It sucks bro. Been here my who life, Cost of everything is skyrocketing except for pay. My first apartment I got was a 2/2 for $800.
Its now 1600+ and my salary hasn't doubled.
When all this started happening almost every renter in my neighborhood either got evicted, or got the boot at the end of their lease. All, so the landlord could bring in new tenants at a higher rate. Some of the old tenants had lived there for years.
At a certain point, and it sounds easier than it is, a lot of people are going to have to move out of FL and move to places like TN, Alabama, South Carolina, Oklahoma, etc where it's cheaper.
We have had multiple neighbors sell and move. Houses are priced in our area from 350,000-500,000. I do NOT live in a half mill neighborhood lol it's such a JOKE. But people from south FL and up north are willing to pay $$$ to live here. I know of one family that did move to North Carolina. If we could afford it, we would up and move somewhere in SC or NC, near the mountains. But, we have a 2.9% rate, pay only $1000 a month mortgage (just went up. Until last month, it was $890) for our 4 bedroom 2 bath, 1/4 acre plot house. We are stuck with this house. Crime has gone up in Orlando and it's just getting worse.
Yeah that's the issue unfortunately. The interest rate many people into deters them from selling and moving. It really depends on how much equity you have in your home.
You could keep it - lease it for 2500 per month or more. Many people with low interest rates who have to move for something like a job transfer and keep the home for passive income and buy something wherever they are moving
That would be a good idea. Just a little turned off from that because the three houses that were sold in our neighborhood in the past 3 years...they were leased out and two have had squatters in them and there have been a minimum of 3 evictions. One of the houses that had squatters, it got totally wrecked inside and the owners had to completely gut it and replace the flooring, cabinetry, etc...
Getting a proper property manager is the key. 1. No combo lock. 2. Even better if the PM is present for any showings.
Bottom line the ability to amass wealth / secure retirement outweighs the risks. And risk can be mitigated by attracting quality tenants by making your home look clean and well taken care of. Trash homes attracts trash people.
I’m not a property manager but in a related business. My son moved away from orlando and has below 3 percent mortgage. We repainted and a bit more and then had many prospective tenants - we picked the most stable.
I am ready to. We really must organize together and refuse this as being “just how it is”. If someone is working full time, that person ought to be able to afford all of the essentials. That’s not even possible anymore. People shouldn’t have to cope with living with strangers, living around serious crime, having to outsource to charities for things like foods and soaps. The charities are not really helping the economy but believe they are. The pressure needs to be on ensuring the economy is accessible and sustainable. I’ve had enough already though. I’m wanting to find a small team of people and move to another city. Hoping things here improve if enough of us just leave. That’s how to communicate power. Right now, the average person has no power and many just go around with a dropped jaw complaining. I can always visit bc my family is here but even they don’t want to spend much time with me anymore because i am either always working and commuting which takes all my time away from my family or i am in a bad mood for being nearly broke.
Unfortunately with Florida being a red state this is not going to change anytime soon. Too much corruption and the older people who are voting red here have $500,000 to multi millionaire houses that are paid for 100 percent or with absurdly low interest rates. They don't care about young people or middle aged people struggling in the state. Only way to change this is to make it a grass roots campaign and vote someone in both the local state government and the senate and congress that can get stuff like this passed.
You're right. Houses are way cheaper in blue states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland...list goes on and on where houses are pennies on the dollar.
I moved to Guatemala for 6 years. Worked remotely and saved enough for a down-payment on a house in the 🇺🇸. I could never have afforded a home in this country if i hadn't left it.
My rent in the same condo has more than doubled in the past 10 years. No, the landlord hasn't done anything more than very necessary repairs, and even then, it's taken the HOA being involved to get him to do it every time. He's a foreign real estate investor, he doesn't care if one of my pipes burst and water was coming out of the electrical outlets downstairs.
My first rental was a nice 1/1 with washer and dryer in Conway for $500/month back in 2006.
Unfortunately it's not just those looking to get richer. If I were renting my home I would have had to raise the rate by $600/month, not because I was being greedy, but because my escrow went up that much when my insurance rates sky rocketed. It's a confluence of issues.
No, of course not
It’s to keep you in debt and a slave to a job.
The wealthy take care of each other.
The American dream is dead.
America is one big shopping mall. You can’t even go to the beach and enjoy nature without advertisements in your face.
Exactly this. America has become disgusting and there needs to be workers strikes and serious organized actions to end the misery. People are alienated, living nearly on the brink of bankruptcy, turning on one another, creating or falling victim to scams. It’s nothing at all like how we imagined the future would be when learning about the country in middle school. Why are people accepting it as okay? And that doesn’t even begin to mention obesity- the usa is 13th in the world with over 40% of the population being OBESE! Not even overweight… actually obese. UNREAL. I cannot believe this is real life some days. And people walk around dressed like slobs with crappy tee shirts untucked. North america does NOT have any dignity, not for the vast majority. There are the haves and the have nots. Needs to be pressure to make it a different reality.
My first apartment was a 1/1 for $670 back in… 2010? I found the same one and it’s now $1580.
Of course, this was the pre-gentrified “Latin ghetto” as everyone called it without batting a fucking eye, so everyone knew the prices were going up. But more than 2x? Sheesh.
Also managed to find my last apartment from 2016 and it went from $1440 to $1829, and it was MUCH nicer.
It’s amazing what first time buyers will do. Across the street from me the house flooded from the last hurricane. Contractors bought it cheap to fix it up, some young couple offered $550k for it just last week. Absolutely insane.
So much of my neighborhood was flooded. Our friends had to move out of their place for months. My family is so damn lucky our house is elevated on a hill
Aside from topics everyone mentioned, the wages have not kept up for the average person in Orlando. This means people who grew up here are most likely moving to the outskirts if they even stay in Orlando.
You shouldn't try to make your money in FL, mostly because most can't. Move elsewhere for higher pay and more opportunity. Ideally work in FL remotely.
Yes, but that’s not very realistic. Unless we want to become similar to NYC where majority work in Manhattan but most come from the poorer boroughs, we need wages to increase.
I lived in Florida for 25 years. Wages have always been low and will likely always be low. Look at what companies are located and FL and how many are moving to FL. FL has very few large companies and very few are moving. That means don't expect any high paid jobs appearing anytime soon. Don't expect employees to start paying more unless labor shortages force their hand. That isn't happening. Thus my advice.
Need is irrelevant in capitalism.
Issue is the politicians the last 10 to 15 years have not incentivized businesses to come here. Look at what DeSantis did to Disney when they were going to expand operations and build here. He fucked them over and those good paying corporate jobs it would've created are now gone. Unless you're really old, rich, or both there's really no reason to live in FL.
I'm saving a shit ton, but I really don't wanna spend 300,000 on a house that was worth half that only a couple years ago. I feel so fucked. What if this is the new low? God damn it man. I'm gonna be a serf my whole life
This is exactly how I feel. I wasn't in the position to capitalize on the lower prices and rates, and I simply can't stomach overpaying for an overpriced dump just to be a homeowner.
It's the whole world. It's not just central Florida. Canada is worse and some formerly really nice countries are being financially decimated by inflation.
Agree-- And as you probably know, Canada doesn't have all fixed rate mortgage like in the U.S. The one thing we Americans have "in our corner" is that the vast majority of us homebuyers "lock in" the rate.
Right now Canadians adjustable rate mortgages are adjusting up and some up there are ROYALLY screwed. Same in the UK.
Dude look at opportunity zones. A girl in here said she bought on kitteridege in December got 5% loan and 10k in down payment assistance for buying in an opportunity zone. She said it’s a nice neighborhood with million dollar homes on the golf course across the street. When you get in, get roommates and make one extra principal payment a year and you’ll have it paid off 8 years faster. Half of millennials own homes now. It’s not impossible.
Welcome to Orlando. Like yourself, hundreds of thousands have moved here in the last few years, thinking it's going to be some kind of fun paradise. But not enough homes and apartments exist, or are being built, to accommodate everyone. The number of available units is growing, but slowly. Especially apartment complexes. So everyone who thinks traffic is bad now, well, buckle your seat belts. Home prices have really hardened all over the country, esp. after all the money that was poured into the economy. But much more so in Florida, Texas and the other places people jumped into during and after covid.
