# A house near the parks: rent it out and use it | A2B > Resumo: Buying near the Orlando parks to rent seasonally and use on holiday: real occupancy, licences, the costs that come off gross revenue and what to check before an offer. > Idioma: en > URL canonica: https://a2brelocation.maringaaltopadrao.com.br/en/blog/casa-perto-dos-parques-alugar-e-usar.html > Site: A2B Relocation — relocation advisory no Sul da Florida (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach) e eixo de Orlando. [imagem: Fountain square in Celebration, the town next to the Walt Disney World parks in Florida] # A house near the parks: rent it seasonally and use it yourself It is the most common Brazilian project in the Orlando corridor: a house that pays its own bills and serves the family on holiday. The idea works — but only after three checks almost nobody does in the right order. ## Two decisions inside the same property The house you rent and the house you use look like the same property, but they answer to opposite criteria. For renting, what counts is performance: bedrooms and en-suites, pool, room for groups, time to the gates, a community that allows short-term rental and management that works without the owner nearby. For using, what counts is comfort and routine: beds, kitchen, quiet, space for the family and distance to whatever that family actually does. When both coexist, a third element appears that nobody budgets for: the calendar. The best rental months are exactly the months the family wants to be there — December, Easter, July holidays. Every week used is a week not rented, and that decision has to be made before buying, not after. The honest way to settle it is to write down how many weeks a year the family intends to use, in which seasons, and test whether revenue from the rest of the year covers the fixed costs. If the answer depends on occupancy in the best month of the year, the project is fragile. ## Where the houses that work are The parks corridor is not one place but several, each with a different product. Kissimmee is the centre of the vacation-home market, with more than 30,000 professionally managed homes in the area according to local tourism material. Celebration, next to the parks, is the town Disney planned — impeccable urbanism, and association rules that prohibit short-term rental in its residential areas, according to Osceola rental guides. Champions Gate and Reunion are resort communities: golf, club, water park and a high share of homes operating seasonally — local brokerage material estimates 30% to 50% of homes in those two communities are short-term rentals. Davenport, Four Corners and the Horizon West and Winter Garden corridor come in as price alternatives, with distance to the gates charged in real travel time. The organising criterion is always the same: time to the gate, at peak and off-peak. Twenty minutes off-peak become an hour during school holidays, and that number — not the mile on the map — decides the nightly rate's appeal. [imagem: Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate, in the parks corridor of Central Florida] _Champions Gate, in the parks corridor: a community built around golf, a club and seasonal homes. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Bgag, CC BY-SA 3.0._ ## The number that decides: occupancy (and why sources disagree) There is no serious conversation about a seasonal home without occupancy. And here it is worth showing the disagreement, because it teaches more than any average. AirDNA, in data updated on 13 October 2026, records 40,079 active listings in Orlando, average annual revenue of US$ 48,900, 61% occupancy and an average daily rate of US$ 245. AirROI, with a dataset from August 2025 to July 2026, arrives at US$ 29,472 a year, 43.8% occupancy and a US$ 243 daily rate. Notice where they agree and where they fight. The daily rate is practically identical — US$ 243 and US$ 245. Annual revenue is 66% higher in one than the other, and almost all of that comes from occupancy: 61% against 43.8%. Listing universe, quality filter and how available nights are counted change the result by that much. The practical reading: the nightly rate is a relatively stable market figure; occupancy is the variable that decides the outcome and the one most dependent on operation. Projecting revenue at the market average while operating below it is how owners discover the problem in year one. And supply makes it harder: in AirDNA's cut, active listings grew 142.6% in twelve months — more competition for the same guest, which pressures both rate and occupancy. ## The licence comes before the property This is the point that sinks the most projects in the region, and the only one that cannot be fixed later. In Osceola County the house must sit inside an area approved for short-term rental — the STRPD, a planned district for that use — and hold the state vacation rental licence from DBPR, required under Chapter 509 and displayed on every advertisement. 2026 guides cite around US$ 155 a year for the state licence and roughly US$ 410 to start the county licence, between inspection and issuance. Beyond licences, two filters kill apparently perfect purchases. The first is the association: community rules can prohibit short-term rental even inside a county-approved area — the most common cause of a property that looks compliant and cannot operate. The second is tax: the operator collects the tourist development tax and state tax, together reaching about 13% of gross revenue, and in Osceola the tourist tax is remitted by the operator rather than automatically by the platform. In Orange County, local guidance points to the DBPR licence with no additional county restriction — but the association still applies. And the state picture remains contested: in 2026 there is no statewide ban on short-term rentals in Florida, and bills that tried to centralise regulation at DBPR did not prevail, leaving local control in place. In other words: the rule that applies is the rule of the address, and it must be read in the documents, with the licensed professional on your case, before the offer. [imagem: Golf course at Champions Gate, Kissimmee area, Central Florida] _Golf course at Champions Gate, in the Kissimmee area — club amenities are part of what the monthly association fee pays for. