Relocating to the Orlando area??? (Winter Springs, Oviedo: appointed, real estate, relocation company)

[CuriousCanuck]

My husband has been offered an executive position with Disney and we are considering a relocation from Toronto, Canada. We went down two weeks ago and looked at the Winter Park area since I had read on these forums that the schools were good and the town was safe. I must say, we were a little disappointed . We weren't expecting $800K homes to be situated on the same street as run-down and tired bungalows. Is this normal for all of Orlando or just Winter Park? We would prefer not to live in a gated community or in a cookie cutter suburban area. We have two young school aged children that could attend either public or private school. We are looking for an area that has professional families with children. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[**NoodLes**]

IMHO stay in Toronto. Many good neighborhoods are literally right next to ghetto neighborhoods. There are also many cookie cutter developments also. It is very bland compared to most other larger cities. I would trade cities in a heartbeat. The only good thing about Orlando is the sun. Good luck.

[blueoktober]

Moderator cut: Off Topic

You certainly didn't visit the real Winterpark or Maitland or Delaney Park or Thornton Park or Baldwin Park or Colonial Town or Heathrow or Lake Mary or Dr Phillips or Celebration or or or or...


This is getting ridiculous.

[GregTraub]

Winter Park is an area that has a great location, upscale shops (you did go down Park Ave right?) and matches your desire for good school district, no gates, but not cookie cutter. Unfortunately like you noticed the area was built up in the 20's and 50's so you are going to find some of those orignal homes mixed in with the newer custom homes as people buy the old properties, demo them and rebuild. It is still a great area very unique to Central Florida, but it's a love or hate type of area. If you didn't like Winter Park for the reasons mentioned, you won't like Delaney Park, Thornton Park or Colonial Town, Maitland likely not either, Heathrow is the definitiion of a Gated Community in Lake Mary and is getting pretty far from Disney.

Being as the job will be at or near Disney, I would suggest checking out Dr. Phillips, Windermere, Celebration, or even Lake Nona area. Unfortunately for a home to not be "cookie cutter" it will usually have to be custom built or semi-custom...and that usually means a gated community. Near downtown windermere you may find what your looking for, but your price range will determine what can be found.

In Dr. Phillips it will depend on your price range but UN-gated nice communities are Bay Hill or Venezia, the rest will be gated but worth a look.
Windermere there are too many communities to mention without a price range, but in the mid range (200K-500K) I think Lakes of Windermere and parts of Summerport are a good match. Over 500K Keene's Pointe (gated) and a myriad of others.
Celebration will be hit or miss, some think the area looks cookie cutter, others view it as quite unique.
Lake Nona has a few communities that seem to match what your looking for, like Northlake Park.

Oviedo and Winter Springs have homes that seem like perfect choices, but those area's are getting very far (almost an hour commute one way) from Disney.

[GLS2010]

Originally Posted by GregTraub

Winter Park is an area that has a great location, upscale shops (you did go down Park Ave right?) and matches your desire for good school district, no gates, but not cookie cutter. Unfortunately like you noticed the area was built up in the 20's and 50's so you are going to find some of those orignal homes mixed in with the newer custom homes as people buy the old properties, demo them and rebuild. It is still a great area very unique to Central Florida, but it's a love or hate type of area. If you didn't like Winter Park for the reasons mentioned, you won't like Delaney Park, Thornton Park or Colonial Town, Maitland likely not either, Heathrow is the definitiion of a Gated Community in Lake Mary and is getting pretty far from Disney.

Being as the job will be at or near Disney, I would suggest checking out Dr. Phillips, Windermere, Celebration, or even Lake Nona area. Unfortunately for a home to not be "cookie cutter" it will usually have to be custom built or semi-custom...and that usually means a gated community. Near downtown windermere you may find what your looking for, but your price range will determine what can be found.

In Dr. Phillips it will depend on your price range but UN-gated nice communities are Bay Hill or Venezia, the rest will be gated but worth a look.
Windermere there are too many communities to mention without a price range, but in the mid range (200K-500K) I think Lakes of Windermere and parts of Summerport are a good match. Over 500K Keene's Pointe (gated) and a myriad of others.
Celebration will be hit or miss, some think the area looks cookie cutter, others view it as quite unique.
Lake Nona has a few communities that seem to match what your looking for, like Northlake Park.

Oviedo and Winter Springs have homes that seem like perfect choices, but those area's are getting very far (almost an hour commute one way) from Disney.

its like a 30-45 min commute from the oviedo area to disney

And why do some people make it seem like gated communities are a bad thing. whats so bad about living in a gated community?