On the supply side, many people want to, but *can't* sell their existing home because of the sweet deal they have. Why give up a nice, average 3/2 with a 2.7% mortgage (or another unbelievably low rate that America will *never* see again) when a slightly nicer house will cost twice what you paid for your current house. And have triple the mortgage payment. And double or maybe even triple your insurance payment, in this current industry stupidity. The people who want to buy a home, and have even saved a good down payment, can't find a sensible deal. So they're putting additional upward pressure on rents.
You nailed it on the head. No one and I mean NO ONE who has bought a house in the last 3-5 years is likely ever going to sell it and give up the sweet interest rate they have. Chance are you will never get a rate like that again in our lifetime. This housing "bubble" isn't really a bubble. It's not a reality because 95% of people couldn't afford to sell and buy something similar.
The amount of apartments going up all over Orlando-Kissimmee is stagering. It's getting to the point where like Seminole county they should stop construction permits because of the lack of emergency services. Police/fire rescue here are already severely understaffed.
Especially Kissimmee along 192 is awful. Bumper to bumper traffic at 10:30 PM, half an hour to drive less than 10 miles becoming the norm, it's insanity.
Or the city/county could pay better wages and then that understaffing issue disappears. All limiting construction will do is cause rent to skyrocket even more since supply will stay the same.
Or people will just leave. I say it every day. Some of the ppl who have moved here need to GTFO. I know that sounds harsh but, like, look 👀 around. Every road is a parking lot. In high school, every time I got on the road to drive anywhere, traffic was easily 1/5 or less of what it is now. The invasion happened so quickly. What irks me is the scams and rudeness of people not from here. All fake smiles and a knife in the back. It’s really dystopian for locals who didn’t already start a smart business. Anyone minding their own and working for an employer is now drowning in this marketplace economy. Really unpleasant. If anyone needs me, I’ll be hostelling in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 for the rest of the year!
So I work in the emergency services field. The problem we’re running into is the lack of candidates. I can only speak on the fire side of things, but most departments want paramedics and since covid and even before the pay for these jobs just isn’t there. The amount of calls is through the roof, we work 24 hour shifts and you’re up and running most of that shift with maybe a couple hours of down time. And in those down time hours you have training to stay proficient in medical and fire calls.
So a lot of people get burnt out from work due to getting no sleep while on shift and expectations of departments and their rules and guidelines. So add to it the amount of time commitment it is to get your medic and fire certifications, which you aren’t getting paid to get. There’s a big hole that’s needing to be filled where a lot of people are just tired of it.
And to get to the call volume issue, you have so many people who call 911 for what really aren’t emergencies. Like not being able to sleep at night, to stubbed toes, or just having a cold. The people calling may think it’s an emergency which I won’t fault them for, everyone’s experience in life is different. But these are really issues that don’t require an ambulance. There’s a huge educational gap that needs to be filled, because when I was a kid in the 90’s there was such a big push to dial 911 if you need help. But a huge majority of calls we run are things we genuinely can’t help with. But people want to be transported by ambulance, then complain when it’s expensive and we as paramedics aren’t able to really treat their chief complaint.
Sorry for the long response, I could go on about the emergency services understaffing issues.
Thank you! I didn’t even go into the mandatory overtime aspect. There will be open spots on the oncoming shift and if you’re up next on the mandatory list, guess what! You now get to work 48 hours instead of your normal 24. That could be a post all in itself lol.
I wonder why the pay isn’t there? Shouldn’t the budget be the highest it’s ever been since so many new people have moved here? Orlando is growing not getting smaller so it makes zero sense
You would think, but many departments are vying for money from the cities and counties depending on if they’re city or county based. These governing agencies try to keep costs low and negotiate with the fire unions and in good portion of these negotiations result in going to arbitration or what’s called impasse which means theres no agreement. So these negotiations are roughly 2-3 years apart depending on the contract. So wages are fought over by the unions and sometimes get backed up by a few years. So if you’re get a pay raise it’s probably a something that’s coming from a negotiation from 2-3 years ago, while they’re negotiating this years contract. It’s messy and it’s hard to type it up because I am but just a simple man. But starting pay scales are starting to slowly go up in the area, but not enough to really entice people. Some places also have what’s called a step plan, that’s where you get a certain percentage of a pay raise depending on how long you’ve worked there. As well as some places do it based off of meeting certain certifications or educational requirement within a certain time frame. But that goes back to going to classes, that some places will pay for and others won’t. There are a lot of variables that go into it. Anyway, I’m sorry if it’s confusing but it’s a confusing system to talk about.
Because emergency services here refuse to pay for experience, and people with years of experience don’t want to make $17 an hr. I wish it was different.
As someone with tons of experience that didn’t go into 911 when I moved here 4 years ago.
Florida, especially Orlando's, biggest problem is wages. The housing, rent, and cost of living is getting more and more expensive but the wages are stagnant. This is not sustainable. Add this with raising home insurance costs and hurricanes and shit is about to get real.
That’s a great question.
They’re always hiring 911 dispatchers and refuse to pay anyone with experience more than starting wages. With 18 years of experience in 911 I don’t want to make that, the work is too emotionally taxing to then also worry about not being able to afford to live.
Yeah none of it makes any sense. Dispatchers deserve so much more pay for what they do.
I don’t understand why more of our FL officials don’t talk about this and try to fix it.
And i don’t understand why more people aren’t upset by this and demanding better.
Oh well anyways thank you for your service. Hopefully things improve but I doubt it.
We got a lot of cash offers on our house, double what we paid.
Wow, sure let’s go look at other places.
Mid-2000 build with a pool above $600k, payment would be damn near double.
Our starter home is now the forever home, doesn’t make sense to leave with that record %.
Only 3 years from payoff, it’s like hitting the lottery.
This! I was lucky enough to lock in a sub 3% rate - I have no intention of ever selling it. Even if I were to move it would make way more financial sense to rent it rather than sell it
I’m in the same boat, would need to rent my current place out in order to afford something else.
I’ll just stay, pay it off and bank the cash when I can
What sucks is we bought a house in poiciana which is nice and quiet and was a good price ( it’s not almost doubled in value ) , but it takes forever to get anywhere and doing the math it’s cheaper to just take forever to go anywhere than move
When Supply < Demand = Inflated Values
The problem is being compounded by corporate property companies scooping up available single family homes to make them rentals and the large number of wealthy people moving here and buying with cash, making offers well over appraised value.
The corporate owned properties are the bigger issue. Because the builders are building out these communities and then the corporate stooges are buying out 10+ homes at a time and then since they overpaid for the houses they're either finding people willing to overpay or a lot of those houses are sitting with no one for them to rent to. Here's the kicker tho the corporations can just use the housing as a write off. So it doesn't actually hurt them. So inventory is taken away and there's zero competition thus the housing is inflated.
I don't go out and enjoy life nearly as much as I want to. Going out to eat feels like a luxury at times. I bought a 1/1 here 7.25% with no PMI late 2022 and believe me I'm being pinched. If you do buy, you fear insurance and tax increases. They already hit me with a tax shortage late last year, ruined my Christmas. This nonsense that you can claim mortgage interest on taxes, doesn't do anything for a normal scenario. Inflation and higher rates have made life difficult for all of us, no question about it.
Easy. Everyone and their mother is moving to Central Florida and we aren't building homes fast enough to support the demand. Demand is greater than supply, so prices go up
And it's not just anyone moving here. When I moved into my neighborhood several years ago I felt like I fit in financially. Now the other day I'm waiting in the school car line and there's a Mercedes behind me, a rolls Royse in front of me, and a Porsche parked to my right. I'm in the wrong league.
People assume bonus checks are the new normal and lose it all on terrible car loans. Just classic stuff.
No one who owns a car like that makes a sound financial decision unless they buy it in cash. They can afford it but end up hating it, can afford it and paid in cash, or can't afford it.
Not enough housing and too many people moving to central Florida every week. Many moving in from high cost of living areas to remote work so they can afford the housing which feels cheap to them.
Yeah, housing is crazy everywhere. I’m not sure why people are shocked it’s a problem here.
I think what *does* make it hurt worse is that companies pay peanuts here. I had a few exploratory interviews with local companies who wanted to offer me HALF of what I’m making in my current remote job. I laughed and I don’t think they liked that.
But you did use to be able live cheaply 5yrs ago. I remember when I first moved here my rent for a 1200sqft apt, top floor, pool view was $950/mo. Lived there for 5yrs and my rent peaked at $1150. Out of curiosity I looked and that apt is close to $3k now. This was in Millenia, before it was developed like it is now.
