I'm looking for an investment property in Orlando. I'd be a remote owner and not familiar with the various neighborhoods. Can anyone guide me to neighborhoods with the best dollar value for rent vs purchase price so I can start researching for possible opportunities. Orlando is so big with a lot of neighborhoods, I'm spending hours and not really getting anywhere. I need some help narrowing it down.
Rental Property Investor · Champions Gate, FL · Member since 2019 · 69 posts · 24 votes
6y
Hey mark, good to hear from you.
I have 2 properties in kissimmee and one in champions gate. I like this zip codes. 34741-34744-33896-33897 I also look over at the St. Cloud area we are also building a 10 Houses like 45 min from kissimme with a 14-16% ROI.
Let me know if I can help you with something. I don’t mind go look at property for you if you need
I'm looking for an investment property in Orlando. I'd be a remote owner and not familiar with the various neighborhoods. Can anyone guide me to neighborhoods with the best dollar value for rent vs purchase price so I can start researching for possible opportunities. Orlando is so big with a lot of neighborhoods, I'm spending hours and not really getting anywhere. I need some help narrowing it down.
Hey Mark, welcome to the market. What have you been finding in your research about the Orlando market in general? I am an investor in south Orlando. I own rentals in the Kissimmee, Championsgate FL areas, and my rentals do great, even in this COVID Market I have had 0% vacancy. I primarily focus on cash flow, and I tend to leave a decent amount of money in my deals.
Rental Property Investor · Champions Gate, FL · Member since 2019 · 69 posts · 24 votes
6y
Hey mark, good to hear from you.
I have 2 properties in kissimmee and one in champions gate. I like this zip codes. 34741-34744-33896-33897 I also look over at the St. Cloud area we are also building a 10 Houses like 45 min from kissimme with a 14-16% ROI.
Let me know if I can help you with something. I don’t mind go look at property for you if you need
@Matt Nico and @Ruben Correa I have been investigating Orlando in general and outlying towns like Winter Garden. Only thing I can find in Winter Garden are homes in, what appears to be, really bad areas. The agent is telling me he never sees rent below 1650 in Winter Garden. I find it hard to believe someone is going to be paying that amount of rent in the area he showed me.
Then for Orlando, I don't know neighborhoods or zipcodes. I just search Zillow and Realtor.com for homes. When I see something that looks ok, I start trying to compare rents. Rents, from what I can see in Orlando, are between $1200-1500. With 20% down, depending on how new the home is and HOA, if I can get a 1-2% CoC I'm lucky.
It seems like Orlando, might have better appreciation and rents than towns like Kissimmee. Pulling the trigger on my 1st one has to be a good one so I don't get scared away.@Ruben Correa
Rental Property Investor · Champions Gate, FL · Member since 2019 · 69 posts · 24 votes
6y
Winter garden has good areas and bad areas. In good areas rents are around $1400 -$1800 on 3-2 house. Which it's good for the investor. Higher rent more ROI. Of course everything depend on the Downpayment and also the prices on the house. there are some areas where the HOA. And the CDD are higher.
@Matt Nico and @Ruben Correa - Sorry to hijack the thread - I was looking at Orlando as well but got scared off because I feel that the city is too reliant on tourism. One question that I have is, do you know which sector of the economy do your tenants work in? Is there enough diversification in the Orlando job market?
Rental Property Investor · Champions Gate, FL · Member since 2019 · 69 posts · 24 votes
6y
@CO Yilmaz
Yes, there is a lot different work area. But tourist it’s the most important revenue for everybody here. Hotels - restaurant etc. But the only thing that has stopped tourist to come it’s covid-19. Besides that the city and the state it’s growing.
Honestly, I dont really care much about diversification. When you have a global powerhouse like Disney around, it breaks the trend of having to diversify. 90% of my tenants are theme park workers. They are all great people, and even through covid i have not had 1 vacancy and only 1 rent defer.
Amazon just opened a packaging warehouse, theres a gatorade factory, and construction in the Central Florida area is booming, so no shortage of tenants.
Real Estate Agent · Orlando, FL · Member since 2018 · 53 posts · 26 votes
6y
Hello all. I and my wife are California based investors also looking to buy in the southern Florida area. We were angling at Orlando, but nervous that there would be job losses and tourism drop due to COVID. Good to hear that has not been the case. Do you all have advice for any good property managers in the area? Also who are you all using as lenders?
Hello all. I and my wife are California based investors also looking to buy in the southern Florida area. We were angling at Orlando, but nervous that there would be job losses and tourism drop due to COVID. Good to hear that has not been the case. Do you all have advice for any good property managers in the area? Also who are you all using as lenders?
