Help in finding Florida happiness (Tampa, Yeehaw Junction: mortgage, real estate, insurance)

[toals]

I think that florida is overrated....I have been in the SWFLA (Naples) area for going on 2 years and since I have been in FL with my family of four I now see what FL is all about...I'm sorry I cannot describe it but to put it mildly it is definatly different from Ohio where we are originally from. We ran into financial trouble in 2004 and took one year of saving saving saving 12,000 to be exact and decided to sell off everything we had and move to sunny FL. We always visited FL on vacation and it seemed like the perfect place for our family. We would start over and all would be good. I had a job, that I found online 12.00 to start and they waited 4 weeks for my arrival. It all fell into place and things were looking good...my husband found a job making 13.00 to start and we were renting at 643.00 per month the first year ...still looking good...we decided to renew our lease(second year 943.00)..., I started looking for another job and found one with better pay and my husband did too with better pay all within a years time, both now making just past the 80 mark. My trouble lies with housing here in florida and the commute time we encounter in naples alone. I have been in a financial burden before and would really like to own a home again, but we came from a 100,000 home in Ohio and in FLorida, naples and other places we have scouted on the weekends, you cannot touch homes in this state for under the 200K mark and if you do IT IS NOT A PLACE I WANT TO LIVE NOR RAISE MY CHILDREN. I can describe these towns as VERY SCARY! I hope to find my happiness here in FL i love the weather, I love the sunshine, I love the water, and outdoors I just want to find a decent place to live (yes a subdivision will do) and raise my family with a mid upper level income and enjoy the rest of my years...is that so much to ask????

We are just about prepared to make a move again, so as of right now ( because it changes so much here) can anyone give me insite on good positions, close commutes, and good communities. I appreciate any insite I get because we have been taking the weekends and going to different places around the state to see the condiditons of living, because I know from past ecxperience you have to DO YOUR HOMEWORK here or your gonna move into a bad place and it is definatly not were you want to be unless your impoverished or a drug dealer.

Thanks for any direction or areas in general

[Teressah]

Originally Posted by toals

I think that florida is overrated....I have been in the SWFLA (Naples) area for going on 2 years and since I have been in FL with my family of four I now see what FL is all about...I'm sorry I cannot describe it but to put it mildly it is definatly different from Ohio where we are originally from. We ran into financial trouble in 2004 and took one year of saving saving saving 12,000 to be exact and decided to sell off everything we had and move to sunny FL. We always visited FL on vacation and it seemed like the perfect place for our family. We would start over and all would be good. I had a job, that I found online 12.00 to start and they waited 4 weeks for my arrival. It all fell into place and things were looking good...my husband found a job making 13.00 to start and we were renting at 643.00 per month the first year ...still looking good...we decided to renew our lease(second year 943.00)..., I started looking for another job and found one with better pay and my husband did too with better pay all within a years time, both now making just past the 80 mark. My trouble lies with housing here in florida and the commute time we encounter in naples alone. I have been in a financial burden before and would really like to own a home again, but we came from a 100,000 home in Ohio and in FLorida, naples and other places we have scouted on the weekends, you cannot touch homes in this state for under the 200K mark and if you do IT IS NOT A PLACE I WANT TO LIVE NOR RAISE MY CHILDREN. I can describe these towns as VERY SCARY! I hope to find my happiness here in FL i love the weather, I love the sunshine, I love the water, and outdoors I just want to find a decent place to live (yes a subdivision will do) and raise my family with a mid upper level income and enjoy the rest of my years...is that so much to ask????

We are just about prepared to make a move again, so as of right now ( because it changes so much here) can anyone give me insite on good positions, close commutes, and good communities. I appreciate any insite I get because we have been taking the weekends and going to different places around the state to see the condiditons of living, because I know from past ecxperience you have to DO YOUR HOMEWORK here or your gonna move into a bad place and it is definatly not were you want to be unless your impoverished or a drug dealer.

