[breynold1981]

My wife and I have decided to explore purchasing a vacation home after spending a lot of time in the area over the past 2 years. We have stayed at the Breakers several times (which we love for its character) and the Ritz-Carlton in Manalapan (which we believe is a superior property and prefer for its smaller size). We are from North Carolina and live in the oldest, most established area of town and tend to prefer these types of areas. We do not like hanging around people that are very showy. We are mid 30s with two children who are 3 and 5 - we love the look of Palm Beach, but it does seem very, very old (age). We tend to spend almost all of our evenings in Delray Beach which has a terrific vibe. We are looking for something in the
$2.5-$3M range which gets us something on the water(intercostal) in Delray and something small, in town with a pool in Palm Beach. Any feedback on the types of people we will encounter? Are there any families in the Palm Beach area? Again, we are both from North Carolina - have lots of friends from up north, but they tend to share our same values, personalities. We are very traditional. We don't really want to spend time with the gold Rolex, Bentley, GV crowd. My wife and I anticipate moving to the area for 1/2 the year in retirement so it is important to us to get involved in the community. Thank you for any feedback!

[Sharkey514]

You should look at Delray Beach -- try the Seagate area - East along the beach -- it is a fun beach town, but close enough for airports -- more down to earth than PB. Also a bit north along the coast there are some really nice beach houses and townhouses. The town is lively - especially on weekends - and the beach is great.

[Lilybeans]

If I could live in any town in Florida, it would be Palm Beach. It's safe, it's pretty, you can walk to town, kids can bike. No gangbangers, no noise, no drug problem. Palm Beach without any doubt.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Well, first off, a vacation home for 2.5-3 million? Don't you need a business (or inheritance, or whatever it is) partner?

It's tough for me to say which I'd prefer. I really do not know Delray well enough. I know Palm Beach fairly well, and like it a lot. It's not all old folks (although there is no shortage of older folks there), but, you can probably buy a heck of a lot more house in Delray for that money. It's hard to buy anything in Palm Beach for under a million, including condos, so 3 million in Palm Beach is probably going to be a fairly modest house. I probably wouldn't do Palm Beach unless I were spending at least 8-10 million, say, because that's the bottom of the range you have to be in to get something that you couldn't easily find or recreate elsewhere for much less money (you'd just lose out on the prestigious address getting a much larger house/piece of property in the other areas).

But if you prefer the vibe in Delray, it seems like it would be an easy choice for you.