Hey John,
There has been a huge drop off in the Tourism area in Orlando, but that doesn't mean that people are moving out of the state, and its pretty obvious its temporary. I don't airBNB any of my rentals so I don't have any tenants that are tourists anyway. For m personally, I have not really been affected. And this whole black swan COVID thing will pass, and things should start getting back to normal by August or so.
I do property management as well, and what I can tell you is that I have lowered all of my tenants rents slightly while this whole COVID thing has happened. I did it to try to help my tenants out a bit, and they were very happy that I even cared about them at all.
Lenders are a bit more difficult in todays market, but I am talking to a handful of local ones in the Central Florida area who seem very confident good loan programs with good loan terms will be coming back soon. The conversations I had were from a week and a half ago also, so its possible they already are.
Property Manager · DeLand FL · Member since 2012 · 860 posts · 243 votes
6y
We have a couple clients in the Kissimmee and St Cloud area, I love both those spots. Both are long term tenants and while Yes, Orlando and surrounding areas are very touristy, but all the tourism needs workers and housing so you dont have to base it upon tourist or seasonal rental alone. Two of ours are employed in the airlines.
Investor · Orlando, FL · Member since 2017 · 8 posts · 3 votes
6y
The tech industry in Orlando, especially downtown, is also growing. You also have Lockheed Martin about 20 min away, which attracts young professionals as well.
Neighborhoods like Oviedo and Winter Springs are also very family-oriented so while not the most attractive price point for flipping properties, these are examples of the steadiness Central Florida has to offer. Championsgate/Davenport are also growing areas worth checking out, especially for short-term rentals, as mentioned above.
I grew up in Orlando and have relatives who do real estate but am myself beginning my career as an investor, so this is all very useful information.
Always looking to connect with Central FL investors as well!
@Melissa Howell Yeah Oviedo has really blown up over the last five years. Doing the BRRR strat would pay off if you can find a property in distress near Alafaya Woods. Even the surrounding areas have seem a 150-200% increase in price since 2011.
Investor · MD FL WV · Member since 2020 · 38 posts · 21 votes
6y
@Mark Vivanco I'm also a remote owner and I do own a house in Kissimmee located in a vacation rental zone, also I manage another a few properties in the Davenport area. I do short term rental in all of them and the ones in Kissimmee perform way better than the ones in the Davenport area.
My suggestion for you is that you must know what are you looking for, whats you exit strategies for this deal, are you going to do longterm lease only or do you consider to work with short term rental? The benefit of having a house in zoning that allows you to do short term rental is that you can do both, long term and short term.
Orlando does not allow short term rental at all, so you'll have to work with longterm rental only.
On the other hand, short term rental in Kissimmee gives you a better cashflow bc you can find more affordable houses over there, however, you have to put a lot of work to manage everything or hire good property management that will take care of the property for you.
Investor · Farmingdale, NJ · Member since 2017 · 62 posts · 39 votes
6y
@John Moore I have a short term rental in Kissimmee. Because it's a STR my property managers are very active and I've been very happy with them. They are 1st for Orlando. I believe they handle traditional rentals as well. For lending I also had a great experience with SunTrust Bank. The team I worked with were in North Carolina so everything was done remotely and went very smoothly from beginning to end.
Property Manager · Kissimmee, FL · Member since 2019 · 445 posts · 266 votes
6y
We use pretty sophisticated software to measure performance for our various vacation rental communities and individual homes. In general, we see by far the best performance for owners who are willing to invest in an older VR home close in to Disney, and renovate it to a high standard. Windsor Hills, Windsor Palms, Emerald Island are all great communities that perform exceptionally well for renovated homes. The past few weeks and months have definitely been a roller coaster, however we re encouraged to still see bookings coming in spite of the recent news. Once things stabilize, you can't beat proximity to Disney, one of the largest economic engines in the world. You will surely also see opportunities in the area over the next few months.
@Ruben Correa Hi Ruben! I am looking for a good builder in the St. Cloud area. Could you recommend the one you are using? Are they decent to work with?
Real Estate Agent · Orlando, FL · Member since 2018 · 53 posts · 26 votes
6y
Thank you @Erik Kuhi, that is very helpful information! It is also great to see that you were able to do an out of state owned STR in that area as I understand rules across the country are becoming more and more unfriendly towards out of state STR owners. I sent you a request and inboxed you. Me and my wife would love to pick your brain soon.
@Alice Horn I would love to see some of the properties that you manage. I and my wife are in the market for STR and long term tenant properties in the Orlando area for all of the reasons you just laid out. I will inbox you and I also hope to speak with you soon.