Thinking about moving to Punta Gorda (Port Charlotte, Naples: houses, neighborhood, gated communities)

[LovingCapeCoral]

To some degree what Laura said is true, but not all is lost. It really depends on what you guys do for a living. I got a good management-level job in human resources within three weeks, but I know that is an exception and not a rule. Entry level has a lot of competition with other applicants. Nursing, professional, and management - maybe. Make sure if ou come you save up just in case and start your search not. You can rent a post office box at a UPS Store or Mailboxes etc. to get a local address - that way recruiters don't think you need relocation funds. Also, you can change your cellphone over to the local area code for the same reason.

Originally Posted by laurasrn

Everything that marie3 said is correct.... I should know as I lived in Fort Myers for 5 years and have lived in Punta Gorda for 2 years. There are NO jobs here unless you are in the service industry or in healthcare. Whenever there is a job opening, they get 300 - 400 applicants and are overwhelmed - because the unemployment rate is 8.5% here!! If you are going to move down here with children, you better have a couple of jobs lined up BEFORE you come down!
I personally cannot wait to leave this state in November and move to TX.

[jasonandlinda]

Originally Posted by Sara & Bryan

Our dream is to move to Florida. We have researched and come to the conclusion that Punta Gorda may be the best area. Rent looks more reasonable and square footage is higher. However, we are unsure about jobs, crime rate, etc. We are a young couple with two children. Please give us your opinions and recommendations.

I have lived here in Charlotte County for 19 years originally from Long Island ii is beautiful here great place to raise a family although right now we have the highest unemployment rate in the state which they say it is 10-12% but that not including the people that don't get uneploment comp. most of the construction guys have been out of work for almost 2years times are very tuff here riight now!!!Good luck to both of you!!

[jeff3166]