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Bgag, CC BY-SA 3.0._ ## What comes off the gross: the maths the listing never shows Brokerage material in the region works with high numbers: a US$ 600,000 home grossing US$ 70,000 to US$ 130,000 a year, peak weeks at US$ 8,000 to US$ 15,000, and cash-on-cash returns of 6% to 10% a year. Those are market references, not guarantees for an address. What you do with them is test scenarios, not sign a contract. Out of gross revenue come, in the order they appear: management fee (local material cites 10% to 20% of revenue), cleaning between guests, furniture replacement and wear, pool and garden maintenance, the monthly association fee — which in a resort community pays for club and amenities and can be high —, insurance with short-term rental cover, property tax and the tourist tax already mentioned. Two more costs only appear with time. The first is the house going stale: rental furniture wears out in three to five years of heavy use, and guests compare photos. The second is structural vacancy on certain dates — weeks when the city is empty and the house sits clean, ready and unbooked. The calculation that decides is not revenue, it is the cash flow after all of that, compared with the capital parked in the property. And it changes from community to community: the same house at the same nightly rate produces different results depending on the association fee and the supply around it. ## Using the house when the family comes Anyone buying for dual use needs to settle three operational details before signing. The first is the calendar block: family dates go into the system before the season opens, otherwise the best period sells first and the owner keeps the leftovers. The second is the standard of the house. A seasonal home is furnished for groups, with beds in quantity and shared living areas; a family spending two weeks there needs wardrobe space, a real kitchen and some personal space. Many homes solve this by keeping one bedroom off the rental — a decision that lowers the nightly rate and raises the owner's comfort. The third is the relationship with the association: access rules, number of cars, visitors and club use vary between communities and sometimes between phases of the same community. Reading the rules before buying avoids discovering in the first summer that water park access was not included. ## What it costs to get in Entry prices vary more than the average suggests. At Reunion Resort, the community's own FAQ works with an average sale price just under US$ 900,000 and a median of US$ 560,000, with one-bedroom condos in the high US$ 100,000s. In Champions Gate, homes in an area cleared for nightly rental start in the US$ 300,000s, according to a local brokerage comparison. For a foreign buyer, regional brokerage material works with a 25% to 35% down payment and financing for the balance — a condition that depends on bank, profile and documentation and is confirmed with the credit professional on the case. Beyond the down payment come closing costs, inspection, insurance and the initial furniture, which in a seasonal home is not a detail: it is the product. The question that organises the choice is not "which house earns most" but "which house, in this community, with this fee and this rule, fits my capital and my use". When the answer closes, the rest is execution. ## Sources consulted - [AirDNA — Orlando short-term rental market data (atualizado em 13/10/2026)](https://www.airdna.co/vacation-rental-data/app/us/florida/orlando/overview) - [AirROI — Orlando Airbnb data 2026 (dataset ago/2025 a jul/2026)](https://www.airroi.com/airbnb-data/united-states/florida/orlando) - [True North Managed — Osceola County rental regulations: STR rules, tourist tax, zoning](https://truenorthmanaged.com/orlando/osceola-county/osceola-county-rental-regulations/) - [Florida Estate — Osceola County short-term rental rules, 2026 guide](https://florida-estate.com/regulations/osceola-county-str/) - [Avantio — Florida short-term rental laws 2026](https://www.avantio.com/blog/florida-vacation-rental-laws/) - [RedAwning — Florida short-term rental regulations](https://www.redawning.com/pm/post/florida-short-term-rental-laws) - [Own Luxury Homes — Disney World area Airbnb rules (Orange x Osceola)](https://www.ownluxuryhomes.com/markets/disney-world/guide/disney-world-airbnb-rules) - [MaxLife Realty — Short-term rental rules by county and subdivision (Flórida Central)](https://maxliferealty.com/learn/investment-property-central-florida/02-short-term-rental-rules) - [Florida Realty Marketplace — Reunion Resort vs Champions Gate](https://www.floridarealtymarketplace.com/blog/reunion-resort-vs-champions-gate-comparison.html) - [Own Reunion — FAQ do Reunion Resort (preços e distâncias)](https://ownreunion.com/FAQ.html) - [Reunion West POA — regras da comunidade](https://www.reunionwestpoa.com/rules/) - [Experience Kissimmee — Vacation home rentals na região](https://www.experiencekissimmee.com/places-to-stay/vacation-home-rentals) - [Imóvel Orlando — Kissimmee, Davenport ou Champions Gate para casa de temporada](https://imovelorlando.com/blog/kissimmee-ou-davenport-casa-de-temporada-ou-championsgate-para-investi) - [MolinaUSA — Kissimmee: casas, preços e turismo perto da Disney](https://molinausa.com/casas-eua/florida-orlando-area/kissimmee/casas-em-kissimmee-florida/) - [Orlando Home — Melhores bairros para investir em Orlando (2026)](https://orlandohome.com.br/blog/melhores-bairros-para-investir-em-orlando-2026) ## Frequently asked questions ### Does a house near the parks pay for itself? Only after modelling the real cash flow: achievable nightly rate in that community and at that standard, verifiable occupancy, management fee, cleaning, furniture, association, insurance and taxes. Published market averages diverge widely — AirDNA records 61% occupancy in Orlando and AirROI 43.8% — and that entire difference changes the result. No sales material replaces the calculation. ### Can I rent any house in the area seasonally? No. The address must sit in an area approved for short-term rental (the STRPD in Osceola County), with the state DBPR licence and county registration — and even then the community association may prohibit the use. Celebration, for instance, has covenants barring short-term rental in residential areas. The check is documentary and happens before the offer. ### Can I use the house on holiday and rent it the rest of the year? Yes, and it is the most common Brazilian project in the region. What must be settled first is the calendar: how many weeks the family uses, in which seasons, and whether revenue from the remaining weeks covers fixed costs. The best rental dates are the same as school holidays — which is why the use decision comes before the property choice. This guide is general orientation about how a relocation process is organised. It is not legal, tax or immigration advice, and it does not replace an analysis of your own case by a licensed professional in the United States. Regulated work is carried out by the licensed partners we introduce.