FL Residents: How do you like living in FL?

[Chicago526]

Thank you, everyone!

BF is still considering all his options. He will either stay in Chicago, transfer to FL, or start a new carear all together. I'm supporting him, whatever he decides, as I can work almost anywhere. He's been on a FL kick lately, and thought I'd ask and see what living in FL is like.

IL, oddly enough, has a huge illegal immagrant problem too. We have a huge farming industry here, so we get the migrant farm workers, plus all the seasonal landscaping, construction and snow removal jobs, service industry, etc. I think we have the highest rate of any northern state, in fact. I don't blame these people. I've seen slums in other nations, and if I were them, I'd break the law to get my family out, too. The fault lays with our own government and the lack of boarder security.

Anyway, no state or area is perfect, all have their pluses and minuses. I'm 28 and already I'm having trouble with joint pain in the winter, so it's only going to get worse. If we do move, my one demand to my BF is that we buy a house with a pool that's screened in, so I can at least go outside and swim in the summer, even if it's too hot to do anything else! I don't see a differance with being traped indoors for 5 months a year due to snow or heat. And as someone else posted, you don't have to shovel heat! I will only miss snow the month of December, the rest of the year, you can keep it! Schools in IL can be hit or miss too, so not much differance there, either.

It sounds like, on balance, I'll either love it, or at least, not hate it. Thank you again for all of your responses, the DIS came through again!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

I was starting to think I was crazy, glad to see others who feel the same way as me.

As for the alternative water sources, I want to know how those are going to be paid for? And really cities and counties should already be trying to get desalination plants and the others online. None have even started planning for the future. They can't fix a road how are they going to build multimillion dollar facilities??!??!!

 

[PatriciaH]

Great thread! DH and I are hoping to move to Florida by next spring. ilovepcot-what town/county are you talking about- I would love to know!

We are in Northern Massachusetts on the NH boarder and it is beautiful here for a few months of the year. From May - October the weather is pretty nice - this year has stunk. May and even June were cold. Winter is awful. It is nice to have snow for Christmas but otherwise winter lasts WAY to long. By April it is getting old and depressing. Everything is ice, gray, sleet and dead for months on end.

We also have major water problems/shortages/drought. Rivers flowing backwards and drying up! Many large homes (McMansions) were built on farm land and the existing schools and water plants can not handle all of them. I have heard/read the same is happening in CA, NY, Las Vegas, etc.. Lots of people are moving here from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. I think we all better learn Spanish! We also have a lot of people moving here from Cambodia. Everyone in DH's company that does manufacturing is from Cambodia or Laios. The high school in our town may loose accrediation because the town has no money to fix it up. The schools are bursting at the seams b/c they have too many kids. These problems are not only in Florida!

One of our main reasons for wanting to move is the weather. The other is the price of homes here.

 

[Dancind]

Subscribing to this thread, I'd love to hear more comments, keep them coming! We plan to move to FL in three years, but haven't decided exactly where yet. I am semi-retired, work Ebay, DH is a remodeling contractor/estimator. I'm pretty sure he could get a job, probably one that pays better than his family-owned company here. He loves to scuba dive, and DD wants to go to college in FL, so we need to move before she's out of high school. I'll be trying to figure out in the interim what the best high school district we can afford a home in is. Being close to WDW would be a plus. One problem I see is that real estate seems to be escalating in FL at a much faster rate than here in NM. Right now we are pretty much equal in housing costs, but in three years?

 

[Dancind]

Well, my post didn't bump this thread up, so I'm trying again. The boards haven't been working properly.

 

[gshoemate]

Originally posted by Chicago526
Thank you, everyone!




I'm 28 and already I'm having trouble with joint pain in the winter, so it's only going to get worse.

Ditto on the joint pain. DH has had arthritis since he was 7 or so. The winters in Michigan were brutal on him. But everone said when we moved down here that it would be worse with the humidity. But he is so much better. Hardly has problems at all. I think had has had his prescription for pain killers since we moved down almost 2 years ago, he hasn't had to have a refill. In Michigan, he would go through a prescription every 2-3 months. Good luck on your decision!

