Winter Garden & Horizon West

This is the fastest market of the six and the one where a portal search will actively cost you money. Two things drive price here that no filter captures. First: which side of a school attendance line the house sits on — the Windermere-assigned elementaries carry a premium over houses a few streets away, and boundaries have moved before and will again. Second: whether you're in the historic district off Plant Street or in Hamlin, Waterleigh, Summerlake or Independence, which are different products at overlapping prices.

Houses that are priced correctly here do not sit, and multiple offers are ordinary rather than notable. That means the work has to be done before the house appears: financing squared away, your must-haves and your walk-aways decided, and someone able to get you inside on day one. We can do the first two on a phone call this week. Then when the right one lists, you're not assembling a plan — you're writing.