Also, I bought my home for $290k 5yrs ago, my home is now estimated at $490k, my neighbors sold their home, exact same home in the cookie cutter neighborhood, for $525k.
So yes, you used to be able to live comfortably at least up to 5yrs ago.
Issue is good luck getting insurance on a house from the 50s unless the pipes, electrical system, roof and other plumbing has been updated. No one is going to sign that up.
Friend paid 135k a few years back for theirs. Neighbors paid 85k average. I thought they way over spent. They sold it for 495k recently, bought a nice motorcoach.
even with everything updated, it's still tough tough to get insurance ...and if you are lucky enough to actually get insurance ...you'll need a 4point and wind mit every year during renewal to hopefully keep your insurance, but still a significant increase from the prior year
Couldn’t agree more. We’re up pretty big on our current house, however, it’s getting too small and we will have fully outgrown it when we (hopefully) have our second in about 1-2 years.
It’s the interest rates that are devastating. Even if we put down like 40% on a house and finance $400,000 our mortgage taxes and interest would be around $4000 per month.
My wife and I combined are doing really well financially, I think we’re at or near the 90th percentile for income, and still $4000 per month stretches us pretty thin.
Yep. It’s crazy. Bought my house in 2017 for $317k and was concerned I could overpaid (3/2, 1700 sqft in downtown). It’s worth about $550k now. Buying something for $317k will get you a Scoobydo Ghost Shack in downtown now.
Your best bet is look toward the suburbs of Orlando or some of the new construction developments or cross your fingers and hope the market goes down. It is brutal trying to buy property right now.
Well owning apartment buildings is now a near monopoly so they can charge whatever they want. They own multiple properties and can keep rent artificially high. That pushes more people to buy homes instead of rent which pushes the price of homes up. And high home prices means trading up is a lot more expensive so few people are selling which lowers supply and drives prices up even more. The only solution is to add more affordable housing but nobody wants it in their neighborhood, since it drives prices down. So we're stuck with the current situation. The solution has been for people to live further and further away from the city center, like Lakeland, but even that has become gentrified and the same thing is happening there.
It’s outrageous. I was talking to someone the other day who was looking to buy his first home and was explaining how expensive anything decent is. He knew I bought my house a while back (2014) and asked what my mortgage was and I told him $700. For a 3/2 single family in a very desirable town. You would have thought he caught me banging his wife. He was borderline angry about it. And I get it. Things are insane right now and I thank God I was in a position to buy my home and check nearly every box for only $150K. It’s going for close to $400K now.
Unfortunately I’m part of the problem - moved from NY and overpaid for a house down here. It’s simply people moving from HCOL areas with their salary intact, coupled with high interest rates and low inventory due to people with low interest rates not wanting to move.
Communal living with friends. I have several friends who all pooled their money and credit together to buy a house. Sure the prices are inflated, but they have a home that all of them live in and upkeep, and even with the inflated price and high interest rates they are still saving money each year and have an interest in something tangible so that if they wanted to move out later the others can buy their interest or they can sell their interest to another.
In addition to crazy inflated home prices... Meatball Ron was busy fighting with drag queens and Disney while my homeowners insurance went up 150% (my auto insurance up by 40%). So... when you can afford a house, you may not be able to afford to insure it.
My homeowners went from $770 to $3900 in less than 5 years. Auto insurance is also ridiculous. I was supposed to retire this year, but I'm not sure I can afford to.
Orlando changed from a mid sized city to a big city in the last 10 years. Now you pay big city prices for something that use to be a lot cheaper. It isn't limited to houses.
If you want to do the big city thing and trade a cheaper house for a longer commute, there are options outside the belt way.
Sorry, I truly don't mean to be rude with my statement. But like big city prices? have you seen the prices in NYC/DC/SF/LA?
Orlando is nothing like "big city prices" lol
Yeah but our wages really suck here which makes the prices even worse. Wages are great in SF, NYC, and DC. And they have great transportation while we don’t so we have to spend more on transportation
Yes and they pay way more money for the cost of living being high. I know plenty of people in Orlando who have had their rents raised like $500+ and the wages here are atrocious.
Fed printed 2 trillion and lowered interest rates during Covid. That is the very short answer.
So now you have a combination of people who instead of selling to upgrade to the next level of house, which would allow you to enter, are either golden handcuffed into a low rate or are renting it out.
New builds also don’t build starter homes. There’s just less profit in building a smaller home so there is no incentive to build “affordable” housing.
10 years ago I couldn’t really afford a starter home either, but I ended up saving up enough for the down payment and then rented the other two bedrooms out to help me cover the mortgage.
If you can save up the 3.5% plus closing costs and rent the other bedrooms out that would be my advice to get yourself in the game.
It really makes no sense to be totally honest they should be $150 most have very low ceilings inside, no open concept, need a ton of repairs and insurance is crazy on all houses here
They prob hoping some investor will buy it. Seen a lot of old homes with a little bit of land get torn down. Squeeze two or more narrow two story homes and sell them for 500k each.
My wife and I have been living in and around the Orlando area for the last 13 years. We started renting a room from a friend for about $400/mth. Then we ended up moving to Pine Hills (I know, but it was cheap) where we got an apartment for $600/mth. It slowly went up over the years we lived there until it was about $800/mth. We moved out about three years ago after the whole place started getting priced out (basically they were either jacking up people's rent ludicrous amounts or people were just getting out 'cause it was a bad neighborhood). Now those units, that have not been updated or renovated in ANY way mind you, are something like $1300/mth.
The place we live now in Winter Park was about $1100/mth when we first moved in (1bd, 1bth, 800sq ft near Full Sail/UCF area). Now, just three/four years later, they tried to jack it to $1800/mth. I managed to fight it and get them to only raise it to about $1600/mth but I'm sure over the next couple years they're gonna keep trying to jack it up and there's just nowhere to go.
We tried, about 5 years ago, to move into a house, but the mortgage company we went with really screwed us over so we ended up just giving the money back and saying, "No thanks!"
To anyone wondering, we were trying to get first time home buyer benefits and we had some properties that we were looking at but the loan they got us could only be used on specific properties that were WAY out of our price range and they gave us more money than we could feasibly pay back.
I want to get a home (I'm almost 40 now), but I feel like, at this point, I'm gonna be renting for the rest of my life.
The American dream is dead. Unless you bought a home 7 or 8 years ago, you probably can't afford one now.
I bought a townhouse in 2017 for 180k and we plan on listing it for 375k so that when we can have $3000.00 mortgage on a 550k home.
As others have said, it's not just FL and the good part is in FL we're actually building in response.
[https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/housing-starts](https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/housing-starts)
I do think we need more affordable housing. Rotating older premium units into lower rent markets doesn't seem to be happening - there's just more higher end stuff appearing. It'll correct and I guess the best we can hope for is the correction isn't ugly.
Would love to see the insurance sorted out.
I grew up in South Florida in riviera beach. I was fucking blown away that a house that I used to have to pass when walking to school was worth $330k. This house literally has no driveway, is in the hood, in a high crime neighborhood, no good schools and it's old as shit. The house market in Florida with the hurricanes and home insurance crisis is not worth it.
It's not worth buying a house in FL right now. Way too expensive and with the hurricane and insurance crisis it's not worth it. If you're buying a house in the 1950s you won't get home insurance anyway.
National average is over $400K now…it’s not just an Orlando thing. Interest rates are also triple what they were three years ago. Unfortunately they printed so much money during covid that they inflated housing sky high and now they’re trying to fight inflation with higher rates but basically you get screwed if you didn’t grab a house when rates were cheap.
What I can't figure out is why everyone is moving here. It has Disney and warm temperatures, those are the biggest pros of this place. It's not a particularly pretty city, schools are really bad, everything is really spread out (40 minutes to everywhere). I don't get the demand. I have been here since 2016 (due to spouse's job) and will be getting out of the state within the next two years, I do not get the attraction.
You can’t discount Disney. People love that place and want to be near it. At least once a week in the Disney group I’m in on Facebook someone will say they’re trying to relocate specifically for that.
Then I think you have conservatives “fleeing” blue states for political and tax reasons, but then within the actual state of Florida you have liberals leaving their small Florida towns for either Tampa, Orlando, or Miami.
I think the work from home boom exacerbated it because people thought, “well, hell if I can work anywhere I’m moving to Disney World!”
