Live in S. Fl? Why don't you move? The pros and cons...

[Orlando Eric]

--"People are moving away. Florida is currently losing 50,000 residents per month. U-haul is trucking in trucks and trailers by the semiload into Key West because folks are leaving in droves--"


:rockband:




Yipppeeeee

 

[KBeck]

All of the above works for me.

A few things---depends on where in S. Fl you live, and your overall level of tolerance.
Just like anywhere, the larger the city, the more diverse it will be and the more tolerant you need to be to deal--with foreign speakers, tourists, bad traffic, etc.

I live further north, but still in South Florida. No big city, the traffic is tolerable, and I just deal with non-english speakers as necessary. Shrug.

People/tourists--Yeah, we get the elderly who can't drive. But, driving in the summer when they leave is nice! I guess the biggest negative is many of the snowbirds up this way are from the NY/NJ area--louder and ruder than average. I just try to avoid them and I'm good. There's loud, rude people everywhere, I suppose; they just have different accents.

Weather--I can't stand the cold. Summer here is fine with me. When it gets bad, we have air conditioners. The question is, what's your tolerance?

Hurricanes--I fully agree with the others--generally, if you're reasonably prepared, don't live in a tin can and keep your home properly cared for, you're just fine. I like to read a lot, so those few days after a hurricane with no electricity are just a nice vacation from work, to me. Put on your sunscreen, put out a lawn chair and enjoy the sounds of the generators!

I think you'd be a welcome addition to the area! Too bad we can't screen all the newcomers!

 

[Wookie]

--"People are moving away. Florida is currently losing 50,000 residents per month. U-haul is trucking in trucks and trailers by the semiload into Key West because folks are leaving in droves--"


:rockband:




Yipppeeeee

Be careful what you celebrate. As the economy falters and the tourism slows, public services are cut. We see this in Monroe County with 11 of 17 FWC LEO's laid off. LEO's are a sacred cow, but not untouchable.

 

[RhatsaRuck]

Rick, the bottom line is some people would be miserable anywhere.

Quoted For Truth

I concur with the comments from other Florida residents and add the following.

Regarding the weather, the heat is not an issue for me.

For example I've spent time in Phoenix during July when temps rise to 110F+ during the day. I love it. In reality it's life-threatening heat but it feels soooo good to my body. And 100F+ at midnight in Phoenix is absolute heaven. And you know why.

It's the humidity.

Here in Florida it's the humidity that gets me. But I can live with it because I've discovered that my body core gets cold fast when the temperature drops. This is true whether I'm above or below sea level. I know some folks who find the heat/humidity absolutely oppressive - because their body core is overheating.

You and your family need to decide if you can live with this. This might sound silly but it really is a gut-check issue.

On more mundane matters, this is actually a great time to be looking for property in Florida because of the housing crisis. I don't follow housing or boat slip prices here but I'll bet there are screaming deals available now and over the next year. Unemployment is still rising in Florida, the exodus out of Florida continues, a tidal wave of foreclosures is coming in the next 18 months, and there are more empty condos in Miami-Dade county than there are cucarachas.

I'm told that Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties have moved their foreclosure auctions from the courthouse steps to online. I think Broward county has too.

Good luck with your search and your decision. To paraphrase your comment: one of the great benefits of living in Florida is that I don't have to shovel humidity.

 

[Splitlip]

KBeck is spot on with her post. (Jupiter is Northern South Florida as well.)

But comments about New Yorkers..... as a New York transplant myself, I have to say SHE IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! lol

 

[ONESPEED]

I think you'd be a welcome addition to the area! Too bad we can't screen all the newcomers!

Most accurate statement in this thread.

 

[Splitlip]

A lot still comes down to location.
Pulte, Lennar, Toll Brothers, Centex etc are still building and delivering new homes here in Jupiter.
Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens (northern Palm Beach County) got a little boost when Scripps and Max Planke
decided to locate to Abaco.

Scripps Florida

Scripps Florida is a state-of-the-art biomedical research facility, on approximately 30 acres within the boundaries of Florida Atlantic University's Jupiter campus.

Using the latest research technology, researchers at Scripps Florida focus on basic biomedical research and drug discovery. Nearly 300 faculty members and scientific, technical, and administrative staff currently work at the 350,000-square-foot complex. The start-up costs of Scripps Florida—a division of The Scripps Research Institute headquartered in La Jolla, California—were supported by a one-time $310 million appropriation of federal economic development funds by the Florida State Legislature. Palm Beach County provided an economic package that included funding for land and construction of the current permanent facility and related costs.

Quoted For Truth

I concur with the comments from other Florida residents and add the following.

Regarding the weather, the heat is not an issue for me.

For example I've spent time in Phoenix during July when temps rise to 110F+ during the day. I love it. In reality it's life-threatening heat but it feels soooo good to my body. And 100F+ at midnight in Phoenix is absolute heaven. And you know why.

It's the humidity.

Here in Florida it's the humidity that gets me. But I can live with it because I've discovered that my body core gets cold fast when the temperature drops. This is true whether I'm above or below sea level. I know some folks who find the heat/humidity absolutely oppressive - because their body core is overheating.

You and your family need to decide if you can live with this. This might sound silly but it really is a gut-check issue.