Originally Posted by marie3

Sara and Bryan (my daughter and step sons name) I moved from Ohio 7 years ago and I work in Punta Gorda - Port Charlotte 1 day a week. Please whatever you do, do not do this!!!! I can tell you right now....it is the most economically depressed area you could ever imagine. There are NO jobs and 1/2 of the "mom and pop" companies have closed (after all the work was done for repairs Hurricane Charley) There is absolutely nothing in Punta Gorda. There are 4 car dealers, a publix and a few restaurants, (the best one just closed) Absolutely nothing!!! No shopping, no doctors, nothing. You have to drive to sarasota (1 hr or fort myers (45 min.) to even find a Best Buy or a good hospital or any shopping at all) There is nothing in Port Charlotte either. The closes beach is in Englewood, which is about 45 min drive in a remote area. It is terrible. All of the people I know that live there absolutely hate it. Everyone I know that lives there has to commute to Fort Myers, Naples, or Sarasota to work. 0 jobs, unless you want to work at IHOP part time. My co-workers own a small business in Port charlotte (just over the Harbor bridge) and everyone of their wives has to drive to Fort Myers (1 hour) or Sarasota (1 hour) to go to work. This would perhaps be the worst decision of your life. I am an outside sales person and when I work in Punta Gorda/Port C (one in the same) I have the most miserable day of the week. It is scorching hot 9 months out of the year. 94 degrees everyday for a min. of 7 months. My husband and I are saving everyday to move out of this area. Everyone I know is moving up north. There is NO economy here!!!! The only economy was tourism (tourist don't go to Punta Gorda, 0 hotels!!, no beach!!!)in fort myers (sanibel, fort myers beach) and construction. ALL construction companies have closed. We have the HIGHEST FORECLOSURE RATE IN THE USA (REALTYTRAC.COM). My husband is in construction and does kitchens and there is absolutely 0 work. Everyone that is still here, that hasn't been layed off by builders have taken EXTREME pay cuts, including myself. DO NO DO THIS MOVE!!!! Even when I stop to eat lunch in punta gorda, the local retired peoples conversation is about the fact that they have to drive 1 hour to get surgery or see a doctor or buy a pair of shoes. The retired people say they wish they would never have chosen Punta Gorda. I can't even begin to tell you how bad the economy is here. If you are still working, you, like me and my husband, will never see the beach. You will be working 2 jobs like we do, day and night to even break even. And they will be bottom of the barrel jobs. They opened 2 new Targets recently in Fort Myers and 800 people stood in line all night to put applications in. That was also alot of people from Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte. There were city worker, professionals, construction workers, skilled craftsman, sales people ...all begging to get a 4 hour a week shift at the local Target. The crime is horrendous here in Fort Myers and we are closest city to punta. Every shop has closed its doors. Even Walmart just closed on the main street of Punta Gorda. There are no children here. The schools are horrible. If you insist you want to move to Florida (my lifelong dream also...now can not wait ...counting the days to when I can get out of here!!!, please move to at least a college town, like Gainsville, or a metro area like Tampa. Even then, there ARE NO JOBS!!! NONE! I saw the beach more when I lived in Ohio, making enough money to take nice locations. And about the beaches...they are getting ready to release water from Lake Okeechobee today and it will travel all the way from the lake to the Caloosahatchee river and then emtpy into the gulf of mexico into the beaches from Englewood to Naples....then just like last year when they did it...the dreaded RED TIDE (google it for Englewood). Highly toxic water in the Gulf, killing all the fish, Red Tide ....you go to the beach....you will get very very ill ... especially children will get very ill. You will have strange and frightening pain in your lungs and shoulders and the exposure will make you sick for a long time. The beaches will be closed and the tourist from overseas will be furious, because they can't even go to the beach. You will have to leave your hotel and move inland because the fumes are so bad. Please Please do not ruin your life. If you blink your eyes, you would miss the entire Punta gorda area. The only way I would ever move to Punta Gorda would be to buy a "snowbird" condo for a max. of 3 months a year (jan, feb, march) ...but then, the traffic is so bad that you cannot get anywhere, it will take you about 2 to 3 hours to sit in traffic to get to the beach. You will be crying everyday wishing to God that you did not make this move. EVERYONE I know is moving to Tenn, S. and N. Carolina, georgia, ohio, kentucky, anywhere but here! If you don't believe me...come on down and spend 3 days going to the local places and talking to people. This is a GHOST town!!!! And by the way, we are going to probably have to evacuate all of our worldly belonging this week for Hurricane IKE. When that Cat 4 slammed into Punta gorda in 04..it was devastating....we are always packing our "stuff" up and having to leave for hurricanes. I finally, just put all the childrens photos away for good in plastic containers, because every other week there is a hurricane warning. I wish I could meet you if you came here and I would show you around. I spend 9 hours on Wednesdays for the last 7 years driving for my job up and down US 41 (one big ugly strip mall)in this area and I absolutely HATE it.

So much bad info, I won't even try to address all of it.

Look, I tend to not arbitrarily call someone a "lair", and I'll stick to that tendancy, but anyone who reads this post and knows anything about Punta Gorda can draw their own conclusions about the author of the above post. I will simply say that there is an ABUNDANCE of flat out untrue statements in the post above.

I'm only going to spend the time to address these few statements:

"There is absolutely nothing in Punta Gorda. There are 4 car dealers, a publix and a few restaurants, (the best one just closed) Absolutely nothing!!! No shopping, no doctors, nothing."

To set the record straight--

- As for no shopping, there is a Super Walmart in Punta Gorda, and it was opened LONG before this person posted this post. There is also a Home Depot that's been open for YEARS in Punta Gorda. There is also MORE than just one Publix in Punta Gorda, there are two of them.

- As for a "few" restaurants, there is FAR more than a few.

- As for no doctors- Google "Advanced Orthopedic Punta Gorda".

To the folks that are out there and are genuinely in need of good and accurate information, as I once was when I registered here earlier in the year, I suggest that you beware of the bad/false/inaccurate/etc. info that unfortunately tends to make it's way onto this website from time to time.

