Advice on buying a condo in Orlando area?

[LindaLou]

Love the podcasts, especially listening to them on my long commute to work. Being a lover of all things Disney, as well as Sea World. We are thinking of buying a condo in the central Florida area, for vacation use by us and our extended family. Not really interested in renting it out. We don't really know anything about what areas would be good to buy and of what areas we should steer clear. If anyone could either post or send me a message if they can guide us in the direction of someone to contact to start our search, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Linda

 

[OKW Lover]

Sorry, wrong thread...

 

[OKW Lover]

OK, here's my real reply to this question.

We've been contemplating a move to the WDW area in the next year or two so we have given this some thought. We've also driven around checking out some of the areas. But our goal is a bit different than yours so these observations might not help.

• We don't want to be in the heavy tourist area, but do want to be relatively close to WDW. We figure the tourist areas will have a lot of traffic, and generally higher prices in the stores.
  
• We want to avoid areas that have a lot of properties that are on short-term leases. You'll get new neighbors every week, some of which will be obnoxious.

You may want to think about those issues and they will help narrow down your search area.

 

[LindaLou]

Thanks OKW Lover,
How do you find out what are the heavy tourist areas? Is this from experiences or are you working with a Realtor? Any websites in particular to start looking while at home?
Thanks

 

[CastawayJP]

I'll be watching this thread. We are seriously considering a condo purchase in the next two years. We will use it for when we are home in the states in between overseas assignments, and vacation. We'll also let friends and family use it whhile we are overseas. We are planning on buying in Celebration, mostly to be close to WDW and because we are fans of a community, even if that comes with strict HOA's.

 

[OKW Lover]

Thanks OKW Lover,
How do you find out what are the heavy tourist areas? Is this from experiences or are you working with a Realtor? Any websites in particular to start looking while at home?
Thanks

We've been to WDW so many times that we kind of know the tourist area. Basically, Kissimmee and to a lesser extent St. Cloud, both of which are south and mostly to the east of WDW. Also the area around Lake Buena Vista (where Hotel Plaza Blvd meets 535 is pretty much all tourists until you get further north on 535.

 

[FloridaDreaming]

DF and I are looking to move to Florida in the next year or two after our wedding. I've been mapping outlying Orlando areas and researching the towns online. And have lurked on some Florida resident Disers past threads...