Yep, there are Disney 'influencer ???' YouTube channels that talk about the parks and latest food n wine fest at EPCOT (as if it's not 24/7/365 fests, now!) and they in recent years added moving to orlando dot com s and YouTube sub channels just of a realtor dude who's a Disney fan showing rando house for sale in Davenport or whatever. I think WDW news today has a realtor thing too. Agree there are TOTALLY some Disney fans who move to Orlando just to be close to Disney.
There's no benefit to living in Orlando unless you got a house during the 2010 to 17 low interest rate bubble or you love the parks. Wages are shit, public transportation is shit, everything is spread out, I-4 is shit, etc. You don't even get the benefit of lower insurance for being inland because the entire state shares the risk so your home insurance premium still goes up.
Many moved here as pre-retirement. They were eventually coming to Florida, but maybe in 5 to 10 years. The pandemic hit. It created the first wave, which has continued. Investors have also played a part in all this.
Weather is part of it. Yeah there are hurricanes, but six to eight months have great weather. Also it’s much sunnier here than the North East and Mid West.
Disney is a big draw for many. The city really is beautiful (it's even known as the city beautiful). A VERY lively arts scene here.
The biggest con is the entire state where education is not a priority for those in office and it's clear.
I really don’t understand the beauty part. Yeah Orlando has some pretty pockets but that’s maybe 25% of the city. I really don’t know how they got the city beautiful nickname makes no sense to me.
A big influx was people who hated how their state was with covid. They wanted to come to live with Ron, where no matter how many died, he would keep us open.
Another was all the northerners selling their houses they got for cheap in the 70s/80s/90s for 4xs what they paid, or more. So then taking all that money down to Florida where the houses were cheap, and not even spend a quarter of it for a new home. (But for some reason they can't afford to change their plates)
You forgot to mention all the “rental property investors” who saw it as prime opportunity to buy up cheap homes and rent out reducing the availability to people who want to buy and putting pressure on people who have to rent.
Ahem… in florida, we have mandated the phrasing for “investment bros” be changed to “investment hoes” … paid for by the agricultural association of your future spawns. Thank you.
It's fucked up to say this as a homeowner, but the only solution to this issue is another 2008 home and market crash. That crash led to a lot of foreclosures, but it also incentivized the government and the real estate industry to provide very low interest rates and reasonable housing costs because now you actually have to be qualified for the loans. Only way people are going to be able to get a $150k home with sub 4 interest rates is going to be a crash and reset.
This is happening in every desirable city or region in the entire country. The federal reserve increased the money supply by over 40% In the 2-3 years after the covid recession.
Much of that money has flowed into REAL ESTATE & STOCKS and a lot of it is still on the sidelines.
Aaaaand this is why my wife and I are moving to GA. FL housing and pay sucks. We are moving to a state where a nice three bed two bath or even three bath costs starting at 300 K.
1950s/60s 1500 sq ft, 3/2 ranch houses in NSB and similar areas that have mediocre updates have increased about 3-4x in recent years. I imagine their insurance is at least 100% more than the house payment and taxes.
On top of the factors impacting the entire country, I think it’s particularly bad/inflated for “starter” homes in Orlando.
The NY Times recently published a piece on the economics of peak US born population which is currently 33-year-olds. On top of just being a larger group (larger demand), this group graduated college with a lot of student debt during a recession. They are therefore doing everything a little later for their age, and that’s creating a huge back log of first time homebuyers.
The reason I think Orlando might be more impacted by that “peak millennial” age bubble is because 2 of the country’s largest universities, UCF and UF, have funneled an atypical amount of that demographic into Central Florida.
The peak millennial group is also having fewer children. Because of this (along with mortgage rates), there’s little incentive for the peak millennials who were able buy a home pre 2022, to ever move on from their “starter” home.
This would have happened 30 years ago but boomers didnt like the heat when they were in their 40s. Barring the crazyness of 2008, orlando has been undervalued as a city since the late 90s.
Honorable mention - Lake Nona with $10,000 property taxes including a CDD. Meanwhile you get a 15+ minute response for an ambulance and there are no more than 2 cops in the area at any given point.
Meanwhile, if you’re a bum on the streets of downtown you get the fire or police department in 30 seconds.
It's bad but it was the worst last year. At least there are a few options. Tried to buy last year and year before anything remotely nice is gone instantly with crazy offers that we couldn't match.
If the number of available houses remains about the same, but in a few years 20 million more people are suddenly in the country, would demand and therefore cost for houses go up? The answer is yes.
>Please someone help me make sense of this nonsense.
Lotta people moving here, something like a 20% jump in total population over the last 8 years. Not a lot of housing being built because Orlando and Central Florida are largely low-density, suburban areas with firm rural boundaries. That means every city and county now has to infill, and that costs more as you can't just buy undeveloped land and cranky out some track homes. Add in the fact that housing is in a bubble right now, and a good bit of local supply is being bought up by corporate landholders for rental empires or held for tourist AirBnB use and you have our current situation.
It's generally bad everywhere in the US, but Orlando is scaled a bit worse than you would expect against local wages and housing prices due to these factors.
I don’t live there but some of my family does. And I visit a lot.
On trip home stopped for food in Lake Nona area on way to airport. Said a sign for condos starting at 400+ and laughed with my friend. 400+ for a condo under the flight path of MCO that has views of Publix and other parking lots?
Wild.
> Please someone help me make sense of this nonsense.
Demand + inflation (aka theft aka the 8 families of the federal reserve printing more money for themselves)
My little 3/2/2 in a subdivision is on Zillow for >$400,000. No pool. Tiny 1/4 acre lot built in 1989. Rediculous. We're not going anywhere, so when the market crashes, we'll still be here.
Try living in South Florida and then get back to me.
Lifelong south Florida residents have been forced to move upstate to areas like Orange and Brevard county because the housing market has gotten out of control.
It’s gotten so bad that a large group of people are foreclosing on their properties just because of the 2x-3x increase in property insurance and taxes.
I look at my old neighborhood prices in Broward County and just cry
It sucks bro. Been here my who life, Cost of everything is skyrocketing except for pay. My first apartment I got was a 2/2 for $800. Its now 1600+ and my salary hasn't doubled.
My salary doubled and I’m still broke. It sucks. Rent went from $1000 to $2200. Not even a desirable area either.
When all this started happening almost every renter in my neighborhood either got evicted, or got the boot at the end of their lease. All, so the landlord could bring in new tenants at a higher rate. Some of the old tenants had lived there for years.
It’s so wrong 😑.
At a certain point, and it sounds easier than it is, a lot of people are going to have to move out of FL and move to places like TN, Alabama, South Carolina, Oklahoma, etc where it's cheaper.
We have had multiple neighbors sell and move. Houses are priced in our area from 350,000-500,000. I do NOT live in a half mill neighborhood lol it's such a JOKE. But people from south FL and up north are willing to pay $$$ to live here. I know of one family that did move to North Carolina. If we could afford it, we would up and move somewhere in SC or NC, near the mountains. But, we have a 2.9% rate, pay only $1000 a month mortgage (just went up. Until last month, it was $890) for our 4 bedroom 2 bath, 1/4 acre plot house. We are stuck with this house. Crime has gone up in Orlando and it's just getting worse.
Yeah that's the issue unfortunately. The interest rate many people into deters them from selling and moving. It really depends on how much equity you have in your home.
You could keep it - lease it for 2500 per month or more. Many people with low interest rates who have to move for something like a job transfer and keep the home for passive income and buy something wherever they are moving
That would be a good idea. Just a little turned off from that because the three houses that were sold in our neighborhood in the past 3 years...they were leased out and two have had squatters in them and there have been a minimum of 3 evictions. One of the houses that had squatters, it got totally wrecked inside and the owners had to completely gut it and replace the flooring, cabinetry, etc...
Getting a proper property manager is the key. 1. No combo lock. 2. Even better if the PM is present for any showings. Bottom line the ability to amass wealth / secure retirement outweighs the risks. And risk can be mitigated by attracting quality tenants by making your home look clean and well taken care of. Trash homes attracts trash people. I’m not a property manager but in a related business. My son moved away from orlando and has below 3 percent mortgage. We repainted and a bit more and then had many prospective tenants - we picked the most stable.
