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I am sure some people think an increase of only a few thousand dollars is nothing but to my mother on 600.00 a month it is a catastrophe.She has been in her 1100 sq ft house since 1970 and never filed a claim, if she moved the tax cap would be gone. The deductible is 5000.00, where do you think she is going to get that? Paradise? if you think this is paradise you haven't lived anywhere else.Telling the truth is not whining.
The extra few thousand come from what would've gone to savings. Don't get me wrong, the windstorm coverage rate increases are BS, but they're do-able. The extra few thousand paid here on insurance is made up in other states via their income tax.
I suspect some folks got into homes that didn't allow them much of a safety cushion in the first place, hence the pain now. I also suspect something else that isn't mentioned often here, that many gor creative financing loans they couldn't afford to begin with and these loans are now adjusting, raising mortgage payments along with the windstorm rates and doubling up on the whammy.
Well I posted this in another thread so I might as well state my opinion here as well.
Ok this is for sure a sensitive subject with a lot of Floridians so bear with me.
I have lived in NW Florida all my life. I used to love FL. I grew up surfing Pensacola beach, graduated from a local university and had a great time and felt very safe. I never saw myself leaving. I have lived in Pace, Pensacola, Navarre and Tallahassee.
Unfortunately I am looking to leave this state due to the increasing cost of living. It seems that investors have purchased most of the housing market here and there is no way that on a modest salary you can live and work here. I have seen what appears to be an exodus of people leaving the area too. If you go on any other near by states forums you will see lots of people saying they are looking to get out of FL because they can't afford it. Pretty soon the middle class will be driven out of FL and there will only be rich and poor.
I refuse to pay $250k for some junk house built in the 70's in the bad part of town here when you can go to many of the surrounding states and get something brand new for a lot less, in a nice community that actually has a yard.
My wife and I are both college graduates, we have no children and earn a pretty decent income, but the housing market is way too expensive for us to afford a decent 3bdrm house in a decent part of town. I am not about to spend 75% of my income on a home. Where as when my parents were starting out they were half the age I am now, had two kids, no college degrees and they could afford to buy a 3bdrm house in a decent neighborhood. For sure the cost of living has risen since they were young and the hurricanes over the last few years have driven up the housing market also, but this big of a gap is ridiculous.
I am willing to bet that 90% of the people here that currently own a home couldn't afford to buy that house now if they had to purchase it again today. With the real estate boom here since about 2000 and the huge amount of people investing in real estate here, it is no longer a cheap place to live. If you bought a house before that you are set, but if you are looking to start out now, you are pretty screwed.
Wow you guys are really harsh! Obviously y'all have(or had) the benefit of high-paying jobs that raised you thousands a year... the regular working folk are not seeing those increases to cover all this. When the insurance alone jumps up by thousands, where is that income going to come from? You can only work so many hours in a day. I think working two jobs to keep afloat would be considered "rolling up their sleeves and meeting their challenges". No?
PSLOldTimer says it in his post... It's all about choices we make.
If you're insurance comany jumped up by thousands then they are letting you know that they no longer want to write your policy. Go find another insurance company. Call your agent or find another agent. Keep calling until you find someone who'll insure you at a decent rate. Raise your deductible. Take control of your life! Politians don't care about you. Make things happen for yourself in your own little corner of the world.
There are people in the northeast who have quarterly water bills higher than our insurance premiums. They pay state income taxes, excise taxes, and btw, they have to deal with hurricanes up there too.
Obviously you've done all that over a lifetime and you have done extremely well for yourself, way better than most for sure. You have to admit that. You bought your home and the place in NC many years ago with time on your side to be able to pay everything off. But do you really think you could have moved here as a young couple 2 or 3 years ago and bought a $200K house, put your kids in private school and still handle all the increases without any trouble?
Somehow I don't think everyone that is struggling now simply made poor choices and wasted all their money away. We're not far from the breaking point ourselves and we are also mega misers, no car payments, super bargain hunters, work our tails off and all that, like yourself... except we do have a mortgage. That makes all the difference. If our house was paid off, there would be no problem. Don't you think you would have a tougher time of it with a mortgage?
We had a mortgage -- in fact, we had several mortgages, on our house, on our cabin and on our commercial property. We also tried our hand at a rental house back in the late 70's, bought it cheap with a high mortgage -- we had to keep it rented 100% of the time to afford the mortgage. One tenant got a new boyfriend who drank. He took her money and damaged the house in a drunken rage. She couldn't pay the rent and agreed to move out; I missed a couple of mortgage payments. I had to come up with $$$ to repair the damage; I missed a couple of more mortgage payments. Then, in the process of making repairs, I discovered termites and had to have it treated, yet another mortage payment was missed to pay the termite company. We were threatened with foreclosure and sold it to an investor at a loss in order to avoid foreclosure.
Housing prices historically keep up with inflation. As prices rise, housing prices rise, also. The $200,000 house today is no different than the $65,000 house we bought back in 1978.
Time on our side? I don't think I understand. We had it just as tough back then as folks with kids have today; what's the difference? Although, I do see you mentioned private schools; I assume you mean pre-college? We never did that -- our kids attended public schools and did just fine. They both graduated from Fort Pierce Central HS at a time when some were saying it was one of the worst schools on the East coast of Florida. One graduated from Lenoir Rhyne College, a high academic Lutheran college in Hickory, NC as a music major, and the other graduated from Stetson University in DeLand, considered at the time to be one of the two toughest academic schools in Florida (the other was Rollins). They are both successful in their chosen fields. We taught them the values they needed to succeed at home (there's a reason they are called "family" values) and didn't need to isolate them from the world at a private school. So, we did save money there, but it took a lot of hard work.
