Luxury living in Orlando is more than just having a nice house near the theme parks. It's about location and proximity to the wonderful amenities the city offers. It's about great food, top-notch entertainment, professional theater and music, and world-class cultural sites. It's about great views and plenty of outdoor activities, including golf and boating.

Orlando is much more than theme parks and attractions. In fact, people who want Orlando luxury living could spend the entire year living and playing in the northern part of the city, and avoid all the theme park attractions (and traffic!).

So what should you know about Orlando luxury living?

We want to share the types of luxury living you can find in Orlando, where your best options are, what some of the features and amenities are in each neighborhood, as well as a couple other options to consider. Finally, we'll tell you about some of the different services you'll want to consider to make your luxury home complete.

Three Luxury Living Lifestyles

There are predominantly 3 basic luxury living styles in the Orlando area:

Condos:They're ideal for anyone looking for privacy and security, and they'll be centrally located close to important services so you can just walk somewhere when the mood hits. Luxury condos typically have fewer units in the building for a more exclusive feel. The Landmark Complex in Winter Park is especially known for its security, and it has fiber optic high-speed Internet, which is 200x the regular cable Internet speed.

Townhouses: A cross between a condo and a house. You might have a little bit of a yard to enjoy, but you also get a higher level of security, like you would in a condo. There are usually a smaller number of units, not like a large apartment complex. Some townhouses even have rooftop decks and rooftop views. There are luxury townhouses on Park Avenue in Winter Park, as well as a complex in Thornton Park called The Olive.

Single family homes: When you think of a luxury home, you tend to think of a home that has a pool, high-end light fixtures, and high-end finishes with carpeted floors. You'll also find gourmet kitchens with exclusive appliances like Thermidor, Viking, Wolf. Neighborhoods include The Vias, Forest Hills, and College Pointe in Winter Park. There are also luxury living neighborhoods in Maitland, Windermere, Lake Nona, and the Markham Woods Row Corridor in Heathrow. You can find single family homes on golf courses and lakes.

Where Should I Live?

Part of luxury living means heaving ready access to your city's amenities: fine dining, arts and entertainment, culture, and shopping. While it's easy to drive to any of these options in Orlando, true luxury living means being close to those features, if not right in the heart of them.

Three of our prime locations for luxury living — Downtown Orlando, Downtown Winter Park, Baldwin Park — have a high walkability score because of their very close proximity to restaurants, shopping, and entertainment.

In downtown Orlando, you could live and play where you work. You'll have easy access to a lot of great restaurants and a bustling nightlife all around the Lake Eola and Church Street areas. You can easily get to Kres Chophouse, the Boheme, Artisan's Table, and the Downtown Pourhouse, plus Benjamin French Bakery and Café for a quick croissant and latte. You're close to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and the Mad Cow Theatre, and a short drive from the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre.

If you lived in downtown Winter Park, you're just a few steps from some of the best shopping and award-winning restaurants in the city, as well as just up the street from Rollins College and their performances and celebrations. And you're close to the Louis Comfort Tiffany Museum (home of the largest collection of tiffany glass in the U.S.), the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, and several art galleries along Park Avenue. We love restaurants like, Prato, Bosphorous Turkish Cafe, Café de France, and Briarpatch Restaurant, which is a Winter Park institution. And before you eat, pop into shops like Lily Pulitzer, Lululemon, and Park Avenue's myriad boutique shops.

Or you could live in Baldwin Park, which has its own bustling commercial center, letting you walk or even take a golf cart to get there. Check out Provisions & Buzz Co., La Bella Luna, Saito Sushi, Osprey Tavern, and Cafe 906 for your morning coffee and crêpes. There's even a Publix right in the Town Center, so grocery shopping is a breeze. Baldwin Park is very family oriented: they offer quarterly family entertainment, including the Easter Bunny, an annual Christmas parade, and 5K races. In Baldwin Park, you could spend your days in the neighborhood and never have to leave — everything you want is in one place.

Luxury Lakeside Living

Another possible location is living on a lake in Central Florida. For one thing, the sunsets can be spectacular, or the sunrises if you live on the west side of the lake.

Plus, lake living offers a number of different options for water recreation. You can boat, kayak, paddle-board, fish, water ski, or even go bird watching. And if you live on a chain of lakes, it's very easy to get from one lake to the next and enjoy what each one has to offer.

There are plenty of lake options in the northern part of Central Florida, especially, in Winter Park and Maitland, although Windermere to the southwest has a lot of lake living options as well. Up north, the lake views can be amazing from the hilltops which let you look out onto the lake, as well as expand the view from your home.

There are also specific landscaping resources available in lake living. For example, sometimes you'll have someone like Professional Waterfront Cleanup who comes by and cleans up the weeds and reeds in the lake. That's especially important so your boat propeller doesn't get tangled up. The lake also looks prettier when you're not looking at a lot of lake grass and lily pads. Plus, you can keep a lush green lawn because the water is pumped right from the lake to your home's sprinkler system.

If you own a boat in Florida, you'll also want a boat dock and lift, as well as a company to provide the maintenance for the lift and dock for you. Companies like — what else? — Florida Dock & Boat Lifts provide those services from Central Florida to our state's west coast.

