College Park and north Orlando
1920s bungalows on a chain of lakes, with streets named after universities and a main street that still works.
One guide north-west of downtown. College Park was platted in the 1920s land boom with streets named after universities — Princeton, Harvard, Yale — on a chain of lakes, and it kept its bungalow stock and its main street on Edgewater Drive when most of Orlando was rebuilding itself around cars. It is old Orlando in the way that Seminole Heights is old Tampa.
What you are buying here is mature canopy, small lots and a walkable commercial strip, which in central Florida is a scarce combination. What you are buying with it is 1920s construction: most of the stock predates every modern wind code, and a wind mitigation report will move the insurance quote more than the price does. The other thing to establish is the boundary — Winter Park is a separate municipality with its own council and its own millage a short distance east, and the line between the two is not obvious on the ground.