 

[Cebhfhionn]

I moved down here to Orlando from New Jersey last year. I always felt that I was supposed to live in the South but it took me 38 years to do it!

I LOVE it here. The weather is great and there is so much to do even without theme parks. People always say its "too hot," I don't get it...its hot in NJ too! In fact, many days so far this season it has been as hot or hotter there.

Definitely do your research on the schools, the web site I used to do that is : www.greatschools.net, you can put your address in and it will tell you the assigned schools for where you are looking to live. You can see what the are rated, the racial breakdown, the education of the teachers, how much they spend on students, etc....

We rented when we first came down and recently bought a house. For $200,000 - $250,000, you could get a really nice one! Mine was much less than that and I have a huge yard with a beautiful house! Taxes are extremely low.

Good luck!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Everyone keeps on going on about the cheap housing...it is not cheap. In the past 4 years my house has gone up in value almost 71%. Good thing we got in when we did, because otherwise we would not be able to afford our home. During the same period our wages went up around 25% to 30%. So you can see the rate of housing is FAR surpassing wage rates. You all can afford your homes, and think they are cheaper because you are bringing down money you have made on your houses you sold up north. When my mom moved us down here she could have bought her house outright (but she didn't because of tax ramifications). That is why it seems cheaper to those moving here.

And the cheap taxes are all well and good until you realize what all is being neglected. I do not like higher taxes, believe me, but something needs to be done.

Florida is not a fantasyland or some paradise. I hate to be so negative, but these are things we are dealing with as residents of this state. Sure the same things are happening elsewhere, but they are happening here too.

 

[Cebhfhionn]

Well, I am making nearly as much money as I was up North but there is no state tax here so I bring home pretty much the same as I did. My fiance' is making the same as he was up there. My house here was $140,000, up North the same house(would have to be much older) would've cost at least $350,000! My Dad's taxes in NJ are about $7000 for the year, ours is about $1000!

Miss Jasmine, if your house has gone up in value, is that not a positive thing?

 

[blowinbubbles]

I am a born and bred Floridian, and one would be hard-pressed to get me out of Florida. Well. . . maybe if I was going to the Caribbean or South Pacific or some other cool place!

I live in Navarre, Florida, which is situated between Fort Walton Beach/Destin and Pensacola. Santa Rosa County is supposedly the fasted growing county in the whole country. . . I can believe it because I'm a realtor and my h is a builder, and he is almost busier than we can handle. We have great schools here, and property values are going up like crazy!

The only downside is, I'm concerned the the infrastructure won't be able to handle the frenzied growth here. Hopefully that sort of thing will be worked out.

If you don't want to move here, come on down and visit. . . Navarre Beach is still pretty much untouched, compared to Panama City!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Of course it's good my house value went up, I am happy about that. I'm just glad we built our house when we did, because we would be priced out of the nice neighborhood we built in now. And that is with both of us making WAY above average for this area.

 

[RitaZ.]

My Dad's taxes in NJ are about $7000 for the year, ours is about $1000!

Only $1k in property taxes? That's really low, but not all of FL is like that. Where we live, if you purchase a home for $300K, you'll be paying over $7K in property taxes a year. Since the property values have gone up so much, it's nearly impossible to find a home for less than $250K. I think it's great that the property values have gone up so much, but the problem is that if we want to upgrade to a bigger house, we'll have to pay about $500K to get more house than what we currently have.

I love living in FL and we have no plans to move out of here in the near future. I lived in Miami years ago and every time I visit, I remember why we left. The cost of housing is ridiculous in Miami, you don't get much for your money. As for Orlando, I wouldn't want to live there, the traffic alone is awful.

There are many good places to live in FL though.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

I can say that my property taxes are not $1000, they are more than that.

