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Sure. But you have to be homesick & miss it here like the rest of us LI'ers when we leave here. But certainly will not miss the disgusting high COL here for sure. And come visit once in awhile too.
The cost of living is MUCH higher in Florida for me.
Hurricane Insurance and homeowners is higher and a lot of house has expensive flood insurance.
They their are property taxes pegged at 1-2 percent of purchase price. The better school districts I see around 11K taxes. They there are HOA fees, 52 weeks of landscaping and pool service. And on a lower salary.
I met a married couple recently from Florida who just moved back to NY as Florida was too expensive.
The realtor in Florida was shocked when I told them my homeowners was 2K a year, no HOA fees, lawnservice I pay $800 a year and I do my pool myself and have no maid.
He was like yea I remember that. Wait till you see the sprinkler bills, the 52 week pool and lawn service bills plus getting a maid for that 4,000 square foot house on top of HOA bills. You will miss long Island.
The cost of living is MUCH higher in Florida for me.
Hurricane Insurance and homeowners is higher and a lot of house has expensive flood insurance.
They their are property taxes pegged at 1-2 percent of purchase price. The better school districts I see around 11K taxes. They there are HOA fees, 52 weeks of landscaping and pool service. And on a lower salary.
I met a married couple recently from Florida who just moved back to NY as Florida was too expensive.
The realtor in Florida was shocked when I told them my homeowners was 2K a year, no HOA fees, lawnservice I pay $800 a year and I do my pool myself and have no maid.
He was like yea I remember that. Wait till you see the sprinkler bills, the 52 week pool and lawn service bills plus getting a maid for that 4,000 square foot house on top of HOA bills. You will miss long Island.
I am moving cause I have to. It is not cheaper.
If you buy a newer house, you can be in the $3k/range for homeowners insurance on a large house (4k sq ft). I pay $3800 on mine and it's quite a bit larger than 4k.
If you are near the water, then it's going to be much higher insurance, double, at least.
You can do the pool yourself, if that's your thing. I also looked up a few random houses on zillow in the same price range as my house here in Florida, and even with my ridiculous taxes, they were much higher on Long Island. I pay over $20k and the few houses I clicked on in NY/LI - $25k to $30k. Does that include the schools? I would assume so.
HOA is only if you live in an HOA community, which is obviously optional. I have one house in an HOA community and it's a whopping $45/mo. Big deal.
I don't think your assessment of the costs are accurate, as a whole. It may be more expensive in certain areas, but can certainly be cheaper, too. Plus no State income tax...
I have family that moved from New Jersey and Florida is MUCH cheaper. I think the couple you met, just didn't really try and used that as an excuse. Which is fine, but recognize that it's not entirely accurate. Florida is huge with low and high cost of living areas.
One of my houses is on a good sized lot, worth about $500k or so in one of the best school districts in South Florida. It's on a lake and flood insurance, which is optional, runs $400. $3k insurance (which will go down now that we have full mitigation), $45 HOA, $6k taxes. Landscaping is $35/week and pool is $80/mo. Is that horrifically expensive to you?
If you buy a newer house, you can be in the $3k/range for homeowners insurance on a large house (4k sq ft). I pay $3800 on mine and it's quite a bit larger than 4k.
If you are near the water, then it's going to be much higher insurance, double, at least.
You can do the pool yourself, if that's your thing. I also looked up a few random houses on zillow in the same price range as my house here in Florida, and even with my ridiculous taxes, they were much higher on Long Island. I pay over $20k and the few houses I clicked on in NY/LI - $25k to $30k. Does that include the schools? I would assume so.
HOA is only if you live in an HOA community, which is obviously optional. I have one house in an HOA community and it's a whopping $45/mo. Big deal.
I don't think your assessment of the costs are accurate, as a whole. It may be more expensive in certain areas, but can certainly be cheaper, too. Plus no State income tax...
I have family that moved from New Jersey and Florida is MUCH cheaper. I think the couple you met, just didn't really try and used that as an excuse. Which is fine, but recognize that it's not entirely accurate. Florida is huge with low and high cost of living areas.
One of my houses is on a good sized lot, worth about $500k or so in one of the best school districts in South Florida. It's on a lake and flood insurance, which is optional, runs $400. $3k insurance (which will go down now that we have full mitigation), $45 HOA, $6k taxes. Landscaping is $35/week and pool is $80/mo. Is that horrifically expensive to you?
Considering I pay 25 landscaping, zero for pool and zero HOA and 2k insurance on long island not so bad. I pay only $7,500 property taxes as I grieve a lot. So no real savings house wise.
Considering I pay 25 landscaping, zero for pool and zero HOA and 2k insurance on long island not so bad. I pay only $7,500 property taxes as I grieve a lot. So no real savings house wise.
I wouldn't argue that you would save a ton of money on a house in South Florida - which is a high COL area. But "Florida is too expensive" as a general statement, I think that's completely false. There are much lower COL areas in Florida than South Florida.
I agree, South Florida COL and Florida COL are very different from one another. South Florida is definitely going to have a higher cost of living than the rest of the state. There are way more affordable areas that may fit better into some people's price range.
