Renting vs buying in Orlando
Orlando is the cheapest of this site's three Florida cities to own in, and the reason is insurance rather than price. It is also the one where the cost that catches people appears on no tax table at all. Here is the arithmetic — and then the assessment it cannot see.
The short answer
The typical home in the City of Orlando was worth $375,175 in June 2026, down 2.4% on the year, and a three-bedroom rents for about $2,361 a month. On the arithmetic alone Orlando is the most affordable of this site's three Florida cities to own in, and by a distance — chiefly because of insurance.
Being inland is worth about three thousand dollars a year. Homeowners cover is modelled here at $3,720, against roughly $4,680 on the Tampa Bay coast, $6,060 in Miami-Dade and $6,614 on the Palm Beach coast. At current rates that gap services something like a hundred thousand dollars of additional mortgage. The guides on this site sit between seventy-six and a hundred and four feet above sea level; storm surge does not reach them.
What it costs instead is an assessment nobody quotes. Much of the newer housing in this metro sits inside a community development district, which finances the roads, drainage and parks with bonds the homeowners repay — $1,200 to $3,000 a year, for twenty or thirty years, on the tax bill but not in the tax rate. It is in no figure above, it is usually on top of an association fee rather than instead of one, and it is the most common unpleasant surprise for buyers moving to central Florida.
The calculator opens with real City of Orlando figures and every one is editable. Three things specific to this market: the tax rate is the homesteaded rate a buyer actually pays, not the 18.0878 mills; no CDD assessment is included anywhere, so add it to the association-fee field if the property has one; and the appreciation default is a long-run figure rather than a description of a market that fell over the year measured.
Your situation
Compare like for like — the rent on somewhere you would actually be willing to live, not the cheapest listing in the city. Drop the price to around $300,000 and the rent to a one-bedroom figure to compare apartments instead, and put the condo fee in under Assumptions.
20.0% down. The renter starts with this plus closing costs — $79,026 — invested instead.
The single biggest lever. Buying costs a lot to enter and a lot to exit, and only time amortizes that away.
Assumptions — every one of them editable
Orlando’s typical value fell 2.4% over the year to June 2026. Central Florida has a large construction pipeline and an employment base concentrated in one industry; two per cent is a long-run figure rather than a forecast. Try zero.
What the renter earns on the down payment they never spent. This is the comparison's hidden lever — a renter who spends it instead of investing it does far worse than this model shows.
Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception — a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum — and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling.
Roofs, furnaces, fences, hail. Averaged out it is a real cost even in the years nothing breaks.
Use this field for the association fee AND any community development district assessment, because the calculator has nowhere else to put the latter. A CDD runs $100 to $250 a month on much of the newer housing in this metro and is not in the tax rate above.
Commission and legal fees, charged against the price you eventually sell at. The owner's net worth below is after this comes off.
Net worth, side by side
The buyer's line is home value minus what is still owed minus the cost of selling, plus anything they invested in months when owning was cheaper. The renter's line is one portfolio: the down payment and closing costs they never spent, plus the monthly difference whenever renting is cheaper.
Show the year-by-year figures
| Year | Owner | Renter | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $60,912 | $93,004 | −$32,091 |
| 2 | $71,540 | $107,434 | −$35,894 |
| 3 | $82,549 | $122,336 | −$39,787 |
| 4 | $93,960 | $137,728 | −$43,769 |
| 5 | $105,792 | $153,631 | −$47,839 |
| 6 | $118,067 | $170,066 | −$51,999 |
| 7 | $130,809 | $187,054 | −$56,245 |
| 8 | $144,042 | $204,620 | −$60,577 |
| 9 | $157,792 | $222,786 | −$64,994 |
| 10 | $172,087 | $241,579 | −$69,492 |
| 11 | $186,956 | $261,024 | −$74,068 |
| 12 | $202,430 | $281,150 | −$78,720 |
| 13 | $218,543 | $301,986 | −$83,443 |
| 14 | $235,331 | $323,562 | −$88,232 |
| 15 | $252,830 | $345,911 | −$93,081 |
| 16 | $271,081 | $369,064 | −$97,983 |
| 17 | $290,127 | $393,059 | −$102,931 |
| 18 | $310,013 | $417,930 | −$107,917 |
| 19 | $330,788 | $443,717 | −$112,929 |
| 20 | $352,503 | $470,460 | −$117,957 |
| 21 | $375,212 | $498,200 | −$122,988 |
| 22 | $398,975 | $526,983 | −$128,008 |
| 23 | $423,854 | $556,855 | −$133,001 |
| 24 | $449,915 | $587,863 | −$137,948 |
| 25 | $477,229 | $620,060 | −$142,832 |
| 26 | $505,870 | $653,498 | −$147,628 |
| 27 | $535,920 | $688,234 | −$152,313 |
| 28 | $567,465 | $724,325 | −$156,860 |
| 29 | $600,594 | $761,834 | −$161,239 |
| 30 | $635,405 | $800,822 | −$165,417 |
- The rate is fixed for the life of the loan, so there is no renewal to model — but nothing here credits you for refinancing into a lower one either.
