Orlando Master Planned Communities: 7 Compared on Price, Fees and Tradeoffs
From a former Navy base near downtown to a county plan still under construction on the west side, Central Florida’s planned communities can look nearly identical in listing photos. Their entry prices, monthly carrying costs and daily commutes are anything but.
Seven planned communities around Orlando, from Heathrow in the north to Hunter’s Creek in the south, compared side by side.
Image: Jared Jones Team
What to Know
The 7 communities in brief
No rankings here. Jared Jones walks the map like a compass and lays out what each community costs to get into and to carry each month.
Entry prices vary by more than $300,000. The lowest listing in the study was a $175,000 condo in Hunter’s Creek, while the cheapest door in Baldwin Park sits near $500,000.
Fees hide the real payment. CDD, HOA and service fees can move the monthly cost by up to $350 between homes that look alike on a listing site.
About half still sell new. Horizon West, Lake Nona, Celebration and Avalon Park still have new product. Baldwin Park, Heathrow and Hunter’s Creek are resale only.
The 7 Orlando master planned communities Jared Jones compares are Baldwin Park, Heathrow, Avalon Park, Lake Nona, Hunter’s Creek, Celebration and Horizon West. The cheapest way in ranges from about $175,000 in one to roughly $500,000 in another, and CDD, HOA and service fees can move a monthly payment by up to $350.
Listing photos make these places look like one neighborhood wearing 7 name tags: golden hour light, palm-lined boulevards, a town center. Jared’s approach was to set the brochures aside, read what residents say to each other online, and line up the price tags side by side so buyers relocating to Central Florida can decide for themselves.
What counts as one of the Orlando master planned communities?
In Jared’s definition, a master planned community is one where a developer secured a large tract, drew the streets, parks, school sites and town center on paper first, and then built it out as a single product over a decade or two. That test is why Oviedo, Winter Springs and Waterford Lakes are not on this list. All 3 are active markets, but they grew the traditional way, one subdivision at a time, without a single plan tying them together.
Buyers coming from parts of the country where planned communities line street after street often expect the same here. Central Florida has them, but they are fewer and farther apart than many relocating buyers assume, which is why their locations around the metro matter as much as their amenities. Horizon West stretches the definition slightly: it is a county sector plan with many builders working inside one framework, rather than a single developer’s project.
Which Orlando master planned communities sit in the center and north?
Baldwin Park: walkable, central and resale only
Baldwin Park was built on the former main base of Naval Training Center Orlando, about 3 miles east of downtown.
Image: Jared Jones Team
Baldwin Park sits on land many drivers pass without knowing its history. The former Naval Training Center Orlando was selected for closure in 1993, and Baldwin Park Development Company bought the main base property from the City of Orlando in 1999. The village center, grid streets and parks around Lake Baldwin all came from that redevelopment plan, and the Cady Way Trail runs through the community toward Winter Park.
Jared puts the median home price near $761,000, and there is no true entry tier. The floor is a condo approaching $500,000, single-family homes carry a median just over $1 million, and lakefront homes approach $2.5 million. The community is fully built out and 100% resale. It sits inside the Urban Orlando Community Development District, and Jared notes there is no clean public assessment schedule, so the real CDD figure has to be pulled by address.
In the resident conversations he reviewed, buyers who toured Lake Nona or Horizon West first often described Baldwin Park as feeling less manufactured, and neighbors talk about walking to Publix and biking the trail. The pushback centers on cost, small backyards and cut-through traffic on internal streets. Jared is clear that resident sentiment throughout his video is word on the street, not verified fact. His read on the trade: the highest entry floor on the list in exchange for the most walkable daily routine. For a wider look at that tradeoff, see this guide to walkable Orlando neighborhoods at higher price points.
Heathrow: gated, quiet and steady
Heathrow is a private, gated residential community in unincorporated Seminole County, just west of Lake Mary.
Image: Jared Jones Team
Heathrow was founded in 1985 by food entrepreneur Jeno Paulucci on former celery farmland west of Lake Mary, and it grew into a gated residential community of roughly 2,200 homes beside the Heathrow International Business Center. Jared describes it as finished, with only scattered custom lots left. It is also the quietest of the 7 online: where the others generated hundreds of resident posts, Heathrow produced a trickle, which he reads as the sign of a settled community rather than a gap in the research.
