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Selling in Lake Como
Lake Como is a small in-town neighborhood two miles east of downtown Orlando, laid out in a circle around a park and a lake, wedged between the Milk District and the Hourglass District. It is not a waterfront market, and a listing that pretends otherwise loses the buyer immediately. What it is instead is one of the easiest neighborhoods in Orlando to explain, once you know what to point at.
The neighborhood sits between State Road 408 to the north and Curry Ford Road to the south, and between Hampton Avenue on the west and Crystal Lake Drive on the east. Roughly 2,260 people live inside those lines. The City of Orlando adopted the current district boundaries in June 2022.
Buyers looking here are usually choosing between an in-town neighborhood with a yard and a canopy, and something newer with more square footage further out. That is a straightforward comparison to win, provided the listing is specific and does not overreach.
Start With the Lake, Honestly
Lake Como covers about two acres, according to the Orange County Water Atlas. That is a pond by Central Florida standards, and local buyers know it.
So do not sell this as lakefront living. Any suggestion of boating, of a chain, of the kind of water people buy on the Conway side of town, and an informed buyer marks the whole listing down as unreliable. Credibility is a currency you spend later, during negotiation, and it is not worth trading for one line of copy.
What the lake actually is here is a centerpiece and a reason the streets are shaped the way they are. Handled that way it is an asset. Oversold it is a liability. The distinction takes one sentence to get right.
The Circle
Lake Como’s street plan is unusual for Orlando: the neighborhood curves around the lake rather than running on a grid, with Lake Como Circle wrapping the water and Bumby Avenue on the eastern side.
That geometry does something buyers feel before they can name it. A circular plan around a park has no through route, so the traffic on most of these streets is people who live on them. Inside a city neighborhood two miles from downtown, that is genuinely uncommon, and it is why the place reads as quiet in a way that its location would not predict.
If your home is on the circle, say so and say what the walk to the park is. If it is on one of the streets feeding in, the same logic applies with a slightly longer number. Either way it beats “quiet street,” which every listing claims.
The Lion and the Pink Bunny
Lake Como Park at 520 Lake Como Circle, where the circle meets Bumby Avenue, surrounds the lake and is open from six in the morning until eleven at night. The city lists it as lakes, open space and a paved walking path, which is an accurate description of what to expect: a loop to walk, oaks, and water.
It has two pieces of sculpture worth knowing about, because they are the sort of thing that turns a park into a neighborhood.
The lion was donated by the MacBride family and placed among the azaleas and oaks in 1985. A 1993 renovation added a plaza, walkways, footbridges and flowering crape myrtles. And in 2014 a pink bunny was installed in memory of Chase Smith, a city employee who worked for Commissioner Patty Sheehan and who used to play the Easter Bunny at the neighborhood egg hunts.
The lion is also the mascot of the neighborhood school. None of this belongs in the MLS remarks, but all of it belongs in the conversation you have with a buyer standing in the yard, because it answers the question they are actually asking, which is whether people here know each other.
Between Two Districts
Lake Como’s location is best explained by what it is between.
North and west along Bumby is the Milk District, one of Orlando’s Main Street districts and one of its most durable nightlife and restaurant corridors. It takes its name from the T.G. Lee dairy at 315 North Bumby Avenue, which began as Thomas Gilbert Lee’s dairy farm in 1925 and still runs a processing plant on that site, opened in 1955, handling more than 230,000 gallons of milk a day. A working dairy a mile and a half from downtown Orlando is not something most cities have.
South and east along Curry Ford is the Hourglass District, the restaurant and brewery corridor that has done most of the recent changing on this side of town.
Downtown is two miles west. The 408 is at the top of the neighborhood, which puts the rest of Central Florida within reach without the interchange being in anyone’s backyard.
For a listing, that is three distinct amenity clusters within a few minutes, each with a different character, and a buyer who wants an in-town life without living in a building. Name them individually. “Close to downtown” describes half the city.
The Houses
The housing stock here runs to mid-century and immediate postwar single-family homes under a mature oak canopy, on lots that are generous by in-town standards even though they would look ordinary in a suburb.
That lot size is one of the two or three things actually worth leading with. A buyer comparing Lake Como to Thornton Park or the Milk District proper is trading a bit of walkability for a yard and a driveway. A buyer comparing it to somewhere twenty minutes out is trading square footage for eight minutes to downtown. Both trades are winnable, but they are different arguments, and the listing should know which buyer it is written for.
Schools
Lake Como School is an Orange County public school serving prekindergarten through eighth grade at 2450 East Gore Street, with the lion as its mascot and crimson and gold as its colors. Having a K-8 inside the neighborhood is a real convenience, and it is one of the things families ask about first.
As everywhere in Orange County, assignment is by address and boundaries get redrawn. Confirm it on the district’s locator for your exact parcel and quote what it says rather than what the neighborhood assumes.
What This Means for Your Listing
Lake Como is an easy neighborhood to sell and an easy one to sell badly. The failure mode is reaching for the lake.
The version that works leads with the things that hold up under scrutiny: a circular street plan with no through traffic, a park with a walking loop at the center of it, a lot that is larger than the in-town competition, a K-8 school in the neighborhood, and the Milk District and Hourglass District a few minutes apart in opposite directions. Then a single honest line about the lake, which is that it is small, it is pretty, and it is the reason the streets curve.
A buyer who is told the truth about a two-acre lake believes the rest of the listing. That is worth more than any adjective you could have spent the sentence on.
Local Orlando Seller Representation
Scott and I will walk your street with you, tell you plainly what we would address and what we would leave alone, and give you a number we can support with what has actually closed nearby. No obligation, and no listing presentation unless you ask for one.
Neighboring areas have their own pages: Lancaster Park, Delaney Park and SoDo. More on the corridor just south is on our Hourglass District page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should my listing describe this as a lakefront home?
No, not in the sense buyers mean by that word. Lake Como is about two acres. Describe the lake as the centerpiece of the neighborhood park and the reason the street plan curves, and describe your home’s relationship to it accurately. Local buyers know this lake, and an overstatement here costs credibility that you will want later.
What should a Lake Como listing lead with instead?
Lot size relative to other in-town neighborhoods, the circular street plan and the absence of through traffic, the walk to Lake Como Park, the K-8 school in the neighborhood, and two miles to downtown with the Milk District and Hourglass District on either side.
How do I position this against Thornton Park or the Milk District?
On the yard and the quiet. Those neighborhoods win on walkability to bars and restaurants. Lake Como wins on lot size, canopy and a street where the only cars are neighbors, while still being a few minutes from the same places. Pick the buyer and write for them rather than trying to claim both.
Is there a school in the neighborhood?
Lake Como School is an Orange County public school covering prekindergarten through eighth grade on East Gore Street. Confirm the assignment for your specific address on the district’s school locator before it goes in the listing, since Orange County zones by address.
My house is mid-century. Do buyers here want it updated or original?
Usually somewhere in between, and the buyer for this neighborhood tends to like the bones. Spend on systems, roof and anything that surfaces in an inspection. Be more cautious about gutting the character, because the person most likely to pay your best number is the one who came looking for a mid-century house under oaks rather than a new one.
