The 60-Second Overview
Windsor Cay Resort is a 617-unit gated vacation-rental community by Pulte Homes in the Four Corners area off US-27, building since roughly 2023: 5-to-10-bedroom vacation homes and pool townhomes designed for short-term rental, wrapped around a resort campus with a lazy river, zero-entry pool, arcade, fitness center, and mini-golf. It is fee-simple ownership zoned for nightly rental, and the rule that defines the product: owner occupancy is capped at 90 days per year, this is an investment and second-home vehicle, not a residence.
The fee stack is built for the business: roughly $485-$575 a month bundles full landscaping and irrigation, ~400MB internet, cable, and daily garbage service, the operating inputs an STR host buys anyway, plus a $3,000 one-time capital contribution at closing. On top sit the lines a residence never carries: professional management or self-management labor, guest utilities, pool care, furnishing reserves, platform fees, and tourist development taxes. We model all of it, because the brochure will not.
Every other community we cover answers where should we live. Windsor Cay answers does this business clear its cost of capital, and pretending otherwise is how buyers get hurt.
The revenue thesis is Disney’s western gates 15-25 minutes away and the reunion-travel segment that books 6-10-bedroom homes with private pools. It is a real market, and a competitive one: Four Corners adds resort supply yearly, and the spread between audited operating results and sales-office projections is where fortunes quietly go. We underwrite against real comps, model the exit (your resale buyer is another investor), and treat the 90-day rule as the bright line it is.
Fees & the Operating Model
Windsor Cay’s costs only make sense as a business budget. Three layers:
1) The HOA: ~$485-$575 monthly plus the $3,000 capital contribution. The bundle is genuinely operational, landscaping and irrigation, internet and cable at guest-grade speeds, daily trash, services a host otherwise contracts separately. Judged as a residence fee it is enormous; judged as outsourced STR operations it is competitive. Confirm current amounts and inclusions with the association, and read the budget, 617 units of resort amenities require funding discipline.
2) The tax setup. We verify the TRIM bill for any non-ad-valorem lines, and rental operations carry Florida sales tax and county tourist development tax obligations on top of property tax, with registration requirements to match. Out-of-state buyers routinely miss this layer; we do not.
3) The operating stack. Management (typically 15-25% of revenue for full service), guest utilities and pool heat, furnishing and replacement reserves on hard-used interiors, platform commissions, cleaning economics, and insurance written for short-term rental use, a different policy than a homeowner’s. The honest pro forma includes every line; the hopeful one includes three.
The Amenity Campus
The amenity campus is the product’s marketing engine: a lazy river, zero-entry resort pool and water features, arcade, fitness center, 9-hole mini-golf, and sports courts behind a gated entry. For owners it is pleasant; for the rental listing it is conversion, the photos that win bookings against the corridor’s other resorts, and the reason purpose-built STR communities outperform scattered rental houses in the same ZIP.
The strategic read: amenities of this scale are an arms race in Four Corners, every new resort opens with a bigger slide, and the campus that wins 2026 bookings competes with 2028’s newest opening. That is not a reason to avoid the product; it is a reason to underwrite conservatively, favor the bedroom counts and price points with the deepest demand, and treat the amenity premium as depreciating marketing rather than permanent value. We bring that lens to every tour.
Homes & Revenue Tiers
The stock is Pulte-built and rental-engineered: open entertaining floors, bedroom counts from 5 to 10, en-suite ratios built for multiple families, private pools standard on the homes and plunge pools on the townhomes, and finishes chosen to survive turnover. New construction means systems at day zero, the maintenance line every used-STR purchase carries is mostly absent here for years.
The tiers are revenue tiers: townhomes serve the small-family segment at the lowest carrying cost; 5-7-bedroom homes are the volume play; 8-10-bedroom flagships chase reunion bookings at the highest rates and concentrate the most capital in the thinnest resale pool. Furnishing packages, often negotiable, often marked up, complete the picture, and we price them against independent outfitting quotes as part of every contract review.
Schools
Windsor Cay’s 90-day occupancy cap effectively forecloses primary residency, so school zoning is informational here rather than decisional: at last check the assignments run to Sawgrass Bay Elementary, Windy Hill Middle, and East Ridge High.
Any plan that involves actually living in the home runs into the occupancy rules first, verify them with the association and county before contract, because the answer is structural, not negotiable.
More on Owning in Windsor Cay
The depth without the wall of text. Open what matters to you.
The 90-day rule, in practice
Management: professional or self-managed
Insurance and the STR policy
The exit: who buys your resale
5 Mistakes Buyers Make in Windsor Cay
In a purpose-built STR resort, the same five mistakes cost buyers the most. Each is avoidable with the right model before you sign.
Underwriting from the sales projection
Marketing pro formas assume peak occupancy and yesterday’s rates. Audited comps for the same bedroom count in the same corridor are the only honest baseline, we pull them before any offer.
Modeling PITI and stopping
The HOA, management cut, guest utilities, pool care, furnishing reserves, platform fees, and tourist taxes belong in the model. The breakeven moves hundreds of occupied nights once they all land.
Forgetting the supply pipeline
Four Corners adds resort inventory every year, and your 2026 rates compete with 2028 openings. Conservative rate growth and a stress-tested soft year belong in every projection.
Misreading the 90-day rule
Buyers who secretly plan to live here discover the cap is structural. If the honest plan is residency, this is the wrong product, and we will say so before contract, not after.
