Moving to be near the mouse.

Our HOA fee us about $100/mo and includes cable and internet. We have a separate HOA fee ($200/mo) for the townhouse to cover painting, roofing, pest control and landscaping.

So if I understand you, it’s $100 monthly for Independence and an additional 200 for the townhouse. is that right?
 
Bluejasmine thanks for the info on Mt Dora. I don’t think I’d like living there either, but it sounds like fun to visit.
 
I've lived in Windermere for 14 years. Yes, there are many high dollar homes here. You can also find homes in the $200 - 300k range. It is a great place to live. Very near Disney, yet you wouldn't know it. It is just not a place tourists tend to seek out (unlike Celebration). The area is growing rapidly. Houses and apartments are going up like crazy. It was fairly rural when I moved here. Not any more.

I can see the fireworks over Magic Kingdom every night. Ten minutes to Disney property. About 15 minutes to Universal or Sea World.

On the not so great side, traffic is getting worse with all the new people flocking to Orlando. Infrastructure cannot keep up. Not enough schools. Wages in the area are low. Prices for just about everything else are high.

Other areas to check out are Winter Garden, Ocoee, Gotha and Clermont. All within 30 minutes of Disney.
 


We found even most of the restaurants were crazy expensive with the exception of a couple places that we ended up frequenting bc the others were Disney priced. I am in SC and everything from real estate, property rental, car registration, gas and groceries were much much cheaper than living in Mt Dora, we have plenty to do that isn't an hour or more away without paying tolls. It was just an all around bad experience.. To register my husbands 2004 vehicle that was paid off in 2010 we had to pay right under $500 when I came home and re registered it here it was $60 for license plate and $60a yr property tax..
Well see now you are talking about moving to Florida in general. I agree with you. It's interesting reading the move to Orlando threads. People have no idea what they are getting into. To move to Orlando to go to Disney more often is not a very good idea.
 
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My goal is not to move closer to Disney. My goal is to move out of CT. I’ve had it with the cold grey winters and the snow. Taxes on my house alone are over 9k a year. So I want to move south. It came down to FL or SC. FL won. Then it was down to beach vs Mickey. Mickey won. And here we are.
Thanks everyone for all the information. I really appreciate it!
 


I drive every day on i4 when I'm in town for a long long long time and have never heard that reference. We consider the back roads to New Smyrna and Daytona as much more dangerous.
We lived there for 18 years, and at my work and our friends that was what we knew it as. As a matter of fact I-4 was just named the most dangerous highway in America, with the worst section being between Lakeland and Orlando:scared1: Yes, I know exactly the road you're talking about to Smyrna, and that is bad because it has a lot of head on crashes that happen on that road.
 
We lived there for 18 years, and at my work and our friends that was what we knew it as. As a matter of fact I-4 was just named the most dangerous highway in America, with the worst section being between Lakeland and Orlando:scared1: Yes, I know exactly the road you're talking about to Smyrna, and that is bad because it has a lot of head on crashes that happen on that road.
Yes it's young people speeding to the beach. I had a friend killed on it a few years ago.
 
So if I understand you, it’s $100 monthly for Independence and an additional 200 for the townhouse. is that right?

Yes. If you rent an apartment there is, obviously, no HOA fee, if you buy a house you pay just the general HOA fee (they do vary a bit) and if you buy a townhouse you pay a Townhomes fee.
 
We live in Sanford and love it - everything you need is here in this pretty community next to Lake Monroe, and about 45 min to Disney (now we have the 429 just before you get into Mount Dora off the 46- it's a toll road, but newly opened and you avoid the I4, takes you right onto Disney property, love it!). Historical downtown area with tons of cute shops and local restaurants, and then a more commercial area with tons of chain restaurants, shopping, etc.
 

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