moving to the orlando area

[Daphne]

Hi,
I was wondering has anyone moved to the orlando area to work for disney.
What city did you move to ?
What area would good for families with school age children.
what area has less crime etc.
any info would be great!
thanks

 

[PatriciaH]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/florida/

 

[Art 1]

North of the city is good. Maitland, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs. Avoid the west side of town, Pine Hills and the East side of Orange County.

 

[Metro West]

If you're going to work for Disney you should be looking in the areas closer to Disney. Places like Clermont, Kissimmee, Davenport and southern Orlando like the Hunter's Creek and maybe even the Williamsburg area near Sea World.

Are you going to rent or buy? The house prices have really come down so there's plenty out there for just about any budget.

 

[kimmar067]

...wow, how cool is that?? Good luck....

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

Working for Disney in what capacity? Disney is NOT a source of good income on a general basis. If you have a tip paying job, you may do better. If you are going to be in a managerial or imagineering position, it would be a better salary than those thousands of CMs that keep everything moving smoothly and produce the daily magic.

In many rental communities there is a discount for Disney workers, but that should alert you to the cost of monthly rent.

How far do you want to drive each day to work? Determine that, and then determine how much patience you have for bumper to bumper traffic BEFORE you decide where you are going to live.

There are a number of areas to avoid like Pine Hills and Orlo Vista, and some areas of downtown Orlando (west of Division street). I'd be very cautious about living on or near the OBT, and some areas closer to Osceola County. Kissimmee has some really rough neighborhoods. Do a police report check before you decide on where to live.

If you have school age children, check on the school rating. You'll want your children in an A school (and that will generally come along with higher cost of living areas). Remember, that just because you want your child to attend a particular school, you may not get that opportunity.

Be very careful about your choices. Be very certain about your income.

 

[lori1043]

I do not know if you saw my thread, but I am moving there next month- january 28th to be exact and we are still looking for temp furnished housing in a non scary area. I homeschool but DO care about what school district we are in.

I may be looking for the impossible but we are looking for not only a decent school district(neighborhood kids, resale), but a low crime area, which, from reading city data- there is none in the Orlando area- which I simply find hard to believe.
I am from the New Orleans area and although there has been more gang/crime activity since Katrina downtown, there are still awesome areas all over to live here. I have friends from all over the NOLA area and we all live in non scary non gang-y areas. I LOVE it here- even though it is HOME , ir is more than sentimental charm.

I would love Clermont. But we do not have to commute- we can live almost anywhere. Even though the housing is more affordable , maybe to people living in expensive housing areas of the US, I find them high, PLUS the taxes. The housing there is similar to the area I live in but our property taxes are dirt cheap- but then we have state taxes. So, at home(here) I can afford a $200000 home, but add $300 a month if you live in the Orlando area, it seems. So then that bumps us down in hous price.

We are looking at Clermont(north), Mount Dora(further but seems to be less traffic on way to Disney- yes, I would love to be close to Disney, but not at quality of house or family life expense. We may even check out Lakeland and St Cloud.

We are having a very hard time narrowing down areas. We live about 40 miles north of New Orleans in a busy, growing community- but small towns trying to stay small are all around us. Covington, Abita Springs(yes, the beer place) and Mandeville surround us. We live in an ultra safe area over all. It's almost taken for granted in the Mandeville area, IMHO. But there ARE affordable homes here- esp in Covington, Madisonville and Abita. Where I live is a lot of smaller homes(1200-1600sf) and we MAY be considered less safe than Mandeville, but we have never had any problems or seen any in the 10 years we have been here. never.

To have that same feel, in a Florida type way, would be perfect for us.

I will be keeping up with this one as we are getting that desperate feeling.

I have the thread that is about a homeschooler moving to orlando- but it is mostly about wanting info on an area.

The DIS search engine, since it is not the little blue doggy any more, really is NO help at all.

