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[rollycolly2007]

I'll give you some perspective on fences. When we bought this house ( it's about an third of an acre total, backyard is pie shaped, and none of the neighbors at the time had a fence) , it's not totally common here. My kids were 3 months and 3 years when we moved in. We thought we'd need a fence but never put one in. We have loved having all the open space as do the neighbors. We often use the area where it overlaps and they are welcome to if they have friends playing. We don't have any busy streets so kids running out into traffic wasn't an issue.

Just want to throw out the idea that your kids won't be little forever and a fence if is the one sticking point it may not be the worst thing to give on.

Many families with small children live without a fence.

It sounds like fences may be a problem in that area finding a house.

I can't imagine how frustrating it is house hunting, and it sounds like you have a pretty small area to pick from.

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Thank you for your input. I really appreciate it. I have considered properties without a fence. We have looked at quite a few without a fence, but I think I also just want one for the privacy aspect.

We live in a rental condo with lots of green space surrounding our condo. It’s very difficult right now to take my 2 year old outside without her trying to run into the street. My 5 year old is good about holding hands.

We used to have relatively safe places to go before covid. I took them everywhere by myself since my husband was always at work. We went to Disney at least twice a week (104 times in 2019) not including water parks, character breakfasts/dinners, camping, resort visits, etc. The kids and I went to a different beach every week up to 4 hours away, different playground every week, different nature hike every week, so 52 new beaches/cities, 52 new playgrounds, and 52 new hikes every year. You name it, we’ve probably been there. We also did nature school with 20-30 friends every week, navigators troop, 2 morning co-ops, cooking school in one of Emeril Lagasse’s kitchen once a month, Sea World, and lots of other field trips every week. All of these places were relatively safe for her since I didn’t have to worry about her running away into the street. I wore her in the parking lots and then she could run freely within the parks or on the beach/nature trail.

Since we’ve isolating since March due to my husband’s extreme high risk, I have to wait for my husband to get home from work, so we can go on our walk. The kids and I go on our patio about 5-6 times during the day. There is not a sidewalk in our neighborhood and my 2 year old will try to run out into the street, so I need my husband’s help. I guess that’s why I feel I need a fence since I currently have lots of green space for my kids to run, but I don’t feel safe taking her out by myself. The cars drive so fast on the road that we take to get to the nearby grassy area, so I need my husband’s help. There is a large grassy area across the street from our condo, but she has tried to escape from me in a few seconds so many times that I just decided to wait for my husband to get home. My son was a runner too.


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[rollycolly2007]

Some of the properties that we are looking at have one big neighborhood fence for all the homes. I just don’t like that all.

I’m really struggling to find properties with land too. Almost of the homes that do have fenced backyards are like 6 feet apart with tiny backyards and I don’t want that at all.


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[SnuggleBuggles]

No HOA but fences were't allowed in our neighborhood growing up. My parents planted hedges around the property instead- that was allowed. I would ask about that. Not as fool proof but you aren't trying to keep a pet enclosed.

[rollycolly2007]

No HOA but fences were't allowed in our neighborhood growing up. My parents planted hedges around the property instead- that was allowed. I would ask about that. Not as fool proof but you aren't trying to keep a pet enclosed.

Thank you. I understand why some of the HOAs do not allow fences. It’s just hard because there is such a limited selection of homes right now.

We thought about building too, but it would cost so much since you can’t even find a small piece of land for less than $350,000 in the area we are looking. Most of the plots of land are over $1 million.

A couple of the homes we are looking at are on the golf course and they do not allow any fencing at all in order to preserve the pristine view of the golf course. They are even more expensive since they are on the golf course.

I would just like to sit on the patio in my backyard while watching my kids play in a safe fenced area and not have to constantly worry about my 2 year old running away or neighbors seeing everything you do.

I don’t think I would mind not having a fence if we could have acres of land for them to just run and be free, but that is a rare property that costs millions of dollars.


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[KpbS]

It sounds like you are looking for a house with characteristics of a more rural area—land, ability to fence without restrictions, etc, not Orlando. If you are tied to your current location, you may want to consider expanding your radius to include areas with different styles of homes or accepting the lack of a fence, knowing your little one won’t be little forever and she won’t be running off.

[rollycolly2007]

It sounds like you are looking for a house with characteristics of a more rural area—land, ability to fence without restrictions, etc, not Orlando. If you are tied to your current location, you may want to consider expanding your radius to include areas with different styles of homes or accepting the lack of a fence, knowing your little one won’t be little forever and she won’t be running off.

My dream would be a property with a house, no HOA, and some land. I don’t need acres of land. I just don’t want to be 6 feet away from my neighbor. That’s how they have built many homes in Orlando.

I have expanded to 2 zip codes, but we need to stay in our area for my husband’s work. He has done the 45 minute commute and did not like it at all. Right now it’s 6 minutes. We are trying to keep the commute time to 15-20 minutes. We want to avoid I-4 and toll roads since we just moved from Windermere and he did that long commute with I-4 and toll roads for over 3 years.


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[HannaAddict]

It’s good you have time on your side and you’re getting started early to familiarize yourself with the market. It should be interesting to see what prices do in the coming months. They went crazy in my high demand area. Maybe something will level off and a great property will hit the market when you’re ready to strike.

My neighbors across the street spilt up and had to buy last summer during the pandemic. Things were so crazy she bought a $450K house when it first came on the market for full price without even going inside. I can’t imagine!

Good luck in your search!


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People have bought $4m+ houses without seeing them in person. Coming from out of state. No time to fly in before they would sell. And closed immediately. No inspections or pre-inspections only in our market too at all price levels. It is insane!!


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[rollycolly2007]

People have bought $4m+ houses without seeing them in person. Coming from out of state. No time to fly in before they would sell. And closed immediately. No inspections or pre-inspections only in our market too at all price levels. It is insane!!


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Wow. We need to see the home. We will find our home one day.

There are 15 homes as of today, but I do not like them for the following reasons:
-they don’t have enough land (0.14 acres). Most of the land is in the front yard, since it’s farther away from the road.
-pool takes up the whole backyard area, so no grass area for a potential play set
-recently renovated but it’s not to my taste at all
-the master and other bedrooms are really small. The 2 bedrooms in our condo are a nice size. 20 *15 and 15*15. I would like the other bedrooms to not be 10*10.
-no office or separate area for DH. Just 3 bedrooms and that’s it.
-one of the homes is asking for $150,000 more than any home has ever sold in that neighborhood. It has been renovated, but the average median sales price for that neighborhood is $412,000.
-too close to a main road. The backyard backs up to a main road, so there is a noise issue.
-some of the homes were bought last year. They are selling them for $100,000-$200,000 above what they paid for them last year.


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