Buying without investment-side representation
The sales office works for the builder and sells the dream. Representation typically costs you nothing and brings audited comps, fee verification, furnishing-package pricing, and contract review built for investors.
Which Positions Hold Value Best
In an STR resort, position is a booking variable, not a view premium
Guests book photos and walkability, so value concentrates where the rental performs: walk-to-amenity positions first, the lazy river is the listing’s hero shot, then quiet-but-close streets, then pool-orientation and privacy details that show in photos.
The mistake is paying residential-logic premiums, conservation views and corner lots, that guests neither notice nor pay for. We rank positions by booking impact, because that is the only premium that returns here.
What to Check Before You Sign
Before you sign anything at Windsor Cay, run this list. Missing any one of them is how investors inherit someone else’s optimism.
- The current HOA amount, inclusions, and budget, plus the $3,000 capital contribution terms
- The occupancy rules in current text, the 90-day cap and rental requirements verified
- Audited revenue comps for the exact bedroom count, not projections
- The full operating model, management, utilities, pool, furnishings, platform fees, tourist taxes
- An STR-correct insurance quote, commercial guest use, liability, loss-of-income
- The TRIM bill and tax registration requirements, sales and tourist development taxes included
- The furnishing package priced against independent outfitting quotes
- The corridor’s supply pipeline, what opens against you in the next 36 months
Windsor Cay is the one community in our Lake County coverage where we open every conversation the same way: this is a business purchase, and the 90-day rule makes sure of it. The product itself is well-built for its job, Pulte construction, a fee bundle that genuinely replaces operating costs, an amenity campus that converts bookings. Whether the business clears its cost of capital depends on the model, and the model depends on audited numbers the sales office does not lead with.
We represent you, not the builder. That means revenue underwritten from audited comps, the full operating stack modeled before contract, the occupancy rules read in current text, furnishing packages priced independently, and an honest answer to the only question that matters: does this allocation beat your alternatives? When the answer is a residential community instead, or a different corridor, we say so before you sign, not after.
Windsor Cay vs. the Alternatives
The honest cross-shop is split-personality: the corridor’s other STR product for investors, and the county’s residential communities for anyone who actually wants to live here, guides live for all of it:
| Community | The setup | The one-line difference |
|---|---|---|
| Windsor Cay Resort (Clermont) | 617 Pulte vacation units, lazy-river campus | The purpose-built STR machine, 90-day cap included |
| Serenity at Silver Creek (Clermont) | Townhomes with private pools, STR-friendly | The smaller-scale STR entry without the resort campus or its fees |
| Sawgrass Bay (Clermont) | Residential, 2008-2021, ~$45 HOA | What residency actually looks like in this ZIP, school at the gate |
| Ridgeview (Clermont) | Residential new construction, no CDD | The live-here alternative ten minutes north, state park included |
| Wellness Ridge (Clermont) | Residential master plan, amenity campus | Resort-style amenities you are allowed to live with year-round |
| Hartwood Landing (Clermont) | Residential, no CDD, lean fees | The ownership math this product’s fees should be tested against |
The verdict: choose Windsor Cay if the audited model clears your hurdle rate and the 90-day cap fits your actual plan; choose Serenity for smaller-scale STR exposure; choose any of the residential communities if, honestly, you want to live in Lake County, different product, different purchase, and we run both sides of that line every week.
The Honest Pros & Cons
Why buyers choose Windsor Cay
- Purpose-built STR product with day-zero systems
- Fee bundle replaces real operating costs
- Lazy-river campus converts bookings against the corridor
- Disney’s western gates 15-25 minutes from the listing headline
- 5-10-bedroom counts target the reunion segment’s rates
- Pulte build quality keeps early maintenance quiet
Why buyers walk away
- The 90-day cap: this is capital, not housing
- $485-$575 monthly before a single operating line
- Corridor supply grows against your rate card yearly
- Exit liquidity tracks investor sentiment, not family demand
- Projections routinely outrun audited reality
- Tourist taxes, STR insurance, and registration most buyers miss
Our Windsor Cay Buyer Playbook
How we actually run a purchase here:
- Model first, tour second, audited comps, full operating stack, stress-tested soft year
- Verify the rules in current text, occupancy cap, rental requirements, HOA budget
- Price the furnishing package independently, and negotiate it like the line item it is
- Quote STR-correct insurance before contract, not at closing
- Plan the exit on day one, document revenue from the first booking; the P&L is your future listing
Questions We Ask Before You Buy
The answers decide whether Windsor Cay is your allocation or your mistake:
- Does the audited model clear your hurdle rate after every operating line?
- Is 90 days of personal use a feature or a dealbreaker for your actual plan?
- Which bedroom tier’s demand depth matches your risk tolerance?
- Professional management or your own labor, priced honestly?
- How does this allocation compare to your alternatives at the same capital?
- What is your exit plan, and in which market conditions?
Is Windsor Cay Right for You?
No product fits everyone, and this one draws the line harder than most. The honest split:
Consider elsewhere if you want
- A home you can actually live in, the cap is structural
- Passive ownership without operating decisions
- Low fixed costs, the fee stack runs $500+ before operations
- Schools, neighbors, and residential life
- A guaranteed return, projections are marketing
- Quick, liquid exits in any market
Windsor Cay fits if you want
- A purpose-built STR business near Disney’s gates
- New construction with services bundled for turnover
- The reunion segment’s bedroom counts and rates
- Up to 90 days of personal resort use yearly
- An amenity campus that markets your listing for you
- An honest model, we build it before you sign