And if you only live on the lake for part of the year, you can ask companies like TotalCare Orlando to manage the rest of your home maintenance especially while you're away, and get your house ready for you before you return.

Live Life on the Golf Course

For others, luxury living means spending as much time on the golf course as you can. It can be a great way to meet people, especially if you move here and don't know anyone. Living on a golf course is an excellent way to enjoy your favorite sport, and have some incredible views of the course. We know several people who live on a golf course just for that view.

Golf course living can be a great way to meet other families, but sometimes the men just want to hang out together, while the ladies go off and play their own games. This is where living near your country club can help. They also have things for the kids to do, like playing in the pool.

Plus, let's admit it, it's a lot of fun driving around in a golf cart. If you lived on a golf course, you could just drive your cart to your tee time, rather than packing up your car just to head to the clubhouse.

Country clubs have plenty of social events like happy hours and family dinners. For example, the Lake Nona Golf & Country Club has a wonderful restaurant, as does the Alaqua Country Club.

There are plenty of golf courses around the Orlando area to check out, like the Interlachen Country Club, Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, Isleworth Golf & Country Club (Windermere), and The Golden Bear Club at Keene's Pointe (Windemere), and of course, the Winter Park Country Club, a municipally-owned 9-hole golf course that has been part of the city for nearly a century.

And of course, you won't want to miss Edwin Watts Golf Store and Golf Galaxy in the Doctor Phillips area, both just a few miles from the Golden Bear Club.

What Resources Should Every Orlando Luxury Homeowner Have in Their Contact List?

Having worked with several luxury home buyers and sellers, as well as having served the luxury home market since 2009, we have a few recommendations we can make in terms of service providers to work with.

To start with, you'll want an offsite property manager, especially if you only live in your house part-time. Many of our friends and clients use TotalCare Orlando.
If you need a landscape contractor, in Winter Park, it's Carter Landscape and Signature Landscape Contractors. They don't just do landscaping, but they also handle pest control and sprinklers. If you're outside Winter Park, then Quality First Home Services (they also provide lawn and shrub care, and irrigation).
For pool maintenance, we prefer Pool Care Specialists, which covers all of Central Florida. (They manage 20 houses just in Linda's neighborhood alone.)
Home maintenance. Michael at Your Local Project Guy can handle a lot of your small repairs and maintenance issues. Find them in Winter Park, but they can cover most of Central Florida.
Interior design: Marc Thee at Marc & Michaels can help you design a gorgeous home, and they’re located right in Winter Park.
There are plenty of fine dining options around the city. Don't be afraid to travel around the city to find some of your favorites. Doctor Phillips has some amazing restaurants (Slate, Eddie V's, Morton's, Dragonfly Robata Grill, just to name a very few), and Winter Park has some equally amazing ones (we like the Parkview, Dexter's New Standard, and Bulla Gastrobar for amazing tapas).
For live entertainment, check Orlando Weekly for what's playing in the various theaters, playhouses, and arts centers for the latest in theater and concerts.
Travel options: The great thing about being so close to the Orlando International Airport (MCO) is that it's such an important international travel hub. There are 50 million people who pass through the airport each year (it's the 10th busiest in the US), and there are nonstop flights to and from the rest of the world. But if you have a private jet, you'll fly in and out of the Orlando Executive Airport, which is just a few minutes from Baldwin Park, Winter Park, and downtown Orlando.

And every luxury home buyer and seller should have a few names in their address book to help you in your Orlando real estate move. We can help you find these people and refer them to you.

Stagers to help you prepare your home for sale.
Movers to help you get into and/or out of your next home.
Interior designers to bring your vision to life.
Lakeside living resources to help you know which kinds of lakes to live on.

Financial Implications of Luxury Living in Orlando

Luxury home pricing in Orlando starts around $500,000. That's true for all of Central Florida — it's the top 5% of home prices in the region. Winter Park and Windermere pricing start around $750,000.

There are a lot of benefits to moving to Orlando, especially from the Northeast. For one thing, there are some major tax savings in Florida, as we don't have a state income tax. We have a lot of professional athletes who retire to the Orlando area just because of our tax savings.

It also doesn't cost a lot in terms of insurance to live in Central Florida. Many people want to live on or near the beach, but insurance costs are much higher when you're close to the ocean, thanks to hurricane season. But in Central Florida, the hurricanes tend to be less severe this far inland, and insurance rates are much lower.

Orlando is also a great place to invest in a vacation home. Many luxury homeowners in the Orlando area often own a big place for their family to be near Disney World and Universal, but they rent it out the rest of the year. There are plenty of offsite property managers who can maintain the home for you in the off-season or after renting guests leave. They'll even handle the money for you, so you can earn some income from your vacation property. These homes usually have four bedrooms or more and are closer to the tourism corridor.

In "Closing"

At Abode, we're able to help newcomers to Orlando familiarize themselves with the area, and find the resources you need. We're plugged into the community, and we can make the necessary recommendations and introductions to help you feel right at home as soon as the moving trucks pull away, and you begin your new chapter of luxury living here in the Sunshine State.

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Steven Ritz, Buyer Specialist - Call 321-277-8271 or email here

Linda Sitek, Listing Specialist - Call 407-963-6544 or email here

What Every Homeowner Should Know About Orlando Luxury Living