[jeff3166]

Originally Posted by marie3

I wouldn't sit here and make up stuff about PG or PC. I just spent another 8 hours of my life in every single business in PG on Thursday. I'm in sales for 6 years, I spend my time talking to all types of business owners all day. I am not exagerating. Every business owner I talk to in PG, is in the RED. This is not for young people! I go to one of the only little cafes in Punta Gorda for lunch "Pies and Plates" and everytime I go there I have at least 1 elderly widow come up to me and ask if they can join me for lunch. I don't know these woman from Adam. I know lonliness though when I see it. I listen for one hour to there life story and the conversation always goes back to "I wish I hadn't come here....or my children are trying to get me back up north to be closer...or "I haven't been able to make any friends here"......or "when my husband died, I got stuck here".....they are volunteering, but were not prepared for the "sleepy" little town they are in alone. I urge you above all else, to please please go to PG before you move and before you go, make a list of what is important in your life. I can't wait, and in fact, will be spending my weekend working on my resume, to get out of here! A very good friend of mine is President of a Local Chamber (I won't say which one) and her and her husband are absolutely elated that they both landed great jobs at other chambers up north and will finally after 9 years be able to get out of here. My husband and I are looking at Nashville, Cincinnati, Asheville, Charlotte. Also go to the newest edition of "The Milken Institute" . Their web site just listed the BEST and WORST cities for growth. The top 10 worst performers in the USA were Naples, Fort Myers, Cape Coral. Punta/Port are so insignifcant, they don't even consider them in the list.

"I just spent another 8 hours of my life in every single business in PG on Thursday. I'm in sales for 6 years, I spend my time talking to all types of business owners all day. I am not exagerating."

Unreal. You make it sound as if Punta Gorda is a town of 2 or 3 dozen businesses, and you could actually spend time in every single one of them over the course of an 8-hour workday on Thursday. Wrong. Impossible. There are HUNDREDS of businesses in Punta Gorda, you could not have possibly spent time in each one of them over the course of an 8-hour workday. So yes, you were exaggerating.

"I wouldn't sit here and make up stuff about PG or PC."

You wouldn't? Ok, if that's what you want to believe.

[LovingCapeCoral]

Marie3, I again respectfully disagree. You have made it very clear through all of your posts that you ate it here and want to go back up north. For everyone else - I live in Cape Coral and work in Venice. Many of my employees live in Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, North Port and Venice and like the communities and schools. Tour the different communities and get a feel for them. It is not scorchingly hot here, and I still think it is great down here.

[Big House]

Do Sara and Bryan still read this thread? - Just wondering?

[jeff3166]

Originally Posted by Big House

Do Sara and Bryan still read this thread? - Just wondering?

Who knows?

Regardless of that, for anyone that does read it, surely (hopefully) they realize that there is good and accurate info in this thread and on this website, but there is also plenty of bad, inaccurate, and agenda-driven info, as well.

[Big House]

Originally Posted by jeff3166

Who knows?

Regardless of that, for anyone that does read it, surely (hopefully) they realize that there is good and accurate info in this thread and on this website, but there is also plenty of bad, inaccurate, and agenda-driven info, as well.

Yea, I know, I just bought in PGI, and I love it. Everyone has been friendly. And, not everyone is sullen and in a state of desparation and despair either. Sure it's tough, but its not the way it was painted by some.

[FLBob]

Fishing is good in the area. I took some buddies out yesterday to target some mid-sized tarpon and jumped 2.
I think I got them hooked. They just called, they went to Fishing Franks to replace a reel, they told Robert about the day we had yesterday. Robert told them that baby tarpon were thick in the canals in PGI. They went out trolling the canals and got into them deep in the bird section.
PGI, Charlotte Harbor, and the rivers that feed this area makes it a special place.

[floridiansally]

Marie3, I too hope you can get out of Punta Gorda. I have lived in this wonderful town for 14 years, long enough to know that someone as negative as you would not fit into this friendly village. What lies have you told about the last place you "ran away" from? You do need to move, and soon.