Thanks for any direction or areas in general

HI,

I also live in Naples, and I grew up in Cleveland suburbs, Ohio.
Boy, is your rent cheap!!
We are paying $1200.00 to rent a condo, for 3 bedrooms that was the cheapest we could find!!
I have lived around Florida, and you will not find a better city, I am afraid. Florida is pretty backwards all around, a good place to visit, not to live if you have children.
Naples is the closest I can find to a decent city, if only we could afford to live here...we are moving to NC!! The heat is just killing me here. Asheville is where I hope we move to soon...

[Prichard]

I've lived in Florida all of my life. Most places in Florida haven't seen $100,000 houses in decent neighborhoods for almost 10 years, maybe longer.

The bottom line is that you need to be in the $300 + range for what you seem to be looking for. It's still much cheaper than most cities in the North East. Houses are slightly more expensive in Florida than in Georgia. West North Carolina has gotten quite expensive as well. I'd be very surprised if house prices in Ashville are not much different than what they are on the non-waterfront areas of Central or SW Florida.

I'm sorry you don't like Florida, but I recomend doing a little research into Ashville before making another move.

[Jammie]

Toals, every time I read a post like yours it makes me nervous about ever considering moving to Fla.

Could I ask this? Is there a reason that you don't want to continue renting the place you're now living in? Since you're paying nearly 1,000 a month, I'm guessing it's a pretty nice condo or apartment. Is that right? Do you have all the nicer amenities like a pool, playground, etc? With the tremendous cost of insurance and taxes plus mortgage payments, it could be so hard to buy a house there. Don't mean to be snoopy, but I'm curious.

[pixiewytch]

Originally Posted by Jammie

Toals, every time I read a post like yours it makes me nervous about ever considering moving to Fla.

Could I ask this? Is there a reason that you don't want to continue renting the place you're now living in? Since you're paying nearly 1,000 a month, I'm guessing it's a pretty nice condo or apartment. Is that right? Do you have all the nicer amenities like a pool, playground, etc? With the tremendous cost of insurance and taxes plus mortgage payments, it could be so hard to buy a house there. Don't mean to be snoopy, but I'm curious.

Naples is known for being a pretty well to do upper class city with many gated communities and it is close to the beach. I'm sure the poster will let us know but I'm guessing 1000 probably isn't anything spectacular over there since I pay that here in Tampa for a not so great house in a not so great neighborhood. In other words, Naples is one of the more expensive areas of Florida to move to.

[toals]

well my close to 1000.00 per month is what I consider to the "the Getto" if you can call it that...it's subsidized housing so called affordable housing a huge issue here in naples and there is not end in site. I will tell you I live in north naples and yes north naples is the better part of naples to live if you have kids...but all in all i do not like where I live because of the trashy people that live around me, granted some of them are ok but I choose to have a litle better things surrounding me and in hopes that I can obtain those someday...I will keep hoping for the best...

Although I was seeking advise for my move..I will advise to do your homework and go into the areas before you move there, I have found that ads from the internet which is where we got our start can be very backwards as to what you are getting!

If you want to pay rent anyware in florida...I suggest paying over and above the 1400.00 mark and that will land you into a nicer rental comminity or house....anything under that will land you into somewhere you might not want to be.. GOOD Luck...rating my move on a scale of 1-10 I would say right now it's about a 7 because of the housing situation.

Originally Posted by Teressah

HI,

I also live in Naples, and I grew up in Cleveland suburbs, Ohio.
Boy, is your rent cheap!!
We are paying $1200.00 to rent a condo, for 3 bedrooms that was the cheapest we could find!!
I have lived around Florida, and you will not find a better city, I am afraid. Florida is pretty backwards all around, a good place to visit, not to live if you have children.
Naples is the closest I can find to a decent city, if only we could afford to live here...we are moving to NC!! The heat is just killing me here. Asheville is where I hope we move to soon...

see what my rent gets me below...housing I choose not to be in!

Originally Posted by Prichard

I've lived in Florida all of my life. Most places in Florida haven't seen $100,000 houses in decent neighborhoods for almost 10 years, maybe longer.