- Neither household is credited with tax on their investments, and the buyer's gain on a principal residence is tax-free while the renter's portfolio may not be.
Questions people actually ask
Is it worth buying in Orlando right now?
The typical home in the City of Orlando is worth about $375,175 and a three-bedroom rents for roughly $2,361 a month. At 6.67% on a 30-year fixed loan with 20% down the mortgage alone is about $1,931 a month; add $504 in property tax and $310 in homeowners insurance and the owner's month is nearer $2,750. The complication specific to this metro is not on that list: on much of the newer housing there is also a community development district assessment of $1,200 to $3,000 a year, which appears on no millage table and in no figure above. Orlando's typical value also fell 2.4% over the year to June 2026, so the 2% appreciation the calculator opens with is a long-run figure rather than a description of this market.
What is a CDD assessment, and why is it not in the tax rate?
A community development district is a special-purpose local government created to finance the infrastructure of a new development — roads, drainage, water, parks — by issuing bonds that the homeowners then repay through an annual assessment on the tax bill. It is not a millage and it is not in the property tax rate on this page, because it is debt service rather than a tax. In much of the newer housing around Orlando it runs $1,200 to $3,000 a year, it can run for twenty or thirty years, and it is the most common unpleasant surprise for buyers moving to central Florida. Ask for the district's assessment schedule and the remaining bond term before you make an offer — and note that a CDD assessment is usually on top of a homeowners association fee rather than instead of it.
Why is the tax rate here 1.61% when Orlando is charged 18.0878 mills?
Because of Florida's homestead exemption. The state assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to what you paid, so unlike Ontario or North Carolina there is no frozen base year to correct for. What there is instead is an exemption: $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority, and a second $25,000 comes off for all of them except the school board. Run that against this price and the rate a homesteaded buyer actually pays lands below the millage. The exemption is not automatic — file with the county property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy.
Is flooding a concern in Orlando the way it is in Miami and Tampa?
Not in the same way, and that is the most useful thing this page can tell someone comparing the three. The Orlando guides on this site sit between about seventy-six and a hundred and four feet above sea level, measured by USGS point query — against under nine feet in Tampa's Channel District and under six in Brickell. Storm surge does not reach here. What does reach here is wind: Orlando is inland but not sheltered, and Hurricane Charley crossed the city in 2004. There is also genuine freshwater and sinkhole flooding around the chain of lakes, which is a lot-by-lot question rather than a coastal one. Flood insurance is still a separate policy from the homeowners figure above, and still worth quoting on the specific address.
Why is home insurance so much cheaper than on this site's coastal Florida pages?
The figure here is $310 a month, or $3,720 a year — against roughly $4,680 on the Tampa Bay coast, $6,060 in Miami-Dade and $6,614 on the Palm Beach coast. That gap is the clearest single argument for inland central Florida, and at current rates it services something like a hundred thousand dollars of additional mortgage. It is an estimate rather than a quoted premium, and it excludes flood.
Why is the seller's tax bill so much lower than the figure here?
Save Our Homes. A homesteaded property's assessed value may rise no more than 3% a year — or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is lower — for as long as the same owner keeps the exemption, and it resets to full market value the January after a sale. A long-tenured neighbour may be paying a fraction of what you will. If you already own a Florida homestead you can port up to $500,000 of the accrued benefit to the next one.
What are the closing costs, and why do they get bigger if I put less down?
Florida taxes the loan as well as the house. The documentary stamp on the deed — 70 cents per $100 — is the seller's by convention. What is yours is a second documentary stamp on the promissory note at 0.35% and a non-recurring intangible tax on the mortgage at 0.2%. On a $300,140 loan that is $1,651, and because it is charged on the borrowing rather than the price it rises as your down payment falls. With a settlement fee around $850, an owner's title policy, an inspection at about $700 and recording, the buyer's side comes to roughly $3,991 before lender fees.
How long do I have to stay for buying to beat renting?
Getting in is about $3,991 and getting out roughly 6.5% — commission plus the seller's deed stamp — or about $24,386 on this house. The carrying cost is $9,763 a year in tax and insurance that a renter does not pay, plus any CDD assessment and association fee. Set appreciation to zero and see what the answer looks like; the city's typical value fell over the year measured here.
Does Florida have rent control?
No, and Orlando is not permitted to introduce it. Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception — a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum — and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling. Orlando's rental market is unusually exposed to one industry, and a metro whose employment is concentrated in hospitality behaves differently in a downturn than one that is not — which cuts both ways for a renter weighing this decision.
