Driving for Dollars in Orlando

The Mantis on Orlando

Driving for dollars in Orlando means being strategic about where you drive. The city is spread out. You can burn 3 hours driving through perfectly maintained subdivisions in Lake Nona or Waterford Lakes without seeing a single distressed property. The deals are concentrated in the older pockets: Pine Hills, Azalea Park, parts of Conway, and the streets south of Colonial Drive between Semoran and the Turnpike. The visual tells in Orlando are different from older Florida cities. Since much of the housing stock is 1970s-2000s construction, you will not see the boarded-up bungalows common in Tampa or Jacksonville. Instead, look for neglected landscaping (dead grass in a neighborhood where everyone else waters), old satellite dishes still on the roof, cars that have not moved in weeks, and multiple code violation notices on the door. Orlando also has a unique distress pattern: vacation homes and investment properties that have been abandoned. Near Kissimmee and the tourist corridor, you will find properties where the investor stopped maintaining them. These often still have furniture inside (visible through windows) but overgrown yards and full mailboxes. The owner is usually out of state or out of country and tired of the expense.