On price, Heathrow is the steadiest of the group in his numbers. The median sits near $736,000, up a couple of percent from last year, homes sell in about 3 weeks on average, and inventory is down about 30% year over year. Condos start around $275,000, and guard-gated estate sections such as Heathrow Woods and Stonefield run about $989,000, with sales reaching into the high $2 millions.
Heathrow has no CDD, per Jared. Infrastructure was funded through the homeowners association instead, so the recurring bill is an HOA fee he estimates near $3,995 a year, with cable and internet bundled in. That is one of the higher fee lines on the list, which is why the no-CDD label alone does not tell the full story. Buyers weighing the north side can compare it with the wider Lake Mary area market.
What do Avalon Park and Lake Nona offer on the east side?
Avalon Park: a self-contained town with the lowest carry
Avalon Park’s downtown grew in phases around a small lake on Orlando’s east side.
Image: Jared Jones Team
Avalon Park is a 1,860-acre master planned development in east Orange County that began in 1998 under Beat Kahli’s Avalon Park Group. Its downtown started with a mixed-use clock tower building in 2000 and expanded along Avalon Lake, and it now holds shops, restaurants, medical offices and a YMCA, with Waterford Lakes retail next door for everything else.
Jared notes most of the build-out ran from 1999 to 2020, with one phase still active as 3-level townhomes arrive this fall. The median price has hovered between $456,000 and $475,000, homes are taking about 60 days to sell, and the entry point sits around $340,000 to $400,000 for townhomes. The bigger number may be the carrying cost: no CDD, and HOA dues of $143 to $274 a month, which makes Avalon Park the lowest total monthly carry in his study.
Residents like how much of daily life stays inside the community, and commuters sometimes choose it as a way to use State Road 50 instead of paying tolls on SR 408 or SR 417 every day. The friction is distance. From the eastern edge, most popular destinations are at least 15 to 20 minutes away before traffic. One online thread got heated over 90-plus new townhomes in an open field, until someone pointed out the parcel had been in the long-range master plan all along, a good reminder to read the plan before buying next to open land.
Lake Nona and Laureate Park: the most debated, and the softest market
Lake Nona in southeast Orlando generates more online debate than the other 6 communities combined.
Image: Jared Jones Team
Lake Nona, and Laureate Park inside it, is the community everyone already has an opinion about. Even critics concede the amenities: the USTA National Campus, which opened in 2017, Boxi Park, an open-air venue built from shipping containers, Nona Adventure Park, the Lake Nona Wave Hotel, Friday night markets and a strong restaurant lineup. Residents also note that many standout spots share the same developer, a sign of how tightly the experience is managed. Laureate Park is singled out as a walkable pocket within a larger area that mostly is not.
Jared calls it the softest market of the 7. A national listing portal shows a Laureate Park median sale price near $709,750, with the year-over-year change swinging between roughly 3% and 11% depending on the month and the mix of homes trading. Homes average about 48 days on market, and sellers are getting around 92% to 93% of asking, which gives buyers room to negotiate. One month does not make a trend, he cautions, but buyers may find better entry prices than they have seen in years.
Condos and 55-plus product start near $355,000, some still available new, while Lake Nona Golf and Country Club listings average about $3.5 million and one recent sale closed near $4.25 million. CDD assessments run $1,532 to $2,528 a year depending on product type, which puts Lake Nona mid-pack, and every neighborhood also carries an HOA. For the latest openings and builder phases, see what is new and coming to Lake Nona in 2026, or watch Jared’s neighborhood-by-neighborhood Lake Nona video.
The most repeated complaint is Narcoossee Road, the main north to south route, with congestion at most hours. Residents advise choosing a section that lets you avoid it, and most trips out of the area involve tolls on SR 417 or SR 528. With more construction underway south of Lake Nona and planned expressways not yet built, Jared expects that pressure to continue for a while. Newer sections also come with smaller lots and less mature shade.
How do Hunter’s Creek, Celebration and Horizon West compare in the south and west?
Hunter’s Creek: the original template, with the lowest entry price
Hunter’s Creek, launched in 1986, set the template that later Orlando planned communities followed.
Image: Jared Jones Team
South of the tourist corridor is where this all started. Developer Genstar announced construction of Hunter’s Creek in 1986 on a 3,840-acre tract in south Orange County, before Celebration, Lake Nona or any other community on this list except Heathrow. Today Hunter’s Creek covers about 6.5 square miles with 35 single-family neighborhoods, and it is entirely resale.
