Explore Orlando by sector

Lake Nona and south Orlando

Seventeen square miles of master plan around Medical City, the airport corridor, and the clearest look this site gets at what a community development district actually costs.

One guide south toward the airport. Lake Nona is seventeen square miles of master plan built out from the 2000s around Medical City — a medical school, a research institute, a veterans' hospital and the university campuses beside them — with housing, a town centre and its own path network built to match.

This is where the Florida layers' single largest disclosed blind spot becomes a number. Much of the newer housing in this metro sits inside a community development district: a special-purpose local government that finances roads, drainage and parks by issuing bonds the homeowners repay through an annual assessment on the tax bill. It is not a millage, it is in no property tax rate on this site, it runs $1,200 to $3,000 a year for twenty or thirty years, and it is usually on top of an association fee rather than instead of one. Ask for the district's assessment schedule and the remaining bond term before you make an offer — that document tells you more about the real cost of a south Orlando house than the listing does.