THE LONG GAME

There’s a piece of land on the south side of Saint Cloud that sold for $150 million in December 2021. Cash. It was the largest single land transaction Osceola County had seen in more than a decade, and it barely made a ripple outside the business press.

That land is now Waterlin. It’s approved for more than 16,000 homes.

For scale: Saint Cloud’s population was estimated around 71,000 in 2024. If Waterlin builds out at ordinary household sizes, this one community adds 40,000 or more people to the south side of town. Most of what you’ll read about it comes from builder marketing. This isn’t that. I live here, I watched Sunbridge and Crossprairie come out of the ground, and I pulled the actual MLS listings, the district budget, and the county road studies before writing a word of this. Here’s what Waterlin is, what it costs, and who should actually consider it.

What Waterlin Is

Waterlin sits on roughly 6,000 acres along the Canoe Creek Road corridor, adjacent to Florida’s Turnpike, with more than two miles of frontage on Lake Tohopekaliga. The land is the former Green Island Ranch, owned by the Partin family for over a century. Henry O. Partin brought Brahman cattle to Florida and founded the Florida Cattlemen’s Association, and the family’s horsemanship shows grew into the Silver Spurs Rodeo. This is not anonymous dirt. It’s some of the most storied ranch land in Central Florida.

In December 2021, Gentry Land Company of St. Cloud and Wheelock Street Capital bought it for $150 million in a single cash transaction, with the Partin family carrying $50 million in seller financing. The same property had sold for $220 million in 2008 to buyers who defaulted and handed it back. The people who own it now paid slightly over asking and closed clean. That tells you something about conviction.

The entitlement picture takes three numbers to explain, and all three are correct. The 2008 Development of Regional Impact approval covers 13,000 units and runs through 2030. In 2010, Osceola County added roughly 4,000 more units through the South Lake Toho Element of its Comprehensive Plan. Current reporting works from a figure of more than 16,000 homes, plus 5.3 million square feet of office and commercial space, industrial and civic space, and a future marina on Lake Toho. The developer markets Waterlin as a town, not a subdivision. Given the entitlements, that’s not puffery. It’s the plan.

What’s Actually Selling

One area is selling today: the East Village, planned for 2,900 homes, starting with the Founders Corner neighborhood off Canoe Creek Road. Founders Corner is platted for 847 homes including 213 townhomes. Do that math against the entitlements. What’s on the market right now is about 5 percent of what’s approved.

Three builders, exactly three:

Lennar is selling now with models open. Active listings the week of August 3, 2026 ran from $384,999 to $483,490 for homes between roughly 1,900 and 2,550 square feet, including a Next Gen plan with an attached in-law suite. Ignore any “starting in the low $400s” language you see on third-party sites. The MLS shows Lennar from $384,999.

Dream Finders Homes, Builder magazine’s 2025 Builder of the Year, offers homes from about 1,700 to over 4,000 square feet across several lot sizes plus townhomes. Active listings ran from the mid $440s to $660,669. Dream Finders bought 276 Founders Corner lots for $9.52 million in December 2024, and new models were debuting this summer.

Perry Homes is the story builder. Houston based, family owned, and building in Texas since 1967, Perry announced its first expansion outside Texas in early 2024, and Waterlin is one of its first Florida communities. That’s a meaningful vote of confidence in this corridor. As of early August 2026, Perry listings had not yet appeared in the MLS data I reviewed, so I’m not quoting Perry pricing. When Perry publishes numbers, I’ll update this page.

What’s Real and What’s a Rendering

Walk Founders Corner today and you’ll see homes under construction, a welcome center going in, Founders Park taking shape with a pool, pickleball, playground, pavilion, and dog park, and the first stretches of trail.

Everything else lives on the site map in the future tense: the 100,000 square foot Town Center with a major grocery anchor, the marina, the Lake Toho lakefront access, the on-site school campus, and the entire remainder of the 6,000 acres beyond the East Village. None of it carries a committed date. The developer’s own map says it plainly in the fine print: “conceptual only and are subject to change without notice.”

I watched this exact movie at Sunbridge. The early residents bought a promise and lived next to construction for years while the amenities caught up. Some of them are thrilled they got in early. Some of them are tired of waiting. Both outcomes are real, and which one you get at Waterlin depends mostly on your timeline, which is why the last section of this page matters more than any other.

What It Actually Costs Per Month

This is the part no builder brochure will walk you through, so I will. The Waterlin brochure contains zero mention of a CDD, a stewardship district, an HOA, or any recurring fee. That’s legal. Florida puts district disclosure in the contract paperwork, not the marketing. By the time you see it, you’ve usually fallen in love with the house. I’d rather you see it now.

Waterlin sits inside the Waterlin Stewardship District, an independent special district created by the Florida Legislature in 2025. It can levy assessments and issue bonds to fund roads, utilities, water management, and recreation. Every active listing I reviewed carries the flag “CDD Addendum required.”