You say, "If our house was paid off, we would have an easier time..." Yes, of course. That's how we can afford to take a concierge-class 26 day cruise this year. But, how do you think we got there? Do you think we woke up one morning and our mortgage was magically paid off? I'm 66 years old; it took 40 years of busting my butt to get to this point. You asked, "Do you think you would have had a tougher time with a mortgage?" I don't have to think about it, we had a tough time. I didn't bother to fill in the little details, like the years I drove a beat-up '73 Dodge pickup truck with a 6 cylinder engine and a 3 speed shift on the column, with a home-made wood bed on the back because the original bed rusted out, and the time I got busted by the code enforcement folks because I was installing a $100 junk-yard engine in the thing when the original engine blew up. Or the time I taught myself to rebuild a transmission because I couldn't afford to have it done or get another car.
YOu don't whine, you don't moan or complain, you don't blame it on anyone else, you don't worry (OK, you worry some, especially about the safety of your family), you just pitch in, sacrifice, work even harder, figure out a way to make it work, look for more bargains, do without some of the things you think you want, spend even more time with the family, and always keep your eye on the goal -- someday, you want things to be just a bit better!
You eat mashed potato sandwiches with ketchup if that's what it takes to save for a down payment.
You look for cheaper insurance, I tried for two days for my mother and I and my sister tried also for hours trying to do the same, Citizens is the only one we could find because other are not insuring some zip codes or are the same price as citizens even though they are not supposed to be.None of us has had claims.
I would sell my house and move, and so would my daughters, but doctor says my mom can't move.
My daughter lives in a small townhouse in MelbourneBeach and her insurance is 8400.00 ayear!! How much money do you think she needs to make a year to keep up her mortgage, taxes, electricity and support of teenage son? She already has another job and rides a scooter. She wants to sell, but knows she has to hang on for a while,and who wants this huge insurance tacked on to their mortgage.
If I had to pay $700/month just for insurance on a small townhouse (presumably because it's near the beach), the mortgage company could have it back and I would be renting a trailer in Fellsmere to be sure I had the basic necessities.
You eat mashed potato sandwiches with ketchup if that's what it takes to save for a down payment.
I am a UF Grad and I am young and not making enough money here and I am happy to say "I am getting out" I say that with a smile. Wages went up 3% last year and cost of living went up 18%. This place is a complete joke. You have old timers everywhere (visit other states, and you don't go to the mall and see more senior citizens than people under 30). The crime here is ridiculous (child molesters everywhere). Insurance rates are out of control. "Sunshine wages" don't keep up with the cost of living. Couple that with the sinkholes and hurricanes and you have a bad scene. The ONLY thing good about Florida is the sun and beaches. I have had several friends from UF leave to go to Georgia, Tennessee, and other states up north like Illinois and Michigan for better opportunity. You're going to tell people to eat ketchup to live in 'paradise'?? Sorry, but no 'paradise' involves eatting ketchup and mashed potatoes, and if this state is what you call 'paradise' than you can have it! The only thing I am going to miss here is UF football games, but you can have Clearwater Beach, PCB, Siesta Key, South Beach, and take it all. I don't want it.
TylerDurden, I agree with you 100%. Young people have an extremely difficult time making a living. We don't have a "housing boom" to ride where these old timers had when you buy a house for 40-60k it jumps up quickly to $100k, then all the way to where we are at today. Why buy a piece of junk house here when you can go somewhere else and have a nice piece of property and raise a family without all the crime.
And we are Americans here, we have the right to voice our opinion if something is wrong. And in Florida, things are definitely wrong!
Yes, leave. My 20-something relatives in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan none of them had to struggle starting out. They all bought single family houses 6 months after graduation, ate out 2-3 times a week, drove new cars. Young people only struggle in Florida, and young college kids shouldn't have to struggle like this. In fact, the lifestyle your parents took 20 years to achieve, is waiting for you right around the corner in another state. No need to wait, go now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by UF_john
I am a UF Grad and I am young and not making enough money here and I am happy to say "I am getting out" I say that with a smile. Wages went up 3% last year and cost of living went up 18%. This place is a complete joke. You have old timers everywhere (visit other states, and you don't go to the mall and see more senior citizens than people under 30). The crime here is ridiculous (child molesters everywhere). Insurance rates are out of control. "Sunshine wages" don't keep up with the cost of living. Couple that with the sinkholes and hurricanes and you have a bad scene. The ONLY thing good about Florida is the sun and beaches. I have had several friends from UF leave to go to Georgia, Tennessee, and other states up north like Illinois and Michigan for better opportunity. You're going to tell people to eat ketchup to live in 'paradise'?? Sorry, but no 'paradise' involves eatting ketchup and mashed potatoes, and if this state is what you call 'paradise' than you can have it! The only thing I am going to miss here is UF football games, but you can have Clearwater Beach, PCB, Siesta Key, South Beach, and take it all. I don't want it.
TylerDurden, I agree with you 100%. Young people have an extremely difficult time making a living. We don't have a "housing boom" to ride where these old timers had when you buy a house for 40-60k it jumps up quickly to $100k, then all the way to where we are at today. Why buy a piece of junk house here when you can go somewhere else and have a nice piece of property and raise a family without all the crime.
And we are Americans here, we have the right to voice our opinion if something is wrong. And in Florida, things are definitely wrong!
Very Well said....couldn't agree with you more. We're counting the months until we join you in the Exodus!
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