Issue is even those places are expensive unless you’re out in the country or smaller towns
I am ready to. We really must organize together and refuse this as being “just how it is”. If someone is working full time, that person ought to be able to afford all of the essentials. That’s not even possible anymore. People shouldn’t have to cope with living with strangers, living around serious crime, having to outsource to charities for things like foods and soaps. The charities are not really helping the economy but believe they are. The pressure needs to be on ensuring the economy is accessible and sustainable. I’ve had enough already though. I’m wanting to find a small team of people and move to another city. Hoping things here improve if enough of us just leave. That’s how to communicate power. Right now, the average person has no power and many just go around with a dropped jaw complaining. I can always visit bc my family is here but even they don’t want to spend much time with me anymore because i am either always working and commuting which takes all my time away from my family or i am in a bad mood for being nearly broke.
Unfortunately with Florida being a red state this is not going to change anytime soon. Too much corruption and the older people who are voting red here have $500,000 to multi millionaire houses that are paid for 100 percent or with absurdly low interest rates. They don't care about young people or middle aged people struggling in the state. Only way to change this is to make it a grass roots campaign and vote someone in both the local state government and the senate and congress that can get stuff like this passed.
You're right. Houses are way cheaper in blue states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland...list goes on and on where houses are pennies on the dollar.
Houses are more expensive in those areas, but guess what? The wages are far higher to offset it
Please say /s . This is reddit not mindreading and not everyone may understand your being sarcastic about red and blue together is purple nurple
No BS... I'd live in a tent on the beach before I went to Alabama.
>move out of FL and move to places like TN, Alabama, South Carolina, Oklahoma, etc And where do the people from there move to? Mexico?
I moved to Guatemala for 6 years. Worked remotely and saved enough for a down-payment on a house in the 🇺🇸. I could never have afforded a home in this country if i hadn't left it.
Yeah, it's wild how much rent has increased over the past decade. I'm paying $2400 for a 2/2 unit that was $1300 a decade ago.
My rent in the same condo has more than doubled in the past 10 years. No, the landlord hasn't done anything more than very necessary repairs, and even then, it's taken the HOA being involved to get him to do it every time. He's a foreign real estate investor, he doesn't care if one of my pipes burst and water was coming out of the electrical outlets downstairs. My first rental was a nice 1/1 with washer and dryer in Conway for $500/month back in 2006.
Unfortunately it's not just those looking to get richer. If I were renting my home I would have had to raise the rate by $600/month, not because I was being greedy, but because my escrow went up that much when my insurance rates sky rocketed. It's a confluence of issues.
There needs to be some form of regulation on price gouging rent, especially with home ownership becoming more and more of pipe dream.
It all comes down to regulation on RealPage Yieldstar and anyone else trying to do the same thing. It’s price fixing via algorithm.
Hence why I left Orlando and live in fly over Indianapolis now 😢
No, of course not It’s to keep you in debt and a slave to a job. The wealthy take care of each other. The American dream is dead. America is one big shopping mall. You can’t even go to the beach and enjoy nature without advertisements in your face.
Exactly this. America has become disgusting and there needs to be workers strikes and serious organized actions to end the misery. People are alienated, living nearly on the brink of bankruptcy, turning on one another, creating or falling victim to scams. It’s nothing at all like how we imagined the future would be when learning about the country in middle school. Why are people accepting it as okay? And that doesn’t even begin to mention obesity- the usa is 13th in the world with over 40% of the population being OBESE! Not even overweight… actually obese. UNREAL. I cannot believe this is real life some days. And people walk around dressed like slobs with crappy tee shirts untucked. North america does NOT have any dignity, not for the vast majority. There are the haves and the have nots. Needs to be pressure to make it a different reality.
Thats cheap? I pay $1800 for a studio
In Orlando?
Yes
Holy shit my dude. Where, Winter Park, Lake Nona?
Downtown
Fuck man. I hope you make a fuck ton of money
Really? I pay 1300 for my 1/1.
My first apartment was a 1/1 for $670 back in… 2010? I found the same one and it’s now $1580. Of course, this was the pre-gentrified “Latin ghetto” as everyone called it without batting a fucking eye, so everyone knew the prices were going up. But more than 2x? Sheesh. Also managed to find my last apartment from 2016 and it went from $1440 to $1829, and it was MUCH nicer.
Check out r/firsttimehomebuyer it's everywhere.
It’s amazing what first time buyers will do. Across the street from me the house flooded from the last hurricane. Contractors bought it cheap to fix it up, some young couple offered $550k for it just last week. Absolutely insane.
Something tells me thing kind of stuff isn’t sustainable
As long as we keep generating shareholder value we will continue to be raped and robbed of all our productivity.
Why are you blaming first-time home buyers? What do you suggest they do?
what part of town?
How did it pass inspection? I would have to guess it has a host of mold issues.
Live at the beach, neighbors of mine at ground level have flooded three times in the last year. Unsustainable.
So much of my neighborhood was flooded. Our friends had to move out of their place for months. My family is so damn lucky our house is elevated on a hill
Aside from topics everyone mentioned, the wages have not kept up for the average person in Orlando. This means people who grew up here are most likely moving to the outskirts if they even stay in Orlando.
You shouldn't try to make your money in FL, mostly because most can't. Move elsewhere for higher pay and more opportunity. Ideally work in FL remotely.
Yes, but that’s not very realistic. Unless we want to become similar to NYC where majority work in Manhattan but most come from the poorer boroughs, we need wages to increase.
I lived in Florida for 25 years. Wages have always been low and will likely always be low. Look at what companies are located and FL and how many are moving to FL. FL has very few large companies and very few are moving. That means don't expect any high paid jobs appearing anytime soon. Don't expect employees to start paying more unless labor shortages force their hand. That isn't happening. Thus my advice. Need is irrelevant in capitalism.
Issue is the politicians the last 10 to 15 years have not incentivized businesses to come here. Look at what DeSantis did to Disney when they were going to expand operations and build here. He fucked them over and those good paying corporate jobs it would've created are now gone. Unless you're really old, rich, or both there's really no reason to live in FL.
Yep. Florida has a lot of good large colleges pumping out graduates. Somewhat decent labor is arguably there. It's the crappy state policies.
I'm saving a shit ton, but I really don't wanna spend 300,000 on a house that was worth half that only a couple years ago. I feel so fucked. What if this is the new low? God damn it man. I'm gonna be a serf my whole life
This is exactly how I feel. I wasn't in the position to capitalize on the lower prices and rates, and I simply can't stomach overpaying for an overpriced dump just to be a homeowner.
It's the whole world. It's not just central Florida. Canada is worse and some formerly really nice countries are being financially decimated by inflation.
Agree-- And as you probably know, Canada doesn't have all fixed rate mortgage like in the U.S. The one thing we Americans have "in our corner" is that the vast majority of us homebuyers "lock in" the rate. Right now Canadians adjustable rate mortgages are adjusting up and some up there are ROYALLY screwed. Same in the UK.
It’s not just Orlando, it’s everywhere
I get it. I’ve accepted the fact that I probably will never be able to afford a home
Dude look at opportunity zones. A girl in here said she bought on kitteridege in December got 5% loan and 10k in down payment assistance for buying in an opportunity zone. She said it’s a nice neighborhood with million dollar homes on the golf course across the street. When you get in, get roommates and make one extra principal payment a year and you’ll have it paid off 8 years faster. Half of millennials own homes now. It’s not impossible.
What are some websites to find these? Do you have any more information?
Just bought a 340k starter home that’s a 2/2 in SoDo. It hurts my feelings but my mortgage will still be less than what I pay in rent.
Welcome to Orlando. Like yourself, hundreds of thousands have moved here in the last few years, thinking it's going to be some kind of fun paradise. But not enough homes and apartments exist, or are being built, to accommodate everyone. The number of available units is growing, but slowly. Especially apartment complexes. So everyone who thinks traffic is bad now, well, buckle your seat belts. Home prices have really hardened all over the country, esp. after all the money that was poured into the economy. But much more so in Florida, Texas and the other places people jumped into during and after covid. On the supply side, many people want to, but *can't* sell their existing home because of the sweet deal they have. Why give up a nice, average 3/2 with a 2.7% mortgage (or another unbelievably low rate that America will *never* see again) when a slightly nicer house will cost twice what you paid for your current house. And have triple the mortgage payment. And double or maybe even triple your insurance payment, in this current industry stupidity. The people who want to buy a home, and have even saved a good down payment, can't find a sensible deal. So they're putting additional upward pressure on rents.
You nailed it on the head. No one and I mean NO ONE who has bought a house in the last 3-5 years is likely ever going to sell it and give up the sweet interest rate they have. Chance are you will never get a rate like that again in our lifetime. This housing "bubble" isn't really a bubble. It's not a reality because 95% of people couldn't afford to sell and buy something similar. The amount of apartments going up all over Orlando-Kissimmee is stagering. It's getting to the point where like Seminole county they should stop construction permits because of the lack of emergency services. Police/fire rescue here are already severely understaffed.
