It's a very interesting article.
I sympathise with the two couples mentioned in the article. We live in a beautiful seaside village in the New Forest, down on the south coast. I hate this time of the year here, we are absolutely inundated with holidaymakers ('grockles'). I spent 24 years growing up and living in London, so I'm not a Hampshire Hog local like a lot of people, but it's my home now and as beautiful as it is, trying to travel around in the summer months is a nightmare, especially getting across the forest through tourist meccas like Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst. However, that's the price to pay for living in a beautiful part of the country (doesn't make me feel any better though when I'm stuck in a traffic jam trying to get home
).
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to live anywhere else at the moment
, but I do understand where these people are coming from. Everything is
so costly around here - especially housing. Yes, it's nice on paper to own an expensive house, but we wouldn't be able to move anywhere else locally without compromising what we have.
Florida has been booming for many years now - and like everywhere there's always a price to pay.
I remember on our trip two years ago being absolutely staggered at the amount of building work that had happened in less than a year - not only in Orlando, but down near Naples/Marco Island where we like to spend time.
We have very good ex-pat friends (he's a Floridian, she's English) over in West Palm Beach and it's been scary to see how things have changed around there each time we visit.
I'm sure it's pretty much the same all over the country, though. People always want to move, grass is greener, etc. But our plans to have a small retirement place to visit in Florida were rethought a couple of years ago. Knowing people over there opened our eyes to how much it would cost - not only in tax, but especially insurance given the hurricanes. There are many other areas to consider.