On more mundane matters, this is actually a great time to be looking for property in Florida because of the housing crisis. I don't follow housing or boat slip prices here but I'll bet there are screaming deals available now and over the next year. Unemployment is still rising in Florida, the exodus out of Florida continues, a tidal wave of foreclosures is coming in the next 18 months, and there are more empty condos in Miami-Dade county than there are cucarachas.

I'm told that Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties have moved their foreclosure auctions from the courthouse steps to online. I think Broward county has too.

Good luck with your search and your decision. To paraphrase your comment: one of the great benefits of living in Florida is that I don't have to shovel humidity.

 

[DennisS]

Most of my friends from the last 20-30 years have retired and moved from S Florida to Tennessee and North Carolina. The nickname they've been given is Half Backs, they've moved to Florida from the north and moved half way back. They all give the changing demographics of S Florida and development as the reasons they left. Every one of them has the same picture of where they are now in the universe. We're only__ miles from the Walmart. Most of them were employed by the oceanographic industry but gave up boating and diving years ago. Now they live in rural developments on the side of mountains doing their woodwork, other hobbies and volunteer work. They lived in Miami and didn't like the changes in the city over the last 20-30 years. I could never give up S Florida for rural mountains.

When I retired, I moved from Miami to Dania, about 25 miles to the north. I can do a beach dive 5 minutes from my apt. I have my boat docked off my patio, it's about a half hour idle ride to the inlet. There is an ocean front broadwalk where I can do a nice 6 mile round trip walk and a city swimming pool that is empty on weekends. I found a company that hired me part time as an ocean tech/purchasing agent, they're located about 3 blocks from my apt. I've traveled all over the world and at different times have spent months in San Diego, Hawaii, Seattle, Norfolk, Charleston, DC, Baja Mexico and I picked where I now live over all of them. My second choice would have been Cocoa Beach.

I was going to buy a trawler and live on it. I opted instead to get an apt with a day boat in back. The price and availability of live aboard dockage plus the extra space I get with an apt was the deciding factor. Like it or not, you do spend a lot of the summer indoors sucking up A/C.

I like it here, there is the traffic, immigrants, ol folks, and lost tourists driving 10 mph while they read their maps, but the warm ocean and the reefs balances it all out.

 

[Orlando Eric]

Be careful what you celebrate. As the economy falters and the tourism slows, public services are cut. We see this in Monroe County with 11 of 17 FWC LEO's laid off. LEO's are a sacred cow, but not untouchable.

I really wanted to move to So Florida about two years ago and gave up A LOT to stay here only because of my senority and position here. I am dug in like a tick with lots of folks between me and the laid off door. There were lots of reasons to move and very few to stay but I read about BSO laying off 30 patrol units and I FOR SURE would have been in that group had I moved there.

 

[DebbyDiver]

Like Dennis, I chose Dania Beach. It is the least expensive close-to-the-beach city and it is close to EVERYTHING, the beach, any shopping I need, transportation, the port, the airport, two big cities, beautiful parks and natural areas, you get my drift. I can be to Jupiter, Naples, or Key Largo in 90 minutes. I'm a bit active in my city and because it's a small city, I can make a difference.

The heat? What heat? Doesn't bother me a bit. Dress for it, get under a ceiling fan and you're good to go. I think the winters can be a bit bitter, but at least they don't last that long. I haven't seen snow since 1980 and I plan on never seeing it again. Hurricanes can be planned for. Take my neighborhood. All of our homes were about 20 years old when Wilma hit. The builder put 15 year roofs on the homes so everyone was on borrowed time. I put a new roof on my house the year before Wilma. The morning after she passed, I went outside to discover that I was the only homeowner in the neighborhood who still had a roof. See? Planning.

Be careful what you celebrate. As the economy falters and the tourism slows, public services are cut.

I'm a Broward librarian. We are SUFFERING in the library system as well. Three of us in libraries administration had our positions cut forever, and we were all given two-step demotions to branch managers because the one-step positions were not vacant and there were branch manager vacancies. To say that my job sucks is an understatement. This is NOT what I worked hard to earn a master's degree for. And there are no other opportunities in this area or in my profession, I have to just suck it up until I retire. We have severely cut back on hours of operation and services and over 200 positions were cut with more to be cut this week. I just love it when there are long lines and people bitch "get someone from the back to come out!" and I have to reply "there IS nobody in the back, what you see is what we've got."

That said, the economy sucks everywhere and if I was out of work, there's no other place I'd rather be. At least I could dive, walk, bicycle, swim, etc. as mentioned above.

I actually live in Dania Beach and not the Keys because I can't find a good job with health insurance down there. I used to own a second home down there, and when I divorced and had to choose which house to sell, that one went due to lack of employment opportunities. But, they are almost giving away houses in the Keys these days, they are so cheap that IF and I do mean IF I could sell my Broward house (I can't) I'd take the equity from it, pay cash for a cheap KL house and not worry about income. The house I sold down there for $400K, although not for sale, if it were would fetch maybe $189 today and I don't need a home as nice as that one. I'd be happy down there in an old mobile and they are going for about $110K right now.

I'm stuck here, I've lived in a few other parts of the country and there is no place I'd rather be. Yes, there are thousands of really nasty people here. But there are even more really NICE people here. Something about being outdoors a lot makes people friendly and healthy.