check it out.