Two homes in Lakes of Mount Dora can carry the same square footage, the same three bedrooms, the same type of waterfront lot, and still represent very different amounts of money once you account for what's already growing in the yard. Buyers comparing new construction to resale here tend to run the obvious math: price per square foot, closing costs, upgrade allowances. The number that actually separates a 2026 D.R. Horton build from an older Pringle resale rarely shows up on either listing sheet, because it isn't a builder feature. It's a decade or two of somebody else's yard work, already paid for and already grown in.
Three builders, three starting lines
Lakes of Mount Dora has been built out in stages since 2006, when Pringle Development broke ground as the community's original builder. Medallion Home joined in 2011 and, as of 2026, is finishing out a handful of remaining inventory homes, which means that entire era of construction is close to disappearing from the new-home market. D.R. Horton is the builder currently active in the community, selling under its Freedom Series line: ten floor plans running from roughly 1,400 to just under 2,900 square feet, with homes starting at $399,990. The Avon plan, one of the smaller footprints at 1,639 square feet, has been priced in the low $440,000s.
Resale inventory spans a wider range, from around 1,200 square feet up past 3,000, with some listings running closer to 3,700, and top-end waterfront resales reaching into seven figures. On paper that spread looks like it's mostly about size and lot position. For buyers coming from a larger suburban home and downsizing into something with less upkeep, the comparison often stops there. It shouldn't.
The exclusion that decides who plants what
Every home in Lakes of Mount Dora, regardless of which of the three builders put it up, sits under the same HOA structure, and that structure does not cover lawn or shrub maintenance. Residents handle their own yards or hire it out. That single exclusion is the reason a Pringle home from the community's earliest phase and a D.R. Horton home closing this year can look nothing alike even when their floor plans are similar sizes.
A home that's changed hands once or twice since 2006 or 2011 has had fifteen to twenty years of an owner paying to establish, fill in, and maintain the plantings around it. Palms have had time to grow past the roofline. Hedges have filled out. Whatever hardscaping went in around the lanai has had time to settle. None of that shows up as a separate line item on a resale listing. It's baked into the asking price, whether the listing description calls it out or not.
A brand-new D.R. Horton lot starts with the builder's standard package: sod, a few foundation plantings, nothing more. Everything past that becomes the new owner's project and the new owner's money, layered on top of the purchase price.
The math a spec sheet won't run
The sticker price on a new build reflects the structure. It doesn't reflect the years of establishment a comparable resale already carries in its yard. A buyer weighing a new Avon in the low $440,000s against a similarly sized resale a few streets over isn't only choosing between newer finishes and older ones. They're choosing between funding landscaping themselves over several seasons or paying more today for landscaping someone else already funded and waited on.
That comparison, price against square footage, treats a bare 2026 lot and a filled-in 2010 lot as though they started from the same place. They didn't.
What a decade of self-funded landscaping produces
Because the HOA leaves yard investment entirely to individual owners, and because lots in the earlier Pringle and Medallion sections tend to run larger than what's typical in newer Florida developments, the older parts of the community show real variation from house to house. No two yards read quite the same way. Some owners leaned into tropical plantings, some kept it simple, some added stonework or extended pavers well past what the builder originally poured. That variation traces directly back to the same rule that leaves a brand-new lot bare on closing day: nobody but the homeowner is funding it, and homeowners make different choices over different amounts of time.
Why Medallion's shrinking inventory changes the timeline
Medallion Home's homes date to 2011 and later, and the builder is down to a handful of remaining inventory units as of 2026. Once those close, that middle era of the community's construction history stops being purchasable as new. From that point forward, a Medallion-built home comes to market only the way a Pringle home already does now, as a resale, priced with whatever landscaping investment its owner put in over the years in between. A buyer who wants a Medallion floor plan specifically, rather than the current D.R. Horton lineup, has a narrowing window to buy one new before that option disappears and the only way in is waiting for one to resell.
The one thing that doesn't change across builders
Natural gas service runs throughout Lakes of Mount Dora regardless of builder or phase, a detail that's become less common in newer Florida 55+ communities as many have shifted to all-electric construction. A Pringle home from the community's first phase has it. A D.R. Horton home closing this year has it too. It's worth knowing precisely because it isn't a point of difference between new and resale here. Buyers sometimes assume gas service is either a new-construction upgrade or an older-home holdover. In this community it's neither. It's constant across every builder and every year since 2006, which means it shouldn't factor into the new-versus-resale decision at all.
FAQ
Is Pringle Development still building in Lakes of Mount Dora? No. Pringle was the community's original builder starting in 2006. Homes it built are only available now as resales.
Are new D.R. Horton homes still available in 2026? Yes. D.R. Horton is the community's current builder, selling Freedom Series floor plans with homes starting at $399,990.
Does the HOA fee include lawn care? No. Lawn and shrub maintenance is excluded from the HOA fee across the entire community, which is why landscaping investment falls to individual owners no matter which builder built the home.
If you're weighing a new D.R. Horton floor plan against a resale a few streets over, the honest comparison takes more than a spec sheet. Scott McFadden walks buyers through what's already built into a Lakes of Mount Dora resale price versus what you'd still need to fund yourself in a new build, lot by lot. Let's Connect.
