Looking to buy a house in the Orlando area

Hey Rob, I missed you on Facebook yesterday with the where to buy question. We are looking to get a vacation home down there and I was wondering about areas. We are more Disney than Universal, so traveling a bit to Universal isn't that big of a deal.

Whats your opinion of northern Davenport? It's about 20-30 to Disney and it seems affordable. I was also looking at areas of Kissimmee, but areas close to the park are a bit pricey, the eastern part is more affordable but it seems like a long hall to get to the parks.

We want to start narrowing down areas to look at on our next visit. It's easy to pick places on a map and see homes that look good, but without really knowing an area it's a pretty big gamble. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I will respond more to this later, but I'm not a fan of Davenport. I know a lot of people have found great deals out there, and there are some really nice houses. But....

If you're looking for the "Orlando experience" that's not in Davenport. When we moved to Orlando, keeping in mind it wasn't for a vacation home, but a "home home" we wanted to be right in the heart of everything. We are less than 10 minutes away from all the different park properties and minutes away from everything else (I-Drive, 192, etc...)

To me, Davenport is the "cheap way" of doing Orlando, and at the end of the day, you might end up with a nice house there, but when you come back from the parks or are doing something on a non-park day, you're in Davenport which doesn't have that much to offer.

I would look more into the Kissimmee area for some of those vacation homes, especially if you end up buying one and then renting it out for the times you're not here. They are more expensive, but I think the trade-off is worth it. There are some GREAT companies (All Star Rentals, etc) that can also help you...

For the couple of years that I lived in Orlando my biggest regret was not being closer to the attractions area. We had an apartment in Altamonte which was only about 25-30 miles away from Disney property but even there it still felt like we so far away from the "attractions" that we didn't enjoy the area the way we would have liked. Traffic in Orlando at different times of the day can turn a 30 minute drive into an hour plus drive which makes it pretty frustrating to just drop in and hang out for a little while. I think traffic has gotten better in the past couple years but I'd suggest finding something as close to the attractions as you can afford if the attractions are what you're really interested in.

Thanks for the advise. Taking that in to consideration, what areas around property would you suggest looking? I know Kissimmee is east, and I am fairly familiar with that area, what about the other directions, any areas to avoid?

I would avoid Metro West and the area around Millennia. Dr. Philips, Williamsburg, Windermere, and the areas around those are pretty nice.

If you look up the Formosa Gardens area it's pretty much exclusive vacation homes and good location for parks, restaurants, touristy stuff.