Most buyers evaluating Encore Resort at Reunion open a portal, sort by median price, and compare it against Solara, Storey Lake, or ChampionsGate. The median here sits around $880,000 over the last 30 days, up 28.1% year-over-year as of May 2026, which reads as a premium community running hot. That framing misses the mechanism that actually decides your rental economics at Encore, and it is a mechanism you cannot renegotiate after closing.
At Encore, your management company is not a post-closing decision. It is a pre-closing decision that gates whether your guests can use the resort at all.
The rule that shapes your pro forma before you sign
Encore is a closed-loop resort, and access to the waterpark, clubhouse, shuttle, and on-site food and beverage is tied to the operator managing the home. Two managers have been set up to hand that full access to renting guests: Rentyl, formerly branded as Luxury Residential Resorts, and Jeeves Florida Rentals. If an owner elects a manager outside that approved set, guests staying in the home lose the amenity access that drives Encore's nightly rate premium in the first place.
That single rule reframes everything a buyer thinks they are buying. You are not purchasing a vacation home with flexible management options. You are purchasing a slot in a resort program, and the slot only works when routed through one of two operators. Nightly rates, cleaning standards, minimum stays, and revenue splits inside that duopoly become the real levers of return. The Osceola County short-term rental framework and the local 10 p.m. amplified-noise cutoff apply on top of that, but they are the same rules every neighboring resort operates under. The approved-manager structure is what makes Encore different.
For an international buyer working with a bilingual advisor, this is the conversation to have before an offer, not after inspection. It is also why Encore rewards a specific investor profile: someone comfortable outsourcing operations to a resort-affiliated partner rather than running a fully independent listing.
What that median actually buys
Return to the headline number and it starts to behave strangely. The May 2026 window showed a median sale price of $880,000, up 28.1% compared to the same period last year, while the median price per square foot was $186.96, down 7.4% year-over-year. Prices rose. Per-square-foot value fell. Both are true at once.
The explanation sits in the floor plan mix. Encore's homes range from 2,363 ft2 to 9,804 ft2, and the community is built around 4 to 13 bedroom estate formats. When the transactions closing in a given month skew toward larger 8 to 12 bedroom homes, the median price rises even as the per-foot value softens, because buyers are paying for scale rather than finish. What looks like appreciation is closer to a shift in the buyer bench.
That has two practical consequences:
- A 5 or 6 bedroom home benchmarked against the community median will look mispriced in either direction depending on which comps the appraiser pulls. Ask for the appraiser's comp set in writing before you accept a valuation.
- A large-format 10 to 13 bedroom home is not competing against Solara or Storey Lake inventory in any meaningful sense. Its comp set is Reunion West, Bear's Den, and Spectrum+, where HOA fees are currently $813/month for condos, $930/month for condos with elevator access, and $436/month for townhomes and the buyer pool is oriented toward large-group luxury rentals.
Inventory has thinned in parallel. The total number of homes for sale in Encore Resort at Reunion was 41, down 30.5% compared to last year. In the last 30 days, 4 new homes were listed for sale, down 66.7% year-over-year. The median days on market was 90, down from 185 days last year. Half the marketing time of a year ago, on a shrinking pool of inventory, with a median sale-to-list-price ratio of 97%. Sellers are getting close to ask. Buyers who came in expecting distressed pricing are recalibrating.
The HOA line most buyers read too quickly
Encore's HOA sits at roughly $460/month and includes a scope worth reading carefully. According to community references, that dues line covers cable TV, trash pickup, pest control, private swimming pool maintenance, lawn care and sprinkler maintenance, 24-hour security, high speed internet, home phone. In a pro forma, several of those are line items that would otherwise appear as separate monthly expenses in Solterra or Windsor at Westside.
