Best resources for rental homes? (Orlando, Kissimmee: real estate, apartment, broker)

[doxnal]

My family of five is planning to move down to Orlando in the next 60 days or so, and been wondering if there was a good, clean, local source for full lease rental properties. We've checked Craigslist which looks like it has some OK stuff, but also has a lot of junk and spam, which makes it difficult and annoying to navigate. We've checked Zillow which seems not to have much of anything for rentals. We've checked PadMapper which is mostly the same stuff as Craigslist with tons of irrelevant vacation properties mixed in.

Is there a good outlet for single-family rental properties that locals know about? Internet-accessible would be highly preferable. Looking to rent first so we can acclimate to the area before being tied down.

[kyle19125]

Trulia is a good option.

[otown native]

Try 407rentals.com, oldetownbrokers.com, or absolutrealty4u.com. They're all local property management and/or broker type services in the Central Florida area. A lot of times if you find a place you might not end up liking, you can work with the broker that showed it to see other properties they have available in the area.

[DebSchroeder]

You can also go to Realtor.com and click on the Rentals section

[FloridaNative35]

Walkscore.com has a rental section that pulls from many sources and rates based on walkability (not sure how important that is to you). The pro is that you can use it instead of checking 5-10 others, but the con is that a lot of the stuff is outdated (30% or more, based on my previous experience with it), so you'll need to check on each property to make sure it hasn't rented already.

Other than that, I'd recommend some of the sites already mentioned in this thread.

The best way to find homes is to drive around the areas you want to move to. SO many houses aren't listed online, including many of those being rented directly by owners.

Have you narrowed down your search by schools or location yet?

[VTGal]

When I was looking I did a Google search. I emailed/phoned some of the places that came up, local real estate agencies and rental agencies. What a waste of time, no one ever called or emailed me back.
Once I moved here I saw the house I wanted to rent was still empty with a "for rent" sign out front. If only they had gotten back to me, it would have been rented much sooner than it was.
If you are going to look using any kind of agency, I bet just showing up is much more effective.
Like the previous poster, I'd have the area narrowed down first otherwise looking becomes overwhelming. Driving around is a good way to find a place, I see lots of "for rent" signs as I'm driving around.
I use Apartment Hunters but wasn't looking for a house.

[doxnal]

Thanks everyone. We're looking primarily in the Windermere, Winter Garden, or Davenport areas; basically, anything family friendly within ~10 minutes of Disney World. I'm working on a contract that requires frequent attendance to Disney World and want to be in close driving proximity. Kissimmee may be possible but I'm not sure how good it is for families, and don't want to be too saturated with tourism. Checked Celebration and it's way too expensive/scarce on the available units.

I have a big family, so I'm looking for something big (4 beds min, 5+ ideal), reasonably priced ($1500-$2000/mo), safe and close to WDW, as previously mentioned. It seems that most homes in Windermere in our price range are small. Winter Garden is slightly better, but not majorly. Davenport looks like it is _way_ better as far as bang for your buck goes. It's a little bit of a further drive, but hard to pass up, and looks fairly normal.

The kicker is that we have a house hunting trip planned for next week. We've tried scheduling showings based on listings found on Trulia or property manager sites, but these often go unanswered. We are also often informed that the listing is outdated and has already been rented. Getting nervous that we won't be able to find something during our brief excursion, since I also need to do some business in the afternoons. That would be really lame, because it's quite a lot of time, money, and effort to fly out there.

[MM1923]

I am looking to move down to area soon and I found a site called Hotpads.com

[justlittleoleme]

Been there, done that (within the last 30 days). Check out InvitationHomes.com. They have a lot of houses in the area and they are professionally managed. The homes are actually CLEAN (which shouldn't be so hard to find, one would think). And they have their own maintenance staff.

[StreetSmarts]

rentals.com
realtor.com
trulia.com
zillow.com