[simplyrobin]

Flying into FL this Saturday to look for home. Palm Coast seems to be priced good and the schools seem decent. Talked to one Realtor in area said jobs are hard to come by but the area is growing, talked with another realtor from St Augustine and she said I don't want to be there at all, that I shouldn't even consider. Need help from someone that knows the area please be honest and give me your opinion or positive and negatives of the area. Middle aged family with 3 boys! Thank you in advance!

[RedWingsFan]

If you do a search on this site you will find quite a few threads about Palm Coast. The houses are priced cheaper than other areas. And you know what? They are still overpriced!

The area stinks. Before moving to Florida we thought it looked great online too. We moved to the Daytona Beach area and went to check out Palm Coast. It took me like five minutes to know that I wouldn't live there. The area is so dismal. There are houses built everywhere with nobody living in them. Many communities have no sidewalks, there is high crime, there is NOTHING to do there!!! If your idea of having fun is just going to Walmart then great, but otherwise you and your children will be bored stiff.

I would reconsider that area. I agree with the second realtor. You don't want to be there. Nobody does. They have more houses than people willing to live there.

And there are no jobs there and the ones that exist are very low paying!

I would check out either St. Augustine or go south to the Daytona area and check out Ormond Beach and Port Orange. We moved into an apartment in Ormond Beach and then bought a house in Port Orange (excellent schools, low crime, great community, 10 minutes from the ocean).

I ended up driving up there three times checking it out to give it a fair chance. Each time I came to the same conclusion. There's no way I'd raise my kids there. It's no place I'd want to live.

[riveree]

Yup to all of the above (though I hadn't heard about the crime?).

It's a great town for the over 80.

Your realtor was right, I don't know what you'd do for employment there unless you want to work for a golf course...or maybe a restaurant?

Also, unless things have radically changed, you'll need to head to Daytona or St. Augustine for a lot of your shopping needs.

Daytona....well, to each his/her own, but blech! It's a town that was built on Spring Break and Bike Week.....enough said.

St. Augustine is much more lively, much more beautiful, and honestly, you'll have a hard enough time finding decent paid employment THERE....you'll probably end up commuting to Jax.

What are you looking for out of Palm Coast? Is it the beach? Do you think there are good housing deals? What attracted you?

[ssg II]

Yes, please check out the other threads on Palm Coast. Evidently, I'm the only native Floridian on this forum who lives in Flagler County. I DON'T live in Palm Coast and wouldn't if they gave me a house!

Ormond Beach or St. Augustine would be my choice based on your criteria.

Happy House Hunting!

[LandShark99]

I live in Palm Coast. Everything said so far is true but I personally don't know about the crime. I told myself I would give it 6 months. This is month 6. I am soooo looking for another place to live!

Palm Coast: "Home of the Newlywed or Nearly Dead"
"Palm Jersey"
"Palm Toast" (when the wildfires were raging a few years ago)

It goes on and on. I am a real Floridian. My observation is that Palm Coast has no soul. Most other established Florida towns have some history, some reason for people being drawn to the area...it just feels empty and hollow to me. Pointless.

Yeah, it's growing all right. There are a ton of house sitting empty with realtor or for rent signs but they are building condos like they are going out of style. My take is they figure the old folks will bail out of their houses and move into the condos (as they tend to do) but it leaves a lot of houses empty.

They do have a great Parks & Recreation Dept and Adult Education Program with plenty of things to keep the retired people busy.

I think it will come into it's own someday but life is too short to wait for that.

I agree with the other posters if you want to live on the east coast of FL.

[RedWingsFan]

Originally Posted by riveree

Daytona....well, to each his/her own, but blech! It's a town that was built on Spring Break and Bike Week.....enough said.

Daytona is really nice...great beaches among other things. Spring Break and Bike Week are a very small couple of weeks throughout the year. And over the last several years they have had a publicity campaign going to turn Spring Break into "family spring break" and the bike week crowd is a good crowd...mostly people 40 and up that like motorcycles. They seemed like a good crowd to me.

But I wouldn't live right in Daytona... look to the north in Ormond Beach or the south in Port Orange. Both are great places.

[ssg II]

Originally Posted by LandShark99

Palm Coast: "Home of the Newlywed or Nearly Dead"
"Palm Jersey"
"Palm Toast" (when the wildfires were raging a few years ago)

You forgot "COMpost!"

And BTW riveree, Daytona was NOT built on spring break or bikeweek. If any special event defines it, it's Nascar.
Like many coastal Florida cities, originally it was a winter resort for the wealthy, like the Rockefellers. Do a little research before you start bashing.

[simplyrobin]

Thanks to everyone for their input! We can live anywhere in central florida north per husbands job requirements. We are making plans to go to St. Augustine while we are there as well as look from Orlando going NE.
Thanks again.

[RedWingsFan]

In doing your visiting and research you might want to check out the hurricane probability map:
http://www.floridahurricane.net/

One thing about the NE area of Florida that I have read is that it's one of the most heavily hit area by tornados each year. Most people only think of hurricanes when considering Florida, not tornadoes. Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

"While Florida has more reported tornadoes by land area than anywhere else in the world, most tornadoes which form here are resultant of non-rotating thunderstorms, or are spawned by hurricanes, both of which tend to be weaker than traditional tornadoes."
You can read it all here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_climatology

They may be "weak" but can still kill and do a lot of damage.... I read there is a tornado alley in Florida that gets hit the hardest, it's from about St. Augustine and goes all the way over to the west side of the state.

[simplyrobin]

Any additional suggestion on where to look? Do you think homes will continue to go down or is the worse over? I have been spending days on the computer researching. The worse part is not having family or friends in Fl to say go here or try this. These forums have been great and I have been looking over many posts. I think once we are there Saturday morning I will be able to eliminate areas by sight much quicker. Thanks for the link.