This Tiny House Village in Florida may be the best yet...

Hi there. Welcome to my channel, where I take you on tours of tiny and unique homes and showcase stories of people living alternatively. In today's video, we're traveling to Florida to take a tour of the Orlando Lakefront tiny house community. We're going to meet up with the owner who's going to show us a few of their one-of-a-kind amenities. We're also going to hear from the residents to see what it's actually like to live in the community. And we're going to step inside a few of the adorable tiny homes that they have on the property. But this isn't the first tiny house village that we featured on this channel. So if you're interested in communities like this, make sure that you check out the playlist that we have linked in the description. And while you're at it, make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you know, every single time we publish a new video. Welcome to Orlando Lakefront tiny house community. Come on and let me give you a tour. I'm the first tiny house community in Orlando for sure. There is 46 tiny house rental lots, and we have 14 of those are vacation rentals. And the rest of the community is ran kind of like an RV park. People bring their tiny house, they pay a lot rent and they can stay as long as they want, but it is a month to month contract. Most people are here probably three years. There has been residents that stay up to 13 years, I think is our longest resident. The age group is somewhere between 25 and 45, but it does vary. Any neighborhood I've lived in, I've always tried to make friends with my neighbors. This community though is amazing in a lot of ways. We have a lot of great, great residents. That's probably bigger than some communities I've lived in, but it's a small tight knit community. I don't think you could ask for better neighbors. I really don't. The community was the unexpected bonus of this place. We've only been here a year, but I'd venture to say they're more like family than friends already. Just a really great place to live. We have a clubhouse, a laundromat. We have a outdoor fire pit with a bunch of seating. We have kayaks. We have paddle boards. We have a fishing dock. The community loves to get together and throw Halloween parties and Christmas parties. I love that about the neighborhood. There's a lot to do here. My job before I was a stonemason. So I was picking things up and putting it down for 20 years and just kind of hated my job. I really wanted something that was a passive income that wasn't so loud and dusty and tedious. I knew that it wasn't like that. Life's not like that. You know, it could be much better. It can be doing something I enjoy. I enjoy using my hands and working with the land and the community. And it's a lot more rewarding than going to work and doing a nine to five and having, you know, a stressful job like that. I got the park in 2009. It started out as I ran down trailer park in the fifties and I got it pretty much in that condition. I wanted to make it as nice as I possibly could. And just thinking of ideas. And I thought, I thought of the first tiny house ever, which I did not. A few days later, someone called me asking if they can bring a tiny house over to the neighborhood. I sat down, talked to the County. I said, this is amazing. This is exactly what I want. One turned into two, two turned into four. And then now there's 46 tiny houses here. It's really a tight knit community now. I also live here on property. I got a park I love. I get to wake up here on the lake every day. I got friends in the neighborhood, worked hard for it, but it's paying off now. Orlando lake front is located about three miles from downtown. It's in the heart of college park. We're here on a beautiful lake Fairview. It's a bird sanctuary. We got a boat it's coming in right now. It's a rental for the residents or the guests either way. We try to keep it really active and outside nature. Most people that's what they want. They want to be outside. They don't want to be in one of the tiny homes all the time. The people that come here to rent usually long-term their own power bill has their only responsibility. We take care of the trash internet, the landscaping, the water, lot rent goes between five 50 close to the road and seven 50 on the lake. There's probably three or four people that maintain the garden here in the community. I'm Constance Blacklin Lee and I am an Orlando permaculturalist. This is a community garden, but principally I sort of like to manage the garden, but I don't decide everything I grow. I get requests to grow like Adam likes carrots. I tried to grow carrots once, but we had a roten problem and they dug them up and ate them. So I grow tomatoes and when they want tomatoes, they come get them. I grow collard greens here. Smell this. This is, this is garlic chives. The neighbors just come and they just cut it off like this and they put it in their salads. I am a Floridian born and raised in Orlando. I like the fact that I get to be by the lake and I like the fact that it's close to the house. This is the vacation rental portion of the neighborhood. There's 14 tiny homes. We try to make them all unique. I had a lady in here and she said, Hey, can I Airbnb my tiny house? She ended up just doing it and it went on for like two years. She had to relocate the house and I was asking her, you know, what goes into it and what it is really found out it's a good business strategy and I can make the houses on the lake exactly how I want them to look. So I kind of have like the picture I'm looking for with the tiny houses, vacation rentals make more money than the longterm rentals, but I put in a lot more work. I'd say 80% of the people just want to see a tiny house and experience it. Sometimes five or six, you know, 20 year old people rent it out and they go in there and you hear them scream and they're so excited and it's a good feeling. The view, that's the most popular house we have. It's got the big wraparound deck. It's pretty sharp inside. Unique. Most houses have two floors. There's about three or four vacation rentals that have a downstairs. I know everybody can't handle the ladders and make it upstairs. So I moved into this community. I thought I was coming for a month just to get things on track and moving out. That was like seven years ago. So I love it here. I love waking up here. I love the neighbors. After all that hard work, it's paying off. We have a waiting list probably for the past six years. It takes between six months and maybe a year and a half to get into the community. Every once in a while, a house comes for sale. And if you buy the house on that lot, you skip the waiting list, which is a huge perk if you're trying to get in here right away. Everybody is great tenants. I really can't complain much. It's a nice feeling when everybody comes together and then become friends. You know, that's kind of what I wanted in the first place. I am content. I could drop a hat, go travel, you know, just do whatever I want for several weeks, come back and knock out as many problems as I can. That's kind of lifestyle I wanted since I was a little kid. Thanks for watching this week's video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you'd like to see other tiny house community tours, make sure you check out the playlist that we have linked in the description. And I will see you soon with another unique home tour.