[GregTraub]

Nothing bad in my opinion, but the OP indicated they did not like them. And how do you get from Oviedo to Disney in 30 minutes?!?! I know the 417 almost never has traffic going the speed limit the whole way It'll take at least 50 minutes to get there. You MIGHT be able to make it in 45 minutes if taking the 408 to I-4 route, but only if you hit zero traffic, which just isn't going to happen. It takes me about 45 minutes to get from Waterford to Disney area (I drive it often), and it'll take a minimum extra 5-10 minutes if coming from Oviedo or Winter Springs, even speeding within reason. Taking into consideration getting to the highway and a bit of traffic once at disney off the HWY an hour is a good estimate....I wish it was closer though for CuriousCanuck's sake.

Is the executive position with Disney actually ON disney property though?

[Brasstec]

Greg is accurate. I would suggest taking a look at the Lake Nona area. There are several quality private schools in the area. My wife teaches at Lake Highland Prep - GREAT school!!!

[CuriousCanuck]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, downtown Winter Park was quite lovely with all the quaint restaurants, shops, all the churches and the university campus. That part we really liked. We also drove around Via Tuscany/Via Lugano/Isle of Sicily which were beautiful, but clearly that real estate comes with a hefty price tag and one that we are unable to afford. GregTraub's post nailed it as it is the mixture of the beautiful new homes with the old and tired original bungalows of the 1950s on the same streets that really surprised us. We'd never seen this mixture before and it doesn't really appeal to us. We did look at Baldwin Park, but that type of development doesn't appeal to us, although again the little downtown area looked nice.

We didn't look at Maitland as we were only in Orlando for 2 days, and we didn't have a real estate agent with us as the relocation company will be supplying us with one once we narrow down our search so I'm sure that is part of the issue, as well.

We didn't look at Bay Hill or Venezia in Dr. Philip's as we were told it was populated by mostly retired people and snow-birds. Is this not the case? We were also told that Windermere had lots of families, but this area is a magnet for relocations so the turn-over is very high and the ability to make longer term friendships might be difficult (we plan on staying 6-10 years to make it worth our while since we will be leaving Canada).

Perhaps we should investigate Lake Nona or even the Oveido/Winter Springs area? A 30-45 minute commute is nothing as both my husband and I commute 45 minutes on a good day each to our respective jobs. And I have heard that Lake Highland Prep is a good school so being close to it would be advantageous.

As for the gated community, our hesitation is more cultural than anything else. We don't have gated communities up here in the Great White North, or at least none that we are aware of, so moving to one would just seem very foreign. Also, I have idealistic visions of moving and still being able to walk to shops, restaurants, church, etc and being part of a larger community instead of being isolated to a particular neighbourhood. Again, we didn't visit any gated communities as I suppose we have a stereotyped image that a gated community is off in suburbia closed off to the rest of the world other than its occupants. I suppose we should actually visit a gated community before we rule out their possibilities...

Thanks for the replies and I'd like to hear what others think about the Orlando area.

[nbcattleya]

Originally Posted by CuriousCanuck

My husband has been offered an executive position with Disney and we are considering a relocation from Toronto, Canada. We went down two weeks ago and looked at the Winter Park area since I had read on these forums that the schools were good and the town was safe. I must say, we were a little disappointed . We weren't expecting $800K homes to be situated on the same street as run-down and tired bungalows. Is this normal for all of Orlando or just Winter Park? We would prefer not to live in a gated community or in a cookie cutter suburban area. We have two young school aged children that could attend either public or private school. We are looking for an area that has professional families with children. Does anyo+ne have any suggestions? Thanks.

Winter Park is expensive around the Chain of Lakes. The city of Windemere is where a lot of the Disney execs live and it's cute and quiet (not a subdivision).
I am sure you are feeling sticker shock because Canadians don't get a tax deductions on the mortgage interest, whereas Americans do get the deduction on their federal Income tax.

[cfIfan]

There are a number of great areas which are far closer to Disney which wont have the length of commute that areas like Lake Nona and Baldwin park will offer.

I would suggest getting together with your realtor and sitting down and having a chat with him in terms of what you are looking for.

To give you an example there are lake from homes which are brand new on a skiable lake with views of Disney fireworks which were multi-million dollar homes in the boom which are now listed at $865,000 offering over 5000 sq ft of living space.

Depending where you need to get to on Disney property of if your husbands offices are based in Celebration then your looking at a drive time of anywhere between 6min and 20min.

Also the offering in terms of schooling is pretty good with a good mix of public and private schools and many A rated schools.

Once again the best advice is actually get the ball rolling and talk to your realtor. Also make sure they specialize in the areas they are going to show you that way you know you are getting the best and most up to date info.

good luck

Nick