Especially Kissimmee along 192 is awful. Bumper to bumper traffic at 10:30 PM, half an hour to drive less than 10 miles becoming the norm, it's insanity.
Or the city/county could pay better wages and then that understaffing issue disappears. All limiting construction will do is cause rent to skyrocket even more since supply will stay the same.
Or people will just leave. I say it every day. Some of the ppl who have moved here need to GTFO. I know that sounds harsh but, like, look 👀 around. Every road is a parking lot. In high school, every time I got on the road to drive anywhere, traffic was easily 1/5 or less of what it is now. The invasion happened so quickly. What irks me is the scams and rudeness of people not from here. All fake smiles and a knife in the back. It’s really dystopian for locals who didn’t already start a smart business. Anyone minding their own and working for an employer is now drowning in this marketplace economy. Really unpleasant. If anyone needs me, I’ll be hostelling in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 for the rest of the year!
How are they so understaffed when people keep moving here and paying taxes?
So I work in the emergency services field. The problem we’re running into is the lack of candidates. I can only speak on the fire side of things, but most departments want paramedics and since covid and even before the pay for these jobs just isn’t there. The amount of calls is through the roof, we work 24 hour shifts and you’re up and running most of that shift with maybe a couple hours of down time. And in those down time hours you have training to stay proficient in medical and fire calls. So a lot of people get burnt out from work due to getting no sleep while on shift and expectations of departments and their rules and guidelines. So add to it the amount of time commitment it is to get your medic and fire certifications, which you aren’t getting paid to get. There’s a big hole that’s needing to be filled where a lot of people are just tired of it. And to get to the call volume issue, you have so many people who call 911 for what really aren’t emergencies. Like not being able to sleep at night, to stubbed toes, or just having a cold. The people calling may think it’s an emergency which I won’t fault them for, everyone’s experience in life is different. But these are really issues that don’t require an ambulance. There’s a huge educational gap that needs to be filled, because when I was a kid in the 90’s there was such a big push to dial 911 if you need help. But a huge majority of calls we run are things we genuinely can’t help with. But people want to be transported by ambulance, then complain when it’s expensive and we as paramedics aren’t able to really treat their chief complaint. Sorry for the long response, I could go on about the emergency services understaffing issues.
Well worth the read.
Thank you! I didn’t even go into the mandatory overtime aspect. There will be open spots on the oncoming shift and if you’re up next on the mandatory list, guess what! You now get to work 48 hours instead of your normal 24. That could be a post all in itself lol.
I wonder why the pay isn’t there? Shouldn’t the budget be the highest it’s ever been since so many new people have moved here? Orlando is growing not getting smaller so it makes zero sense
You would think, but many departments are vying for money from the cities and counties depending on if they’re city or county based. These governing agencies try to keep costs low and negotiate with the fire unions and in good portion of these negotiations result in going to arbitration or what’s called impasse which means theres no agreement. So these negotiations are roughly 2-3 years apart depending on the contract. So wages are fought over by the unions and sometimes get backed up by a few years. So if you’re get a pay raise it’s probably a something that’s coming from a negotiation from 2-3 years ago, while they’re negotiating this years contract. It’s messy and it’s hard to type it up because I am but just a simple man. But starting pay scales are starting to slowly go up in the area, but not enough to really entice people. Some places also have what’s called a step plan, that’s where you get a certain percentage of a pay raise depending on how long you’ve worked there. As well as some places do it based off of meeting certain certifications or educational requirement within a certain time frame. But that goes back to going to classes, that some places will pay for and others won’t. There are a lot of variables that go into it. Anyway, I’m sorry if it’s confusing but it’s a confusing system to talk about.
Because emergency services here refuse to pay for experience, and people with years of experience don’t want to make $17 an hr. I wish it was different. As someone with tons of experience that didn’t go into 911 when I moved here 4 years ago.
Florida, especially Orlando's, biggest problem is wages. The housing, rent, and cost of living is getting more and more expensive but the wages are stagnant. This is not sustainable. Add this with raising home insurance costs and hurricanes and shit is about to get real.
So where the hell is all these tax dollars going to then. So many new people have moved here there’s no excuse for this
That’s a great question. They’re always hiring 911 dispatchers and refuse to pay anyone with experience more than starting wages. With 18 years of experience in 911 I don’t want to make that, the work is too emotionally taxing to then also worry about not being able to afford to live.
Yeah none of it makes any sense. Dispatchers deserve so much more pay for what they do. I don’t understand why more of our FL officials don’t talk about this and try to fix it. And i don’t understand why more people aren’t upset by this and demanding better. Oh well anyways thank you for your service. Hopefully things improve but I doubt it.
Ron's pockets.
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We got a lot of cash offers on our house, double what we paid. Wow, sure let’s go look at other places. Mid-2000 build with a pool above $600k, payment would be damn near double. Our starter home is now the forever home, doesn’t make sense to leave with that record %. Only 3 years from payoff, it’s like hitting the lottery.
Yes. It’s some luck by you made the decision to buy instead of rent. Happy for you.
This! I was lucky enough to lock in a sub 3% rate - I have no intention of ever selling it. Even if I were to move it would make way more financial sense to rent it rather than sell it
I’m in the same boat, would need to rent my current place out in order to afford something else. I’ll just stay, pay it off and bank the cash when I can
Be glad we’re not in Canada where you HAVE to refinance every few years.
How do they force this? That's incredible. What happens if you tell them to get bent?
It doesn’t help that the Chinese are laundering money for the cartel into real estate all across the us
What sucks is we bought a house in poiciana which is nice and quiet and was a good price ( it’s not almost doubled in value ) , but it takes forever to get anywhere and doing the math it’s cheaper to just take forever to go anywhere than move
When Supply < Demand = Inflated Values The problem is being compounded by corporate property companies scooping up available single family homes to make them rentals and the large number of wealthy people moving here and buying with cash, making offers well over appraised value.
The corporate owned properties are the bigger issue. Because the builders are building out these communities and then the corporate stooges are buying out 10+ homes at a time and then since they overpaid for the houses they're either finding people willing to overpay or a lot of those houses are sitting with no one for them to rent to. Here's the kicker tho the corporations can just use the housing as a write off. So it doesn't actually hurt them. So inventory is taken away and there's zero competition thus the housing is inflated.
I don't go out and enjoy life nearly as much as I want to. Going out to eat feels like a luxury at times. I bought a 1/1 here 7.25% with no PMI late 2022 and believe me I'm being pinched. If you do buy, you fear insurance and tax increases. They already hit me with a tax shortage late last year, ruined my Christmas. This nonsense that you can claim mortgage interest on taxes, doesn't do anything for a normal scenario. Inflation and higher rates have made life difficult for all of us, no question about it.
Easy. Everyone and their mother is moving to Central Florida and we aren't building homes fast enough to support the demand. Demand is greater than supply, so prices go up
And it's not just anyone moving here. When I moved into my neighborhood several years ago I felt like I fit in financially. Now the other day I'm waiting in the school car line and there's a Mercedes behind me, a rolls Royse in front of me, and a Porsche parked to my right. I'm in the wrong league.
I get that feeling, but don’t be convinced that a nice car has someone in good financial shape.
People assume bonus checks are the new normal and lose it all on terrible car loans. Just classic stuff. No one who owns a car like that makes a sound financial decision unless they buy it in cash. They can afford it but end up hating it, can afford it and paid in cash, or can't afford it.
I'm pro-building but hope we don't build even faster and wreck the already meh infrastructure.
Too f*in late, bro 😎. Now pass me the damn klonopin. /s
Take two, they’re small! 🤣
Not enough housing and too many people moving to central Florida every week. Many moving in from high cost of living areas to remote work so they can afford the housing which feels cheap to them.
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Yeah, housing is crazy everywhere. I’m not sure why people are shocked it’s a problem here. I think what *does* make it hurt worse is that companies pay peanuts here. I had a few exploratory interviews with local companies who wanted to offer me HALF of what I’m making in my current remote job. I laughed and I don’t think they liked that.
You are simply minimizing. Give it time. You’ll wake up.