Lori

 

[Art 1]

Mt. Dora is a nice town but to out of the way for my liking. St. Cloud has many many empty houses, unfinished sub-divisions for that matter. It was a cow pasture not long ago, grew up very fast then the market fell.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

My cousin works for Disney in a salaried corporate capacity (marketing). She lives off of 417 off of John Young Parkway I believe. Very nice area.

My brother also works for Disney. He was near the airport, but will be moving to Clermont. He works in Celebration.


And someone mentioned something about schools and that your children may not have the opportunity to attend them, if Orlando is anything like Brevard, district lines seem to always be redrawn. So just b/c you move to an area for a particular school, sometimes the county pulls the rug out from under you.

 

[safetymom]

Polk County. Some parts are only 12 miles to the parks.

 

[PatriciaH]

I think Winter Park, Windemere and Celebration would be my top choices at this point. They are all pretty pricey still but have dropped a bit. Taxes are high in all of those areas. Mount Dora is far, surrounded by not so nice areas and looked to be dying a bit the last time we were there in the fall. There were many stores and restaurants that had closed. It also seemed like many older people in that town. The crime is pretty bad here so you want to be in a nicer area. Hunters Creek and Clermont got very buit up and the traffic is bad to WDW.

 

[lucigo]

I wanted to pop in on this thread and say hi and what you have found out about school districts? My husband is going down on the 4th for 2 job interviews, he is a middle school teacher. One is in Umatilla and the other over close to the airport.

If he gets a job he will go by himself and we will join him over the summer. I'm nervous!! My older daughter is doing virtual school, but my 1st grader has autism and I'm going to really have to do my homework. Any input would be appreciated

 

[lori1043]

Hi- Here I am in Clermont. I had all those questions earlier too- like within the past 2 weeks!

We found temp housing till we have a home bought. It is in a touristy area, but it is in the safest one I could find. Check out this website for help in the crime dept: www.crimespot.com

The market down here is pretty beaten up and we are bidding on 2 foreclosures that sold in 2005(both of these) for $350000 and we are looking at hopefully getting one of them for about $170000. We went to Clermont, never visited anywhere else b/c OMGoodness it is gorgeous here. Hills hills hills! Being from south Louisiana, this is completely wonderfully cool! Clermont is new feeling and looking. new target, walmart- meaning in last 5 years or so. there is a decent amount of upgrading going on to highways in this area, but it doesn't seem to be too bad.

Our agent is wonderful, lives here and even moved here from her home in Windermere.

I have read good things about the Umatilla schools.
here is a very coool site about thier schools. It is for Florida in general, but just weedle it down by county, or grade, or anyway you want:

http://www.schooldigger.com/go/FL/s...exp=LEANAME&sortdir=a&col=254844&findletter=P

I can help more later- gotta go!

Lori

 

[lucigo]

We found out today my husband was offered the job at the middle school by the airport. Wow!! He will be going down on his own to start work and we will join him later, so at this point I'm on craigslist trying to find him a room to rent CHEAP! LOL

Before he goes to accept the job Monday he is stopping in Clermont to interview for an elementary school there, and also has an interview in Mt. Dora on Tuesday...its raining interviews, but its sure nice to know he has one in the bag!!

 

[lori1043]

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! great news!

We are under contract for a home in Clermont. It gets inspected next week. It's a foreclosure, so basically this tells us if it is something that we can afford to fix up. From what we have seen, it is - but inspectors are much more specific!

I'll let you know!

Good luck finding an apt for your hubby, I hope the whole things goes smoothly.

Lori

 

[lucigo]

Hope the house works out smoothly for you! Can't wait til we can start looking at houses

 

[mickeysaver]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/florida/

Thank you for that link!

 

[Micca]

How about an update from those recently transplanted? Would love to hear how it's going & how things have worked out.

 

[lucigo]

My husband ended up getting a teaching job here so we didn't have to move, which was a good thing since we had zero interest regarding selling our house. My oldest DD did move and is going to UCF. So far she likes it ok, getting used to there being so many people and yet no jobs and no friends yet. She will get there.