So back to that again. Weston, West Davie, or Cooper City. If you want to go north - Boca and Parkland. Pretty straight forward. If you want private schools - American Heritage right smack in Plantation. Though if complaining about pool cleaning cost and what not, not sure $15k private schools are in the budget...
Considering I pay 25 landscaping, zero for pool and zero HOA and 2k insurance on long island not so bad. I pay only $7,500 property taxes as I grieve a lot. So no real savings house wise.
Depending on what you want in a home you can always buy a home without a pool. If you choose Weston most all subdivisions have their own pools that you can always use. Also if you buy like a Townhome. Landscaping & pool costs are included in HOA fees. As well as includes ins for the outside of home. Outside of LI there are far more options for buyers. You could even probably sell your home here & buy a small place down there for cash & have zero mortgage. Just saying. Of course that depends on your taste & what you want too.
You are lucky that total with property & school taxes are that low on total. What school district/town are you in. And also what matters is how old home is & if you ever did any upgrades or expansions.That is rare. And not the norm. My sister in law has a very small 2/1 old house. Never updated. In Franklin Square. Her taxes are $7,000 total. But they never did any upgrades & honestly...it needs it badly. Like walking into the late 60's! But she knows if she tries to do anything her taxes will go sky high.And they almost added a 2nd floor for a bedroom & master bath. But when they found out how much property taxes would be they backed off. Nassau County has their hands in everyone's pocket & we are loaded with corruption here as you probably know. I know SoFla has its share of corruption as it is everywhere. But it can't compare to here. Won't say anything too bad about him because he is best friends with someone very close to me & I know him personally. But honestly Mangano has to go. He has made some very big blunders.
And yes above poster. School portion of tax bill is much higher than total general taxes. But for the OP she might live in a town that pays very little school taxes. But where I am compared to Weston. Can't compare the two. But taxes for where we are are much higher on school portion. And well Insurance. Very hard to even get now. Let alone good ins at reasonable cost. Since Sandy we got screwed. Anything South of Merrick Rd here you are screwed. People are having hard time selling in flood zone here. But they are starting to bite again.
But in any case we owned both here on LI & in Weston. But we did buy small cheap place in Weston by choice & did not have to worry about our own pool.Had great community pool we loved & used 6x week at least. One we used was always empty & also had full gym. And indoor Racquetball. And we did come back up here. And actually moved back to same place we lived in way back before we ever moved to Weston years ago.
If you buy within reason So. Fla is cheaper. But costs of course will vary. Yes you do lawn service all year there. If you have your own pool of course it needs care year round. Totally different weather/seasonal differences between LI & So. Fla. At least you don't have heating costs in Fla. like we do here. Snow. Well there are many factors. We can all go back & forth for long time with this. But the OP knows what is best for their family.
The OP wanted to find the best school within 40 min of Plantation.
Well if OP wants public schools. Weston is best choice. IMHO. And it is a hop skip & jump from Plantation. They just about border each other in a sense. But you know that
I looked at Cooper city but too much diverse housing stock.
I would like a town with a lot of families, mostly homes in the $650,000 to $950,000 range. Good schools and NY style homes. The McMansion homes with wall to wall carpeting a bit depressing. I want wood floors, no gates, blocks where homes are all different and a town that Catholic mainly. The smaller cheaper homes and condos and rentals are a lot of older folk and poorer folk. The super expensive homes 2-4 million homes often have no kids and are second homes.
The sweet spot is executive level homes of folks with kids in the $650,00 to $950,000 range. Not vacation homes or rentals and a town where folks from NY or NJ move to and one with great schools and parents who care about education.
This is FL. You get FL style homes in FL (imagine that). You can install wood floors in any house you buy. Don't fixate on something that you can change. Some people will tell you that you can't have wood floors in FL but that is not true. I am from NY. I was born in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island and lived in Westchester and Fairfield County CT so I am very familiar with the NY area. The area you are moving to is different. You will not be able to recreate NY here in FL. It isn't going to happen so forget about doing it.
You will have many choices in your price range. If you want custom homes you can look at Plantation Acres but you will need to do private school past elementary school. Plantation Acres is very nice and has mostly custom homes. At the lower end of your price range the houses will need some work. Really any of the homes in Plantation Acres under $1million will need some work.
If you want good public schools Weston or Parkland are your best bets. In those areas you will probably need to consider gated communities in your price range. I also like Cooper City and there are some areas that have custom homes.
As far as mostly Catholic most affluent areas in south Florida will have a Catholic presence. There will also be a large Jewish population in those areas. Many of the areas that have a large Catholic presence (like Weston) will also have a very large, very visible Spanish speaking population. That was not a problem for me when I lived in Weston but you need to be prepared for it.
The bottom line is that if you are moving here you have to deal with here. It isn't New York moved south. It has its own culture, pluses and minuses. You need to deal with what is here, not what you want. If you move here expecting to just pick up your NY life and move it here you will be very very very unhappy.
Edited to add: You can do your own pool.
Last edited by Momma_bear; 09-20-2016 at 06:32 AM..
Reason: wanted to add something
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