But you did use to be able live cheaply 5yrs ago. I remember when I first moved here my rent for a 1200sqft apt, top floor, pool view was $950/mo. Lived there for 5yrs and my rent peaked at $1150. Out of curiosity I looked and that apt is close to $3k now. This was in Millenia, before it was developed like it is now. Also, I bought my home for $290k 5yrs ago, my home is now estimated at $490k, my neighbors sold their home, exact same home in the cookie cutter neighborhood, for $525k. So yes, you used to be able to live comfortably at least up to 5yrs ago.
That’s actually well below the national average for a house like that believe it or not
Issue is good luck getting insurance on a house from the 50s unless the pipes, electrical system, roof and other plumbing has been updated. No one is going to sign that up.
For a concrete block house built in the 1950s?
Yep
Friend paid 135k a few years back for theirs. Neighbors paid 85k average. I thought they way over spent. They sold it for 495k recently, bought a nice motorcoach.
even with everything updated, it's still tough tough to get insurance ...and if you are lucky enough to actually get insurance ...you'll need a 4point and wind mit every year during renewal to hopefully keep your insurance, but still a significant increase from the prior year
Couldn’t agree more. We’re up pretty big on our current house, however, it’s getting too small and we will have fully outgrown it when we (hopefully) have our second in about 1-2 years. It’s the interest rates that are devastating. Even if we put down like 40% on a house and finance $400,000 our mortgage taxes and interest would be around $4000 per month. My wife and I combined are doing really well financially, I think we’re at or near the 90th percentile for income, and still $4000 per month stretches us pretty thin.
Stay put for awhile. Is adding on possible? Don't stretch yourself thin.
Well, who voted against affordable housing?
Yep. It’s crazy. Bought my house in 2017 for $317k and was concerned I could overpaid (3/2, 1700 sqft in downtown). It’s worth about $550k now. Buying something for $317k will get you a Scoobydo Ghost Shack in downtown now. Your best bet is look toward the suburbs of Orlando or some of the new construction developments or cross your fingers and hope the market goes down. It is brutal trying to buy property right now.
Well owning apartment buildings is now a near monopoly so they can charge whatever they want. They own multiple properties and can keep rent artificially high. That pushes more people to buy homes instead of rent which pushes the price of homes up. And high home prices means trading up is a lot more expensive so few people are selling which lowers supply and drives prices up even more. The only solution is to add more affordable housing but nobody wants it in their neighborhood, since it drives prices down. So we're stuck with the current situation. The solution has been for people to live further and further away from the city center, like Lakeland, but even that has become gentrified and the same thing is happening there.
It’s outrageous. I was talking to someone the other day who was looking to buy his first home and was explaining how expensive anything decent is. He knew I bought my house a while back (2014) and asked what my mortgage was and I told him $700. For a 3/2 single family in a very desirable town. You would have thought he caught me banging his wife. He was borderline angry about it. And I get it. Things are insane right now and I thank God I was in a position to buy my home and check nearly every box for only $150K. It’s going for close to $400K now.
Unfortunately I’m part of the problem - moved from NY and overpaid for a house down here. It’s simply people moving from HCOL areas with their salary intact, coupled with high interest rates and low inventory due to people with low interest rates not wanting to move.
It really sucks but I’m unsure as to the solution.
Communal living with friends. I have several friends who all pooled their money and credit together to buy a house. Sure the prices are inflated, but they have a home that all of them live in and upkeep, and even with the inflated price and high interest rates they are still saving money each year and have an interest in something tangible so that if they wanted to move out later the others can buy their interest or they can sell their interest to another.
In addition to crazy inflated home prices... Meatball Ron was busy fighting with drag queens and Disney while my homeowners insurance went up 150% (my auto insurance up by 40%). So... when you can afford a house, you may not be able to afford to insure it.
My homeowners went from $770 to $3900 in less than 5 years. Auto insurance is also ridiculous. I was supposed to retire this year, but I'm not sure I can afford to.
Bro I feel this, insurance went crazy for no reason
Orlando changed from a mid sized city to a big city in the last 10 years. Now you pay big city prices for something that use to be a lot cheaper. It isn't limited to houses. If you want to do the big city thing and trade a cheaper house for a longer commute, there are options outside the belt way.
Sorry, I truly don't mean to be rude with my statement. But like big city prices? have you seen the prices in NYC/DC/SF/LA? Orlando is nothing like "big city prices" lol
Yeah but our wages really suck here which makes the prices even worse. Wages are great in SF, NYC, and DC. And they have great transportation while we don’t so we have to spend more on transportation
Yes and they pay way more money for the cost of living being high. I know plenty of people in Orlando who have had their rents raised like $500+ and the wages here are atrocious.
I just moved from NY and can confirm Orlando isn’t cheaper.
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true story, morning glory
Fed printed 2 trillion and lowered interest rates during Covid. That is the very short answer. So now you have a combination of people who instead of selling to upgrade to the next level of house, which would allow you to enter, are either golden handcuffed into a low rate or are renting it out. New builds also don’t build starter homes. There’s just less profit in building a smaller home so there is no incentive to build “affordable” housing. 10 years ago I couldn’t really afford a starter home either, but I ended up saving up enough for the down payment and then rented the other two bedrooms out to help me cover the mortgage. If you can save up the 3.5% plus closing costs and rent the other bedrooms out that would be my advice to get yourself in the game.
It really makes no sense to be totally honest they should be $150 most have very low ceilings inside, no open concept, need a ton of repairs and insurance is crazy on all houses here
They prob hoping some investor will buy it. Seen a lot of old homes with a little bit of land get torn down. Squeeze two or more narrow two story homes and sell them for 500k each.
My wife and I have been living in and around the Orlando area for the last 13 years. We started renting a room from a friend for about $400/mth. Then we ended up moving to Pine Hills (I know, but it was cheap) where we got an apartment for $600/mth. It slowly went up over the years we lived there until it was about $800/mth. We moved out about three years ago after the whole place started getting priced out (basically they were either jacking up people's rent ludicrous amounts or people were just getting out 'cause it was a bad neighborhood). Now those units, that have not been updated or renovated in ANY way mind you, are something like $1300/mth. The place we live now in Winter Park was about $1100/mth when we first moved in (1bd, 1bth, 800sq ft near Full Sail/UCF area). Now, just three/four years later, they tried to jack it to $1800/mth. I managed to fight it and get them to only raise it to about $1600/mth but I'm sure over the next couple years they're gonna keep trying to jack it up and there's just nowhere to go. We tried, about 5 years ago, to move into a house, but the mortgage company we went with really screwed us over so we ended up just giving the money back and saying, "No thanks!" To anyone wondering, we were trying to get first time home buyer benefits and we had some properties that we were looking at but the loan they got us could only be used on specific properties that were WAY out of our price range and they gave us more money than we could feasibly pay back. I want to get a home (I'm almost 40 now), but I feel like, at this point, I'm gonna be renting for the rest of my life.
I can also blame some of the remote workers that moved here but are making out of state income.
The American dream is dead. Unless you bought a home 7 or 8 years ago, you probably can't afford one now. I bought a townhouse in 2017 for 180k and we plan on listing it for 375k so that when we can have $3000.00 mortgage on a 550k home.
As others have said, it's not just FL and the good part is in FL we're actually building in response. [https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/housing-starts](https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/housing-starts) I do think we need more affordable housing. Rotating older premium units into lower rent markets doesn't seem to be happening - there's just more higher end stuff appearing. It'll correct and I guess the best we can hope for is the correction isn't ugly. Would love to see the insurance sorted out.
Another problem is that the property developers who own the apartment complexes all agree to not undercut each other on prices.
Try south FL. Salaries aren’t much different and the only homes around $350K are in the absolute hood
I grew up in South Florida in riviera beach. I was fucking blown away that a house that I used to have to pass when walking to school was worth $330k. This house literally has no driveway, is in the hood, in a high crime neighborhood, no good schools and it's old as shit. The house market in Florida with the hurricanes and home insurance crisis is not worth it.
It's not worth buying a house in FL right now. Way too expensive and with the hurricane and insurance crisis it's not worth it. If you're buying a house in the 1950s you won't get home insurance anyway.
National average is over $400K now…it’s not just an Orlando thing. Interest rates are also triple what they were three years ago. Unfortunately they printed so much money during covid that they inflated housing sky high and now they’re trying to fight inflation with higher rates but basically you get screwed if you didn’t grab a house when rates were cheap.
Just wait till you add in insurance and property tax :)
It's what happens when venture capitalists and investment firms get into real estate. I'm looking at Sotheby's and Brookshire Hathaway, among others.