It also holds the lowest entry price in the study. At filming, a 1-bedroom, 861-square-foot condo was listed at $175,000. Updated 1990s homes run from about $400,000 to the mid $600,000s, and large waterfront pool homes top out around $800,000 to $900,000. Medians diverge by source: a national portal shows about $520,000, while a trailing 12-month MLS pull by Jared shows $434,000, a gap he attributes to how much condo inventory gets mixed in. Carrying costs are low: the master association runs $180 a year, plus sub-association dues of $55 to $175 a month depending on the village, with no CDD.
When an online post questioned whether the area has character, several residents pushed back by naming local breweries, family-run Latin American restaurants and bakeries, and community events at Osprey Park. The friction is traffic along John Young Parkway and the SR 417 interchange, even outside rush hour. For his full Hunter’s Creek video, Jared spoke with 15 to 20 residents, and most told him they love living there.
Celebration: polished on paper, complex on fees
Celebration, in Osceola County, broke ground in 1994 as a new urbanist town.
Image: Jared Jones Team
Celebration was originally developed by The Walt Disney Company, which broke ground in 1994 on a new urbanist town in Osceola County and sold the downtown to private investors in 2004. It remains one of the most argued-about places on the list, with 2 busy resident threads this past year alone.
Jared describes a 2-speed market: the median sale price is up 8.9% while price per square foot is down 6.6%. Homes under $1 million are holding well, while some above $1 million sit for about 4 months. Small condos start in the mid to upper $100,000s, a golf-front home is listed near $4.5 million, and one builder is still active in the Island Village section. For a deeper look, see whether buying in Celebration makes sense in 2026, or watch Jared’s video on the changes coming to Celebration.
The fee structure is the most complex in his study: a community fee near $1,068 a year, roughly $300 for trash, and a separate service area fee from $117 to $418 a month depending on the neighborhood. Buyers also typically pay a one-time capital contribution at closing equal to the master fee. Praise centers on how much of daily life happens on foot or by bike, from the ponds to downtown. Criticism echoes the Truman Show comparison heard about Baldwin Park and Lake Nona, with some describing the strict upkeep standards as closer to a theme park than a town. Downtown retail is charming but has seen turnover, and the old movie theater has been closed for some time.
Horizon West: still building, with the highest fee stack
Horizon West is the only one of the 7 still under construction at real scale. Orange County adopted the concept in 1995 as 5 mixed-use villages and a town center surrounded by greenbelts, about 20,704 gross acres in southwest Orange County. Jared focuses on the west edge and Hamlin, the town center, where restaurants and a golf entertainment venue are building the kind of foot traffic older communities took a decade to develop. The Hamlin town center guide covers what is open and what is coming.
The headline numbers look calm: a median asking price near $588,000, up 1.4%, with homes moving in about 40 days. Underneath, Jared counted 447 active listings, 297 of them with a price cut, and roughly two thirds of recent sales closed below asking. That is a market where buyers currently have leverage. Pool homes sold at a median of $1.275 million, versus about $600,000 without one. Townhomes start in the $400,000s, move-up homes run about $500,000 to $800,000, and lakefront homes reach about $2.6 million.
Carrying costs are the highest stack on the list: a village HOA of $150 to $300 a month, a master HOA of $50 to $100 a month, and a CDD of $1,500 to $4,500 a year depending on how new the phase is. The recurring complaint is getting out. Crossing Windermere toward Dr. Phillips or the theme parks east of it can take 35 to 45 minutes in traffic despite the short mileage. School assignments also split by address, so confirm assignment with the district; this guide explains how to research school boundaries in Winter Garden and Horizon West. The Winter Garden and Horizon West local guide hub collects the rest.
How do CDD and HOA fees change the real monthly cost?
Avalon Park, Hunter’s Creek and Heathrow carry no CDD, according to Jared, but that does not make them equal. Heathrow recovers the cost through an HOA near $4,000 a year, while Hunter’s Creek is simply low. Lake Nona and Horizon West carry real CDD assessments, and Celebration layers community, trash and service area fees that change by neighborhood and even by street.
His lesson is not to avoid CDDs. It is to add up every line item, including price, when comparing homes, because the payment estimate on a typical listing site does not show the CDD. Florida law requires a CDD disclosure in the contract for the initial sale of a home in a district, but on a resale the clearest place to see the assessment is the property tax bill. This walkthrough shows how to find the exact CDD amount on a tax bill.
