Would like to move to Florida (Orlando, Kissimmee: insurance, loan, how much)

[bozilla]

Looking to retire and move some where warm and close to the ocean. Thought about central Florida area Orlando,Kissimmee,Lake Mary some where in that central area. How safe are you when the Hurricanes come thru and what about flooding. How expensive is the housing insurance and the real-estate tax also would like to know about utilities,how expensive are they. If not the central area what area of Florida would be good. Thanks

[cfIfan]

Hi there, well this is a difficult question to answer and the reasons for this are that property taxes will vary from area to area, and also utility bills will vary from home to home. An older home is not going to be as econimical to run as a new home, and without knowing what size of home you would be looking for makes this impossible to answer.

In terms of protection from Hurricanes, being in the Central area does offer alot of protection, and also homes now a days are built with concrete blocks to the second level with strap downs as the industry standard. Now if a tree falls on your house then this is something else, but in terms of the standard, it is now very high.

Nick

Originally Posted by bozilla

Looking to retire and move some where warm and close to the ocean. Thought about central Florida area Orlando,Kissimmee,Lake Mary some where in that central area. How safe are you when the Hurricanes come thru and what about flooding. How expensive is the housing insurance and the real-estate tax also would like to know about utilities,how expensive are they. If not the central area what area of Florida would be good. Thanks

[thecoles]

The interior areas like Lake Mary area & Kissimmee usually do o.k. during hurricanes. The key is to check the flood zones of the homes you are looking at. Obviously, coastal areas need to watch out for storm surge.

[GregTraub]

Hurricanes - Not usually a problem as far inland, usually the storms loose quite a bit of strength by the time any eye hits. The only worry with hurricane's I have here is with flooding. Lots of rain can cause very damaging flooding in low lying area's.

Taxes - Obviously will vary from property to property but in general tax rates are between 1.6-2% of the value of the house. Taxes can go up and down from year to year and with every sale....with taxable value usually being a year or two behind the true value. Lots of homes now may seem like they have high taxes now but are set to adjust significantly downward next year (my own home has had it's tax bill decreased over $1500/yr....almost 1/2 the original). View my blog on taxes here on City-Data.

Insurance - this will vary greatly for every property, your basic insurance I usually estimate at 1/2% of the value of the house purchase, but it can go higher depending on age, features, location and how much additional insurance you will want above the bare minimum needed for a loan. Best bet is to call an insurance agent on that.

Utilities will vary way to much to generalize. A friend living in a much older 2 br home in College Park regularlypays 400+/mo for electric and water. I pay under $200/mo for a newer, 2 br townhome sometimes under $150 for the same.

[Practice]

Hurricanes aren't usually a big problem inland here in places like Orlando. The speed of the wind slows down greatly once the hurricane makes landfall, and being about 50 miles inland, the hurricane decreases in intensity quite a bit by the time it gets to us. Even when we had the 3 big hurricanes come through a few years ago, Orlando didn't get hit too bad.

Flooding is going to be an issue you'll want to address when looking at a particular house - not really the region. Check that there's good water runoff, check that you're not in a dip or the bottom of a slope, and you should be fine.