Here are the figures the builders are publishing publicly as of August 2026:

Lot size	Annual CDD fee	Monthly equivalent
45-foot lots	$2,266	about $189
50-foot lots	$2,473	about $206
Larger lots	$2,639 to $2,825	about $220 to $235

HOA fees stack on top, and this is where it gets messy. Lennar listings show $150 per month. Dream Finders listings variously show $75 per month plus master association fees, or $200 per month, depending on the listing. Comparable homes in the same neighborhood display total annual fees anywhere from about $1,050 to over $3,700 depending on how the listing agent filled in the fields. If you’re comparing Waterlin homes on a portal, you cannot see the real carrying cost from the fee fields. You have to ask for the CDD addendum and read it.

The practical math on the cheapest active listing: a $384,999 Lennar home carrying a $2,266 CDD and $150 monthly HOA runs about $339 per month in community costs before taxes and insurance. At current rates, that’s the monthly equivalent of roughly $50,000 of additional mortgage. Priced like $385, pays like $435.

One more number every listing shares: taxes of $0 for 2025, because the lots were dirt. Your first-year escrow gets set against dirt-lot taxes, and your payment jumps in year two after the county assesses the finished home. This catches new construction buyers everywhere, and it will catch people here.

Pricing and fee figures last verified against active MLS listings the week of August 3, 2026. Whether the published CDD figures represent the full long-term levy or a partial figure is answered by the CDD addendum in your contract package, not by this page or any listing.

Schools

Homes in Waterlin are currently assigned to Canoe Creek K-8 and Harmony High School, consistently across every listing I reviewed.

The developer’s plans show a 22-acre K-8 campus inside the East Village, and the developer’s own materials describe schools as central to the community design. Here’s my caution: I have not found that school confirmed by the School District of Osceola County itself, and builder marketing describes it inconsistently. Until the district confirms a school, a site, and a timeline, treat the on-site campus as a plan, not a promise. If a specific school seat matters to your decision, verify current zoning with the district before you sign anything, because assignments in fast-growing areas get redrawn.

For the wider picture, read the Saint Cloud schools guide.

The Roads, Honestly

Waterlin’s location pitch leans on road projects in very different states of reality, so here’s the ledger.

What exists today: Canoe Creek Road, two lanes, which every Founders Corner driveway feeds. Directly across the street, Mattamy Homes is building Lake Gentry Landings, which shares that same road.

What’s studied but not funded: the county’s plan to widen Canoe Creek Road to four lanes has a study underway and no money for design or construction. The Southport Connector Expressway, a planned toll road that would land a Turnpike connection essentially at Waterlin’s doorstep, got its preferred route approved in December 2025 at a cost near $2.5 billion, with no funding plan and no construction date. The Turnpike’s own widening through Osceola County is estimated at $2.73 billion and is not funded either. The state has put $1.25 million toward planning a future Waterlin Boulevard interchange, which means planning money exists and construction money does not.

My dashboard, not the marketing: from this corridor I drive 35 to 40 minutes to Orlando International, about 45 to downtown Orlando, and about 40 to Disney. The developer says 30 minutes to Orlando. Drive it yourself at your actual commute hour before you believe either of us.

The Quiet Owner-Occupant Signal

Every listing I reviewed carries the same lease restrictions: seven-month minimum lease, maximum two leases per year, association approval required. That structure blocks short-term rental churn. Whatever else Waterlin becomes, it’s being set up as a place where the people who own the homes live in them. For relocators, that’s worth more than any amenity rendering.

Who Waterlin Is For, and Who It Isn’t

Waterlin fits you if you’re planning to hold for 7 to 10 years, you want new construction at the lowest entry price currently available for a master-planned community bet in Saint Cloud, and you’re comfortable buying the town before the town exists. You own the house. You’re betting on the rest.

It also fits you if the south side works for your life: Turnpike access, Lake Toho, and eventually the Southport corridor if it gets funded.

Waterlin is not for you if you might need to sell inside five years. You’d be reselling a used home against three builders’ incentive budgets in the same community. It’s not for you if you need finished amenities and an established town center now; Harmony already has one, and Sunbridge is several years further along the same road Waterlin just started walking. And it’s not a short-term rental play; the lease rules exist to prevent exactly that.

If you’re weighing new construction across the whole city, start with the new construction guide and the cost of living breakdown. If you’re deciding between the two big master-planned bets, Sunbridge and Waterlin are different answers to the same question, and the neighborhoods overview frames all eight side by side. Still not sure which side of town you are? Take the quiz.

FAQ

A note on how this page works. I’m a real estate agent, and I live in Saint Cloud, but this site’s job is to explain the town, not to sell you a house in it. Every dollar figure above came from active MLS listings, the district’s own published budget, or county and state project documents, and I’ve told you where the open questions are instead of papering over them. Development facts change fast. If you spot something that’s gone stale, the date at the top of the pricing section tells you when I last checked.

Sources for this page include Stellar MLS active listings (week of August 3, 2026), the Waterlin Stewardship District’s published budget and establishing act (Chapter 2025-238, Laws of Florida), Osceola County project records, GrowthSpotter and Osceola News-Gazette reporting on the land sale and entitlements, and the developer’s published community materials.