Four points to consider before you choose your Orlando home

If you’ve just started looking, you’re probably concentrating on the home you want: the size, the number of rooms, the yard, and perhaps the layout of the kitchen or the size of the closets.  In other words, you’re looking at the house and lot themselves, and not what’s around them.  Before you focus on the house, however, there are 4 other important points to consider.

1. The location: Think about where you go every day, be it to work, school, shopping, recreational facilities, health clubs, or even doctors.  Confine your Orlando home search to areas that will put you in easy distance to the most important places you need or want to go. Otherwise, you’ll begin to resent both the time spent on the road and the dollars spent on fuel.
2. The Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions (CC&R’s): If the Orlando homes you like are in subdivisions with CC&R’s be sure to read the documents carefully. Some communities restrict everything from where you can park on your own property, to the screen door you put up, to the color of paint you can use, to the number and size of pets you can have.  If you can’t live with the CC&R’s, don’t even consider purchasing a home in that subdivision, because the rules will not bend for you.
3. The noise level: Once you’ve begun to look at homes, notice the sounds. If there’s more road noise than you like today, know that it’s likely to increase in the future. If there are dogs barking, find out if it’s a continuous or occasional disturbance. If someone in the neighborhood is playing music at full volume, ask around to see if that happens regularly or is a once-in-a-while occurrence. If you’re serious about a neighborhood and noise levels concern you, go back at different times of day to park and listen. Can you get used to it or will you begin to dislike being at home because of it?
4. The location relative to other homes: When you buy in an established neighborhood, you can see how others care for their homes. You’ll also know if nearby structures are single family homes, multifamily properties, or commercial buildings.  When you buy at the edge of a subdivision or neighborhood, adjacent to vacant land, you have no way to predict what may occupy that land in the future. You can check current zoning, of course. But you can’t guarantee that the zoning won’t change.

When you’re ready to begin searching for a home here in Orlando, get in touch. I’ll be happy to help you find just the home you want – in the location that will make you happy to be at home any day of the week.