anybody here actually LIVE in orlando?

[Stiff]

my wife is in jeopardy of losing her job and I basically cant stand mine. This is usually when we split town.

To give you a history, I grew up in PA as did my wife...after I finished college we got married and moved to NC....better weather, better job market, etc. We lived there 6 years till my son was born. Around my sons first birthday, my wife lost her job adn I hated mine so we sold our house and moved back to PA. figured we would see family more. We really dont see them that much more...they still live 2-3 hours from us. We also dont liek the town we live in.

So now we are talking about ripping up the roots and tryign somewhere else. One of my dreams would be to work for disney in some kind of a business capacity. I figure its time to pick a dream and start following it...Im not getting any younger. so orlando is an option. Back to NC is another one. I really, REALLY hate winter

Yes, Im gonna get to a point

I may try to start applying for disney positions to get down there....or just get a job down there to survive and hit disney as hard as I can till I get my foot in the door.


My question is on the area...what the cost of living like? whats the quality of life like? whats the crime rate like? Do you like living there? any info you can offer would be great

again, at this point its a mere thought, but Id like to hear an opinion of the area from someone who lives there....

thanks in advance

 

[dvcgirl]

Well, we don't live there yet, but we will very soon. Sold our house here in Jersey in early April and we're outta here in a couple of weeks. We'll be looking to buy as soon as we get there and are renting a home for a few months in the meantime. We always knew that we'd end up in Florida, but figured we'd wait another 3-5 years. But then my DH got laid off and while he landed a job quickly, he's not thrilled with it. That coupled with the insanely hot real estate market here made us go down and spend some time with realtors in Orlando this past winter. We really liked what we saw and decided to make the move. We didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to make the most that we could on our home here in the really hot Spring market.

We are pretty much set on the MetroWest/Dr Phillips area in Orlando. All nice established communities (many gated) with nice accessibility to all areas of Orlando. When we first started looking we also considered the Hunter's Creek area, but ruled it out once we saw that John Young Parkway. It gets backed up rather frequently. However, Hunter's Creek is close to Disney if you decide to work for them.

For us, the cost of living will be far less in Orlando than here in NJ. First of all, the price of homes is much less than in Orlando than in our area of NJ. However, prices are climbing at a pretty steep pace in Orlando as well. Property taxes are about 1/3 of what we pay here. That alone is huge savings. There is no state income tax in Florida. That will save us about 2.5% of our income yearly. Auto insurance is much less. Groceries are about the same. Utilities are slightly cheaper in FL, but will far less for us as we're going from a very big house to a smaller one in Orlando. Our pest control bill will go up for sure though. But that's not a major cost to begin with.

DH is expecting to make 10-20% less than he makes here, but again because we'll have no mortgage and far less expenses across the board, we'll come out way ahead. I think you really need to look at what you can make there salary-wise and check out home prices before thinking about making the move.

Quality of life wise....well, we also despise winter and so we're especially looking forward to being able to enjoy Dec-May for a change. As for the really hot months, well, Florida is really hot for four-five months. Jersey is hot for two. We like the heat and so it's not an issue for us. Jersey is also artic-like for at least four months, and Florida is not. Lots of bugs in Florida, and so we'll definitely purchase a home with a screened in pool/lanai area.

From what I hear, Florida in general does not have a great reputation for schools. We have no children so this wasn't a consideration for us. There are some folks here who report that certain school districts are fine while others should be avoided.

Good luck with whatever you decide!!

 

[Stiff]

wow, thanks for the long response and good luck on your move

we do have one child, so schools are a concern for us....but I think the quality of education is falling EVERYWHERE....but it is one of the reasons we left NC...kids learning in trailers down there.

I figure it will be a higher cost of living for us, but much cheaper than the major cities up here (ie, PHILLY)

the housing market seems to be in line or just slightly higher than here, from the online listings