Which Orlando are we talking about?
The City of Orlando: the municipality whose millage and Zillow index every figure on this page describes. It is not Winter Park or Maitland, which are separate cities with their own councils and their own rows on this site's Orlando metro comparison. It is not Dr. Phillips, Celebration, Hunter's Creek or Horizon West, which are unincorporated county with no municipal government at all. And it is not Lake Buena Vista or Bay Lake, the two tiny municipalities that contain the theme parks. If the address you are looking at is not inside the city limits, the tax figure here is the wrong one for it.
Which figures here are estimates
The prices, rents and millage above come from published sources, each one listed below with the period it describes, and the tax figure is derived from that millage through Florida's own exemption rules. These do not:
- Home insurance at $310 a month, which is an inland central-Florida figure and excludes flood
- The association fee, at the layer's metro figure — Orlando's newer neighbourhoods vary enormously and several carry an assessment on top
- The bedroom split of the rent figure, which applies the same ratios as the four Florida metro layers to a single all-homes index
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference
- The private mortgage insurance rate, which is priced per borrower by credit score rather than published as a schedule
- Any community development district assessment, which is not in the tax rate on this page and is a real annual cost on much of the newer housing in this metro
If you want the payment side on its own — the biweekly plan, prepayments, the month mortgage insurance stops and the two taxes Florida charges on the loan — the mortgage calculator covers it in more detail. To work out where rather than whether, start with the neighborhood guides, or compare the city against the other twenty-three municipalities of the Orlando metro.
Sources
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted — city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, Year-over-year change to June 2026, which is negative in twenty-two of the twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte metro pages use, so the two American metros can be read against each other
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed — city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A repeat-rent index of asking rents across the whole rental stock, single-family homes included, Municipality-level rent measured on one method across the metro, for twenty-three of the twenty-four
- 2025 Orange County Final Tax Rates · Orange County Property Appraiser, via the Florida Department of Revenue Property Tax Data Portal · retrieved Supports: Orange County general at 4.4347 mills, the library at 0.3748 and the St Johns River Water Management District at 0.1793, School state and local levies totalling 6.449 mills, Municipal rates from Windermere's 3.7425 to Eatonville's 7.2938
- Final 2025 Millage Rates, fiscal year 2025-26 · Seminole County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Total millage by taxing authority for every Seminole municipality, from Lake Mary's 14.3929 to Casselberry's 18.1808, School required local and discretionary levies totalling 5.2490 mills, The county fire and road MSTUs, which apply in the unincorporated area and in some cities but not others
- 2025 Osceola County final millage rates by taxing authority · Osceola County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Kissimmee at 17.4114 mills and Saint Cloud at 17.8989, School levies totalling 5.3060 mills across required local, discretionary and capital, Dozens of separate municipal service taxing units in the unincorporated county, from 0.13 to 12.42 mills, which is why an unincorporated Osceola address cannot be given one rate
- Lake County 2025 final millage rates · Lake County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Total millage for every Lake municipality, from Leesburg's 15.9477 to Eustis's 19.8623, School board state and local levies totalling 6.0850 mills, The county fire, ambulance and stormwater MSTUs and which municipalities are subject to them
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 · United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program · retrieved Supports: 2020 census counts and 2024 population estimates for each municipality, Leesburg's growth from 27,011 to 37,815, the fastest in the metro in percentage terms, Orlando at 334,854, which is twelve per cent of its own metropolitan area
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- Average cost of homeowners insurance in Florida, 2026 · MoneyGeek · retrieved Supports: A Florida average of about $3,815 a year against a national average of about $2,543, Orange County premiums in the $3,200 to $4,500 range, at the cheaper end of the state because the metro is inland
- Conforming loan limit values for 2026 · Federal Housing Finance Agency · retrieved Supports: A baseline one-unit conforming loan limit of $832,750 for 2026, which applies in every county in this metro
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents per $100 on a deed, in every county except Miami-Dade, which charges 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note or other written obligation to pay money
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A non-recurring intangible tax of 2 mills — 0.2% — on the obligation secured by a mortgage on Florida real property
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A $25,000 homestead exemption applying to all taxing authorities and a second $25,000 applying to all but the school district, The Save Our Homes assessment limitation of 3% or the change in CPI, whichever is lower, Portability of up to $500,000 of accrued Save Our Homes benefit to a new homestead, The 1 March filing deadline
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida — preemption of rent control · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: The repeal of the referendum exception that had allowed a local rent control ordinance in a declared housing emergency
These are estimates built from published figures, not a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice. Rates, premiums and provincial rules change; confirm anything you plan to act on with a mortgage professional and read the sourcing methodology.