A Central Florida agent who tells you what the brochure leaves out.
Henry Mejia helps people buy and sell homes across Orlando and the surrounding counties — resale and new construction. Real numbers, current data, and someone reading the contract on your side of the table.
Tell me what you need
Two minutes now saves a lot later. I answer these myself.
How can I help you today?
Pick the one that sounds like you. Each path walks through the process, the real costs, and the questions people actually ask.
I’m buying a home
What it really costs to own in Central Florida — insurance, taxes, HOA and CDD — plus how to compete without overpaying in a market that has shifted.
See the buyer’s pathI’m selling a home
Nearly half the listings in this metro have cut their price. Here’s how to price it right the first time, and what you’re actually competing against.
See the seller’s pathI’m working with a builder
Read this before you walk into a model home. One box on a sign-in sheet decides whether you can be represented at all — and it is usually not recoverable.
See the builder’s pathCentral Florida is not one market. It’s about fifteen.
In the same metro, roughly 35 miles apart, Longwood is sitting at 2.6 months of supply — a seller’s market — while Davenport is at 8.3 months, which is decisively a buyer’s market. A headline about “the Orlando market” tells you almost nothing about your street.
That gap is the whole job. Knowing which side of it your home or your target neighborhood sits on changes your price, your strategy, and your leverage.
Source: Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association, July 2026 report, covering Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake and Volusia counties. Submarket months-of-supply figures reflect September 2026 brokerage data.
Bring your agent to the first visit. Not the second.
Almost every major builder conditions your agent’s involvement on registering at or before your very first contact with that community — and most require the agent to physically walk in with you. Toll Brothers puts it in writing: registration happens “at the time of their client’s first visit to a specific Toll Brothers community.” Ashton Woods tells buyers directly: “you must register him or her upon your first visit.”
Tick “no agent” on the sign-in tablet and the builder’s file shows you as theirs. Bringing someone in afterward is usually not recoverable — and it costs you nothing to do it right the first time, because the builder budgets that co-op as a marketing expense, not an addition to your price.
- An online inquiry or a virtual tour can start the clock, not just walking in
- The person in the model home is legally the builder’s — in Florida they may be barred from telling you where the price flexes
- Builder contracts routinely shift doc stamps and all closing costs onto you — roughly $2,800 on a $400,000 home
Substance over slogans
There are thousands of agents in Central Florida. Here is what you actually get working with this one.
Numbers with a date on them
Every market figure on this site names its source and the month it covers. If a number is six months old, you’ll know. If two sources disagree, you’ll hear that too — because the honest answer is usually more useful than the confident one.
The full carrying cost, up front
Principal and interest is the easy part. Insurance, the tax reset after you buy, HOA dues, and the CDD assessment riding on your tax bill are what actually break a pre-approval. We run the real monthly number before you fall in love with a floor plan.
Someone who reads the contract
Builder agreements are not the standard Florida resale contract. They often waive your escrow protection, limit inspections, and require arbitration. Knowing which clauses move and which never do is worth more than any commission conversation.
Experience that includes a downturn
Henry moved into real estate from technology and worked through the 2007 housing crisis, guiding clients through short sales when the market was at its worst. Markets that soften are not new territory here.
Local, specifically
Not “Central Florida” as a blob — Horizon West’s village structure, Lake Nona’s Medical City commute, which ChampionsGate sections actually allow nightly rentals, which Seminole addresses feed which schools.
Direct access
You call, Henry answers. No lead-routing, no junior handoff, no team member you’ve never met showing up at your inspection.
Central Florida, with Orlando at the center
Primary focus is the Orlando metro and the counties around it. For the right client, Tampa, Jacksonville and Fort Myers are reachable — but this is home.
| County | Cities & communities | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | Orlando, Winter Garden, Horizon West, Windermere, Dr. Phillips, Apopka, Lake Nona, Winter Park | The metro’s job centers and its densest new-construction corridors |
| Seminole | Oviedo, Lake Mary, Longwood, Sanford, Winter Springs | A-rated schools, corporate corridor, the metro’s tightest inventory |
| Osceola | St. Cloud, Kissimmee, Celebration, Harmony, Sunbridge | Affordability frontier plus the short-term-rental belt |
| Lake | Clermont, Minneola, Mount Dora, Groveland | Hills, lakes, value per square foot, heavy new build |
| Polk | Davenport, ChampionsGate, Haines City | Vacation homes and investor product near the Disney corridor |
Not sure which of these fits how you actually live? That’s a good first conversation. Ask me.
