Is Lake Mary, FL so Great?

Here in Central Florida Lake Mary is generally regarded as one of the premier places to live. However, we all know that every rose has it’s thorn and, as such, I’ll be taking just a few minutes to address some of the pros of Lake Mary, FL and THEN I’ll be addressing a few of the cons that you may not have considered if you’re thinking about moving to Lake Mary. It’s important to note that my intent here is NOT to sell you on Lake Mary OR to just tell you how bad it is. The truth is that I LOVE Lake Mary. There are a lot of reasons people love this suburb on the north side of Orlando, but these cons may surprise you. Because I don’t want to sound like I’m HATING on Lake Mary, I’ll be addressing some of the reasons people would WANT to live here FIRST. So let’s start with Lake Mary simply being a NICE place. Of course, crime is a real thing everywhere these days, but when I’m out in Lake Mary, day or night, I always feel safe. We don’t have much in the way of panhandlers here and the crime rate, which I suspect is pretty low, can be quickly checked out online.

The overall standard of living here is very high. Most of Lake Mary was built out in the 80’s, so it’s much newer than other areas like Sanford next door and Orlando down to the south. I’ll be addressing the standard of living a bit later.

Next, there are a lot of jobs right here IN Lake Mary. You could drive down to Orlando to work, but Lake Mary has Verizon, AAA, Deloitte, Convergys, Mitsubishi, and a bunch of other tech and administrative type jobs, many of which are along a really nice area not too far from I-4.

Lake Mary also has all sort of shopping and restaurants right here, too. There is a trendy little downtown area if that’s your thing and Lake Mary Boulevard has a Home Depot and some chain restaurants. We don’t have to contend with tourists up here, which we see as a GOOD thing. Yes, we all benefit from them passing through and leaving their money in Lake Mary on their way down to the Mouse, Universal and all that, but their traffic, tall black socks, and chaos just doesn’t impact us this far north.

Seminole County, where Lake Mary IS, is known to have some of the best schools in the entire area. Of course, these ratings can change, so go online and do a quick check to see how they rate TODAY to see if they’re still good when you come to Lake Mary.

Lake Mary has a good bit of recreation, too. There is ALL SORTS of golfing here, we’ve got the Cross Seminole Trail that heads south out of Lake Mary and the East Central Rail Trail to the north and you can take that from Debary all the way over to the east coast. They’re big on parks, too, so if that’s your thing there’s a lot here for you.

I noted earlier that Lake Mary has a very high standard of living, and that’s a great thing IF you can AFFORD that standard of living. The median sale price of a home here in Lake Mary at the time of this video was a little over $400,000, that’s about $10,000 higher than down in Orlando and about $35,000 more than Debary up to the north. That’s pretty steep for central Florida, so unless you have one of those high paying jobs in one of those tech companies or you’re some sort of manager, you could struggle to make it here.If you’ve got a regular job with the city, or at one of the attractions down in Orlando, it may be tough. There are all sorts of Porches, Mercedes, and all sorts of exotic cars around here, but they’re mostly living in Heathrow, Steeplechase, Alaqua or on some private estate. Want a historic home, something eclectic? There isn’t too much in the way of options here. There are some townhomes and condos, but if you’re looking for variety, you’ll have to head east to Sanford or down towards Longwood or over to Windermere if variety is what you’re after.

Next, let’s address the location. The location of Lake Mary is great, but I believe there are TWO sides to this location. Yes, jobs are close and there is plenty of shopping and eats close by and Orlando is just down the road, but Orlando has a TON of traffic. I’m not saying that it’s LA, New York City, or Atlanta bad, but it’s creeping up there. Even with the addition of the express lanes in Orlando, I NEVER go to Orlando without EXPECTING to get held up in the traffic. As such, if you’re thinking about working down in Orlando, you may consider the SunRail or just expect the toll roads to lessen your likelihood of sitting in that traffic. Yes, the beaches are just down the road, but they’ll take you 45 minutes, again, ASSUMING that I-4 isn’t stacked up. It seems like these days if you head to New Smyrna beach after, like 8am on a weekend, you’ll need to add another 10 minutes on to that. So, it isn’t like you’re heading to the beach after work, at least very often.

If you’re thinking of moving to the Lake Mary area, or if you just have questions about the Lake Mary real estate market, give us a call. We get those calls all the time and we love it!