There is a caveat. Third-party subdivision data shows HOA fees range from $1 to $1,068 per month across the various parcel groups inside Encore, which means the number depends on which phase, sub-plat, and product type the home sits within. Reunion West Ph 1, Ph 2 East, Ph 2b West, Ph 3 West, and Ph 4 do not all carry the same dues. A buyer should confirm the exact assessment on the specific address rather than rely on a community-wide figure, and should ask which services are bundled versus billed separately by the property manager.
Property tax adds another meaningful line. The average annual property tax for Encore Resort at Reunion is $9,829.66, and larger estate homes will run well above that.
Where guest-experience rules become owner rules
Buyers modeling revenue often forget that the resort's guest policies feed directly back into their operating costs.
Two examples with real dollars attached. Pool heat, which is close to mandatory for winter bookings in Central Florida, carries a resort-set nightly rate: Pool heat is available for an additional nightly fee of $40 from May through October, and $60 from November through April. That is a guest-facing charge, but a manager who does not build it cleanly into the booking flow will see cancellations or refund requests, and an owner who ignores it in the pro forma is understating the revenue that a well-run listing captures.
Parking behavior matters for turnover velocity too. Complimentary self-parking is available throughout the resort, although parking on the street is not permitted. Additional overflow parking is located in the Westside, Eastside, and at the Clubhouse. Large groups booking 10 to 13 bedroom homes routinely arrive in more vehicles than the driveway holds. If the manager does not brief guests on overflow lots before arrival, cleaning turnovers get delayed and reviews suffer.
And the county-level 10 p.m. amplified-noise cutoff applies to every home in the resort. It is not an Encore rule. It is an Osceola County ordinance that the resort enforces because it has to.
The comp set nobody tells you about
Encore reads on paper like a family vacation community, and it functions that way for guests. As an investment product, it is built for a different customer.
Homes at the top of the range accommodate up to 26 guests under one roof, and the community was designed around reunions, sports teams, and corporate retreats rather than the standard four-bedroom family stay. That group orientation shows up in the amenity design: the AquaPark features WaveRacer, Stormchaser, and Tsunami slides plunging from a 60-foot tower, alongside the Surfin' Safari kids splash area, and the clubhouse anchors on-site food and beverage across Finns Restaurant, Bis Grill, Shark Lounge, and Encore Coffee House. Camp Encore runs a summer program that keeps kids on-property, which extends average length of stay for the family segment.
The bookable minimum has drifted over time and by source, from a legacy 3-night policy to newer references at 2 nights and a 1-night minimum length of stay on the resort's own guest-facing site. Shorter minimums increase booking volume but also increase turnover cost, and the two approved managers structure their pricing around that tradeoff differently. It is a question worth asking in a management interview before you sign.
A short FAQ for buyers still deciding
Can I self-manage or use an outside property manager? Legally yes. Practically, your guests will lose access to the waterpark and resort amenities unless the home is managed through Rentyl or Jeeves Florida Rentals. That access is what supports the nightly rate. Most owners underwriting Encore as an investment select from those two.
Is Encore the same as Reunion Resort? No. Encore sits inside the broader Reunion master plan but operates as its own gated resort-within-a-resort with a separate clubhouse, waterpark, and amenity program. Reunion's three golf courses and Spectrum+ condos operate under different HOA and membership structures.
How close is the community to the parks? The resort's own materials place it at roughly 7 miles (about 15 minutes) from Walt Disney World Resort, with I-4 access supporting travel to Universal and the Space and Gulf coasts.
What about resale? With a 97% sale-to-list ratio, 90-day median days on market, and inventory down more than 30% year-over-year as of May 2026, sellers who price correctly are transacting. Sellers who price against the wrong sub-market wait.
At Pristine International Realty, we walk international and domestic investors through Encore's approved-manager rule, the phase-specific HOA math, and a realistic pro forma before an offer goes out, in English or Português. If you are weighing Encore against another Orlando resort community and want a clear read on which one actually fits your goals, request a free consultation with our team on WhatsApp.