And good luck getting affordable homeowners insurance. Our premium has doubled in the last four years without ONE claim (of course it doesn't help that I am closer to the coast here).

 

[Cebhfhionn]

Well, then I guess the lesson here is that before moving you should do your research about the price of homes, taxes, etc.

Yes, finding homeowners insurance was a bit of a challenge but my car insurance is lower here than it was in NJ.

We rented in a really nice apt. community prior to buying our home. We didn't know where exactly we wanted to live, just knew that Orlando area was where we wanted to be. This way, we were able to look around, check out the prices of homes and such, schools, neighborhoods and then we looked for our house.

I lived in NJ all my life and although I miss my family, I don't miss the smell, the sadness(after 9/11) and the snow(I HATE snow!)

 

[Feralpeg]

I recently moved into the Windermere area of greater Orlando. My taxes will be about $2400. My homeowner insurance on a $250,000 home is not quite $1000 a year. That includes an extra flood insurance policy.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Wow, who knew Windermere was so cheap. Color me surprised. Looking on the Orange Country Property Appraiser's website, it looks like in Windemere (multiple properties, multiple subdivisions), homeowners with cheaper homes than you actually paid $3000 or more in property taxes last year.

As for researching places before you move. I came here when I was 13. I didn't have much choice in the matter. And seeing as my mom lives down here without any other family, it didn't seem right for me to move away.

One day those rose-colored glasses will fade. I would place good money on that.

 

[legs22]

Originally posted by Feralpeg
I recently moved into the Windermere area of greater Orlando. My taxes will be about $2400. My homeowner insurance on a $250,000 home is not quite $1000 a year. That includes an extra flood insurance policy.

Wow! I am in South FL and pay $1840/yr for insurance through State Farm on a home that would sell for about $180,000. I've been with State Farm since I got the home in 1987. Insurance in 1987 was $200/yr. Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, my rates have sky rocketed.

 

[dvcgirl]

I guess it's all relative with respect to housing prices. Most people from the Northeast salivate over what you can get in central florida compared to what they have up north. And the cost of living is musch less. 14K less a year for us to live in Orlando as opposed to NJ. And that's not even including the massive savings in housing costs. For as much as housing has escalated down here, it's gone up at the same rate in the northeast (especially metro areas).

I do think that Florida is outpacing other areas of the country though, especially the mid-west. If it continues the way it's going, there are lots of folks there who won't be able to afford it here, all things being equal.

Obviously, before you make a big move like the one many of us here have made, it's wise to either have a job or do lots of research on salary expectations. I think that the blanket statements that you make *way* less down here are false to a certain degree. It all depends on your field and your level of experience.

And not all the jobs are in tourism either. There's a nice little technology boom taking off in the Orlando area and it's only expected to get bigger. Sure, you're not going to make the same salaries that you'll make in Manhattan, the Silicon Valley or say Boston, but your quality of life is much higher because the cost of living and housing is so much less than in those areas. For us there's a huge net gain.

And there's no nirvana, that's for sure. Every place has it's issues and problems. We didn't come down here expecting to go to Disney every day, in fact, we haven't been once since we've arrived. We have made some time to go next week though. And I think Disney will wear off after awhile and become more of a place we take our friends and family when they're down here. I do think we'll wander over there fairly often just to dine out though. We came down here to live in a place that has much better weather, beautiful surroundings, and a lower cost of living. We want to work less and play more. And I do believe we've found that place ).

 

[babslittleones]

bump

Moving down in summer of 2005.

We lived in Orlando from 1992 to 1994 so we remember what we will be getting into.

 

[Cebhfhionn]

Dvc girl, where are you from originally? How long have you been down here?

We haven't been to Disney since we arrived a year ago but I did manage to get a job at Universal so we've been there quite a bit.

There are so many other cool things to do here that are much cheaper, I haven't really missed going to the parks. However, I will definitely make the time and find the money when the new Stitch ride opens!