Walkthroughs from the communities themselves
Model home tours, community walkthroughs, and the parts of a build that photos never show. Filmed on site across Central Florida.
Builder model home tours
Pulte, Ashton Woods, M/I Homes, Toll Brothers and more — floor plans, lots, and what the upgrades really cost.
Community walkthroughs
Horizon West, Lake Nona, St. Cloud, Clermont — amenities, commute, HOA and CDD reality.
Buyer & seller explainers
The short answers to the questions that come up in every single transaction.
[Videos are wired and ready — drop in YouTube links and these become live embeds with transcripts and video schema.]
Straight answers
Is it a buyer’s or seller’s market in Orlando right now?
Metro Orlando is a buyer-leaning balanced market as of mid-2026, but it is genuinely split by neighborhood. The Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association reported 4.4 months of supply and 64 days on market in July 2026, and its own president described conditions as continuing to shift toward buyers.
At the same time, sellers across every Central Florida county are still collecting roughly 97–98% of list price. Well-priced homes move in a week or two; homes priced to 2022 sit for months. Both things are true at once, which is why the metro-level headline is close to useless on its own.
Do I need a REALTOR® to buy a new construction home in Florida?
No — but you almost certainly want one, and you have to bring them at the very first visit. Every major builder with a publicly posted policy requires your agent to be registered at or before your first contact with that specific community, and most require the agent to accompany you in person.
Using an agent generally does not raise your price, because the builder budgets that compensation as a marketing cost. Skipping one doesn’t earn you a discount. The full explanation, with each builder’s own wording, is here.
What are CDD fees, and are they on top of HOA dues?
Yes, they’re on top. A Community Development District is a special-purpose unit of local government created under Chapter 190 of the Florida Statutes. It issues bonds to build the neighborhood’s roads, stormwater, and amenities, then assesses that debt against your lot — collected as a non-ad valorem line on your county property tax bill, separate from and in addition to your HOA dues.
In Central Florida’s new-construction corridors, single-family CDD assessments commonly run about $1,500–$3,000 a year. Because it rides on the tax bill, it lands inside your escrow — which is exactly how a buyer who was comfortably pre-approved gets knocked out of qualification. More on CDDs here.
Who pays my agent now that the commission rules have changed?
It depends on what you negotiate, and you’ll know the number before you tour anything. Since August 2024, agents working through an MLS must have a written agreement with a buyer before the first tour — in person or virtual — stating the compensation in specific, objective terms.
That fee can still be covered by the seller, by seller-paid concessions applied to it, or by you. What changed is that it’s disclosed and agreed up front, it’s fully negotiable, and your agent cannot collect more than the agreed amount from any source.
How much is homeowners insurance in Central Florida?
For a standard owner-occupied home with around $300,000 of dwelling coverage, 2026 estimates for Central Florida counties run roughly $3,150–$3,650 a year, with Osceola at the top of that range and Seminole and Lake at the bottom. Treat those as estimates, not quotes — roof age and construction type move the number enormously.
The direction has genuinely improved: Citizens filed a statewide average rate decrease of 8.7% in January 2026 and several private carriers filed decreases of 5–8%. One deadline to know about: by 1 January 2027, every Citizens policy must carry flood insurance, regardless of flood zone.
Do I need flood insurance if I’m not in a flood zone?
Legally, usually not — most of inland metro Orlando is Zone X, where flood insurance isn’t federally required with a mortgage. Practically, it deserves a serious look. Standard homeowners policies exclude flood damage entirely, and Hurricane Ian in September 2022 produced what meteorologists called a 500-year flood event in parts of Orlando, with neighborhoods like Orlo Vista requiring boat rescues.
Inland Zone X policies are comparatively inexpensive. And if your policy is with Citizens, the question becomes moot on 1 January 2027 — flood coverage becomes mandatory for all of them.
Recent from the blog
Let’s start with a conversation, not a contract.
Tell me what you’re trying to do and I’ll tell you what it actually takes — including if the honest answer is “wait six months.” No pressure, no drip campaign.