Looking to buy and hold in Orlando, FL

[Jupshy Jasmin]

The Miami housing market is really inflated. Therefore, I started looking in the Orlando market. I don't know much about Orlando's market except that it is a fast and growing city. Anybody in Orlando care to share your experience, rent market, and vacancy rate in Orlando? I would appreciate it. I am looking to buy and hold multi-family properties. 

[Russell Holmes]

@Jupshy Jasmin Don't limit your search to just Orlando Proper.  There are some really high prices in the most desirable neighborhoods in Orlando (Dubs Dread, College Park, etc).  There are definitely investors making money in those areas from flips and buy and holds, maybe some will chime in here with their strategies.  From what I've seen, the market rents in the high priced Orlando areas don't exceed surrounding areas to the extent that prices do.  Instead of focusing on Orlando, look to the outskirts of Orlando where all of the growth is happening: Apopka, Lake Nona, Winter Garden, Oviedo.  

I'm in Apopka, which is Northwest of Orlando by about 20-30 mins but within easy commute of anywhere in the "Orlando Area" thanks to direct toll road access in town. From 1990 to current day, Apopka has exploded from somewhere around 15,000 people to over 50,000, and builders are selling new houses as fast as they can build them. I know in my area, prices have appreciated rapidly, but are still much behind Orlando Proper. A distressed 3/2 house may go for $180-200k in College park, with ARV somewhere in the $400's. Rent for that house when complete might be about $1700. The same exact distressed house built in the same year in Apopka would sell somewhere in the $80-100k range with ARV in the $180-220k range. Same house, nearly double the value in Orlando (likely easier to turn a flip profit since these hypothetical identical rehabs would cost the same to your contractor in either place). However, in Apopka, you could easily rent that rehabbed house for $1550-1650 compared to $1700 for the one worth twice as much in Orlando.

Those are all approximate numbers not based on two specific properties, but rather characteristic of properties I have been analyzing.  I'm more familiar with Apopka than other Orlando Suburbs, but I would bet the same type higher rent to price situation exists in the growing edges of the "Orlando Sprawl" on all sides.