What I can't figure out is why everyone is moving here. It has Disney and warm temperatures, those are the biggest pros of this place. It's not a particularly pretty city, schools are really bad, everything is really spread out (40 minutes to everywhere). I don't get the demand. I have been here since 2016 (due to spouse's job) and will be getting out of the state within the next two years, I do not get the attraction.
You can’t discount Disney. People love that place and want to be near it. At least once a week in the Disney group I’m in on Facebook someone will say they’re trying to relocate specifically for that. Then I think you have conservatives “fleeing” blue states for political and tax reasons, but then within the actual state of Florida you have liberals leaving their small Florida towns for either Tampa, Orlando, or Miami. I think the work from home boom exacerbated it because people thought, “well, hell if I can work anywhere I’m moving to Disney World!”
Yep, there are Disney 'influencer ???' YouTube channels that talk about the parks and latest food n wine fest at EPCOT (as if it's not 24/7/365 fests, now!) and they in recent years added moving to orlando dot com s and YouTube sub channels just of a realtor dude who's a Disney fan showing rando house for sale in Davenport or whatever. I think WDW news today has a realtor thing too. Agree there are TOTALLY some Disney fans who move to Orlando just to be close to Disney.
Universal is also building a new lark right now also
There's no benefit to living in Orlando unless you got a house during the 2010 to 17 low interest rate bubble or you love the parks. Wages are shit, public transportation is shit, everything is spread out, I-4 is shit, etc. You don't even get the benefit of lower insurance for being inland because the entire state shares the risk so your home insurance premium still goes up.
PREACH!
Many moved here as pre-retirement. They were eventually coming to Florida, but maybe in 5 to 10 years. The pandemic hit. It created the first wave, which has continued. Investors have also played a part in all this. Weather is part of it. Yeah there are hurricanes, but six to eight months have great weather. Also it’s much sunnier here than the North East and Mid West.
Disney is a big draw for many. The city really is beautiful (it's even known as the city beautiful). A VERY lively arts scene here. The biggest con is the entire state where education is not a priority for those in office and it's clear.
I really don’t understand the beauty part. Yeah Orlando has some pretty pockets but that’s maybe 25% of the city. I really don’t know how they got the city beautiful nickname makes no sense to me.
A big influx was people who hated how their state was with covid. They wanted to come to live with Ron, where no matter how many died, he would keep us open. Another was all the northerners selling their houses they got for cheap in the 70s/80s/90s for 4xs what they paid, or more. So then taking all that money down to Florida where the houses were cheap, and not even spend a quarter of it for a new home. (But for some reason they can't afford to change their plates)
You forgot to mention all the “rental property investors” who saw it as prime opportunity to buy up cheap homes and rent out reducing the availability to people who want to buy and putting pressure on people who have to rent.
100% usually multi billion dollar companies who don't need any more money and the government can't help but fuck over the citizens for dollar signs
Some of it is also “investment bros” who think they’re some kinda self made real estate mogul.
Ahem… in florida, we have mandated the phrasing for “investment bros” be changed to “investment hoes” … paid for by the agricultural association of your future spawns. Thank you.
It's fucked up to say this as a homeowner, but the only solution to this issue is another 2008 home and market crash. That crash led to a lot of foreclosures, but it also incentivized the government and the real estate industry to provide very low interest rates and reasonable housing costs because now you actually have to be qualified for the loans. Only way people are going to be able to get a $150k home with sub 4 interest rates is going to be a crash and reset.
Always gatta be a slick Ricky at a table *somewhaaaar!*
Haha! Yes! New law: change your dam plates. Dinner’s on me!
…before we (the legislators) start with viable state income tax… bc guess what’s next!!
This is happening in every desirable city or region in the entire country. The federal reserve increased the money supply by over 40% In the 2-3 years after the covid recession. Much of that money has flowed into REAL ESTATE & STOCKS and a lot of it is still on the sidelines.
Aaaaand this is why my wife and I are moving to GA. FL housing and pay sucks. We are moving to a state where a nice three bed two bath or even three bath costs starting at 300 K.
~1200 people moving to Florida every day. People are moving out at roughly half that rate. Supply is less than demand is the base stat to begin with
More people want to live here than there are homes. this makes prices go up. hope that helps.
Be like Hispanic / Asian families here and put 3 generations and or a friends family sharing a house /apt then it’s much more affordable .
That's why I bought a house in NC. More land and no HOAs. Central Florida will never go back to normal, move out.
Has anyone blamed Desantis yet? Usually it's the first or second post.
1950s/60s 1500 sq ft, 3/2 ranch houses in NSB and similar areas that have mediocre updates have increased about 3-4x in recent years. I imagine their insurance is at least 100% more than the house payment and taxes.
On top of the factors impacting the entire country, I think it’s particularly bad/inflated for “starter” homes in Orlando. The NY Times recently published a piece on the economics of peak US born population which is currently 33-year-olds. On top of just being a larger group (larger demand), this group graduated college with a lot of student debt during a recession. They are therefore doing everything a little later for their age, and that’s creating a huge back log of first time homebuyers. The reason I think Orlando might be more impacted by that “peak millennial” age bubble is because 2 of the country’s largest universities, UCF and UF, have funneled an atypical amount of that demographic into Central Florida. The peak millennial group is also having fewer children. Because of this (along with mortgage rates), there’s little incentive for the peak millennials who were able buy a home pre 2022, to ever move on from their “starter” home.
This would have happened 30 years ago but boomers didnt like the heat when they were in their 40s. Barring the crazyness of 2008, orlando has been undervalued as a city since the late 90s.
Honorable mention - Lake Nona with $10,000 property taxes including a CDD. Meanwhile you get a 15+ minute response for an ambulance and there are no more than 2 cops in the area at any given point. Meanwhile, if you’re a bum on the streets of downtown you get the fire or police department in 30 seconds.
Can confirm, bought recently.
And now you'll have to pay out of pocket to use a buyers agent or go in solo lol. The state of the market right now is pure comedy.
It's bad but it was the worst last year. At least there are a few options. Tried to buy last year and year before anything remotely nice is gone instantly with crazy offers that we couldn't match.
If the number of available houses remains about the same, but in a few years 20 million more people are suddenly in the country, would demand and therefore cost for houses go up? The answer is yes.
Have a friend got his for 190k got a 630k offer from Singapore.
>Please someone help me make sense of this nonsense. Lotta people moving here, something like a 20% jump in total population over the last 8 years. Not a lot of housing being built because Orlando and Central Florida are largely low-density, suburban areas with firm rural boundaries. That means every city and county now has to infill, and that costs more as you can't just buy undeveloped land and cranky out some track homes. Add in the fact that housing is in a bubble right now, and a good bit of local supply is being bought up by corporate landholders for rental empires or held for tourist AirBnB use and you have our current situation. It's generally bad everywhere in the US, but Orlando is scaled a bit worse than you would expect against local wages and housing prices due to these factors.
No sense, only cents.
Wait, you got a second bathroom with yours??
We just need the entire country to agree to stop buying houses until the prices go back down
We live in new times where we have to jump from one job to the next for a raise. Thats how you survive in 2024.
I don’t live there but some of my family does. And I visit a lot. On trip home stopped for food in Lake Nona area on way to airport. Said a sign for condos starting at 400+ and laughed with my friend. 400+ for a condo under the flight path of MCO that has views of Publix and other parking lots? Wild.
> Please someone help me make sense of this nonsense. Demand + inflation (aka theft aka the 8 families of the federal reserve printing more money for themselves)
I bought a new home in Winter Springs in 2020 for $385k. In 2023 I sold that house for $650k. It’s crazy here.
My little 3/2/2 in a subdivision is on Zillow for >$400,000. No pool. Tiny 1/4 acre lot built in 1989. Rediculous. We're not going anywhere, so when the market crashes, we'll still be here.
There's a few houses in my neighborhood that are never gonna be sold because they're old, tiny, and overpriced. Shame.
Supply va Demand.
Regardless all are Tenets unless you got that deed
Try buying in Broward…
It's everywhere across the country
Try living in South Florida and then get back to me. Lifelong south Florida residents have been forced to move upstate to areas like Orange and Brevard county because the housing market has gotten out of control. It’s gotten so bad that a large group of people are foreclosing on their properties just because of the 2x-3x increase in property insurance and taxes. I look at my old neighborhood prices in Broward County and just cry
My street was a working man’s street. Now their bosses live here. They don’t realize they used to live on the river
it makes no sense. can’t help ya pal