7 communities by the numbers
Figures are from Jared Jones’s fall 2026 research for the video. Prices and fees change, so confirm current numbers for any specific address.
Why does traffic come up in almost every planned community?
Six of the 7 communities share the same complaint under a different road name: Narcoossee Road in Lake Nona, Florida’s Turnpike and SR 429 in Horizon West, SR 50 and the tolls in Avalon Park, John Young Parkway in Hunter’s Creek, the toll road trip to big-box shopping from Celebration, and I-4 near Heathrow. Each built a self-contained world on the inside with only 1 or 2 fast ways out.
Baldwin Park is the exception, and Jared argues that is no accident. It is the only one built into an existing city street grid rather than carved out of open land on the edge of the metro. Master planning solves the inside of a community; it was never designed to solve how you leave it. If commute time is the deciding factor, this rundown of real costs and traffic for Orlando newcomers is a useful next read.
Two patterns also surfaced in the resident research. The Truman Show comparison came up in 3 communities that share almost nothing else, from different decades, developers and price points. And the 2 communities praised most for getting around on foot and by bike, Baldwin Park and Celebration, are also the 2 most often called manufactured. Jared leaves that tension unresolved.
A light real estate read
Micro-location matters more than the community name. Inside each of these places, the section you choose decides your commute, your fee stack and whether you buy from a builder or a seller. In Lake Nona, that means distance from Narcoossee Road; in Horizon West, how new the phase is and which CDD it sits in; in Celebration, which service area applies.
Jared has sold homes in all 7 and says each has a loyal following, so the useful exercise is matching the tradeoffs to your own routine. He is also open about where the evidence is thin: Lake Nona, Horizon West and Celebration have deep, current discussion online, Baldwin Park is well covered, Avalon Park and Hunter’s Creek lean on older material, and Heathrow has very little.
The Takeaway
There is no winner among these 7 Orlando master planned communities, and Jared does not rank them. The deciding numbers are personal: whether you want to buy from a builder or are fine with resale, an entry price that varies by more than $300,000 across the group, and a monthly carrying cost that can differ by $150 to $350 for as long as you own the home.
Start with the commute you will actually make, then price every line item for the specific address before comparing listings.
FAQ
What are the 7 master planned communities around Orlando that Jared Jones compares?
Baldwin Park in central Orlando, Heathrow in Seminole County, Avalon Park in east Orlando, Lake Nona in southeast Orlando, Hunter’s Creek in south Orange County, Celebration in Osceola County and Horizon West in southwest Orange County.
Which Orlando master planned communities have no CDD?
According to Jared Jones, Avalon Park, Hunter’s Creek and Heathrow carry no CDD. Heathrow offsets that with an HOA near $3,995 a year, so confirm the full fee stack on the tax bill and HOA documents for any address.
Which community has the lowest entry price?
Hunter’s Creek had the lowest entry listing in Jared’s study, a 1-bedroom, 861-square-foot condo listed at $175,000. Baldwin Park had the highest floor, with condos approaching $500,000.
Can you still buy new construction in any of these communities?
Yes. Horizon West is still building at scale, Lake Nona still offers some new condos and 55-plus product, Celebration has 1 builder active in Island Village, and Avalon Park has a townhome phase underway. Baldwin Park, Heathrow and Hunter’s Creek are resale only.
How do I find the real CDD and HOA cost for a specific home?
Florida law requires a CDD disclosure in the contract for the initial sale of a home in a district. On a resale, check the non-ad valorem assessments on the property tax bill and request the HOA’s current dues schedule for that address.
External Links & Related Reading
Official sources behind the history and fee details in this post, plus related guides and videos from the Jared Jones Team.
- Jared Jones Team on YouTube: The truth about 7 Orlando master planned communities
- U.S. EPA: Naval Training Center Orlando site reuse spotlight
- Avalon Park Group: Developer story
- Orange County Planning Division: Horizon West
- Orange County District 1: Hunter’s Creek overview
- Florida Statutes 190.048: Required CDD disclosure to purchasers
- Related: Horizon West neighborhoods guide, villages, fees and commute
- Related: Living in Lake Nona, day-to-day life explained
- Related: What $1 million buys in 6 Orlando areas
Comparing planned communities around Orlando?
The right fit comes down to your commute, your full fee stack and whether you want new construction or resale. For an address-level breakdown, call 407-706-5000 or email info@jaredjones.com.