The bottom line is that you need to be in the $300 + range for what you seem to be looking for. It's still much cheaper than most cities in the North East. Houses are slightly more expensive in Florida than in Georgia. West North Carolina has gotten quite expensive as well. I'd be very surprised if house prices in Ashville are not much different than what they are on the non-waterfront areas of Central or SW Florida.

I'm sorry you don't like Florida, but I recomend doing a little research into Ashville before making another move.

no I do like FL it's trying to find the right place that will suit our tastes and income...Are you recommending Ashville as place to check into..sorry misunderstood your statement...

Originally Posted by Jammie

Toals, every time I read a post like yours it makes me nervous about ever considering moving to Fla.

Could I ask this? Is there a reason that you don't want to continue renting the place you're now living in? Since you're paying nearly 1,000 a month, I'm guessing it's a pretty nice condo or apartment. Is that right? Do you have all the nicer amenities like a pool, playground, etc? With the tremendous cost of insurance and taxes plus mortgage payments, it could be so hard to buy a house there. Don't mean to be snoopy, but I'm curious.

I do have everything I need, but as I mentioned things do not always look as they are precieved. I have those things that you mentioned, but the bottom line is you go with what makes you happy and comfortable and the surrounding I am in are not comfortable to me...I will tell you that anything less that what I am paying will be a rental community with people living on top of people they are so overcrowed and rude it's really nuts sometimes. I live in what's called "affordable husing by Naples standards and it's a really big turn off with who they will allow to move in. Be prepared to move again...because where you start out in florida may not be where you'll end up!!!

[BigJimSlade]

I like the panhandle. I think there are still some really nice places up there. There are also some cool Southern-feeling towns on highway 60 between Tampa and Yeehaw Junction.

My best advice to live in Florida is to make at least $100K a year and save lots of money for 5 years. Then go buy a house in an ideal location with the other well-off people.

[jdcip]

Happiness is what you make of it. I have moved over a two dozen times in the last 20 years and two of those moves were from Ca to NY and back. All I can tell you is that paying $200K for a house is nothing, but it's all relative I guess. My wife and I paid $649K for an 1800 sq foot home in CA 2 years ago and now it's worth about $750k, possibly more. You will always make money in real estate as long as you keep it long enough. The point I'm trying to make is if you like Florida as you say you do then stay there!!! Everywhere in the country homes are going up and they will continue to go up. Maybe you can buy a condo in Naples, make some money on it and in a few years buy a home or whatever suits your needs. My wife and I are looking at FLA ourselves and possibly moving there next year to be closer to our family. The home prices don't scare us, it's everything else we hear about FLA that does. You have everything you want there except a home. Well if you move somewhere else you might have your home, but lose everything that you enjoy now by living in FLA. You know what you have now, just hang in there.

[J.R.]

Naples IS NOT the place for a young family on a budget. Your first mistake was picking that city. Farther north and farther east is considerably more affardable.

[bellagabby]

I am hoping to get the word out to as many young families as possible. Naples, FL is not a place to raise a young family. My husband and I moved here four years ago and began our family shortly after moving into a gated community. We've had nothing but harrassment from our neighbors since regarding our 1 and 2 year old daughters. My neighborhood is an all-age community, not a 55 year old and older community, mind you. We've been harrassed about
-the children riding tricycles on the sidewalk
-the children drawing with chalk on our driveway
-the children playing in a kiddie pool on our patio in our back yard
-the children swimming in the community pool.
The latest incident happened today when I was approached by a neighbor (for literally the 20th time) asking me whether my children had on "swim diapers" because she didn't want them contaminating the community pool. The few other young families in the neighborhood have had similar, if not worse experiences. Do yourself a favor and do not move to Naples, FL. My husband and I are well-to-do with graduate and doctorate degrees so we figured we would fit in with the community. Wrong! We are scrambling to find jobs elsewhere and leave FL as soon as we possibly can.