Thinking about moving to Punta Gorda (Tampa, Clearwater: sales, foreclosures, rent)

[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.

[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.

[marie3]

also, every criminal on the planet also decides to move here. We just lost a young policeman, shot in the face in downtown fort myers by an illegal alien that had been deported back to Cuba. Cuba didn't want him, but there are so many criminals that the police can't keep up with it. Ever watch Americas Most wanted? They are always last seen in South Florida. In fact, a beautiful young Port charlotte policemans daughter was just killed by some scum bag who walked into her port charlotte house while she was at home during the day with her 2 babies, forced her into his car and later that day killed her. This story was featured on 20/20 and ABC Primetime and Dateline NBC just recently. This is typical of this area. You need to see that story. Just another scum bag that moved here from up north escaping his past. They all come here. Go to the News-Press.com and look at the job section and the crime section. I would tell you to go to the Punta gorda news, but they are so small they don't even have a newspaper. Those people have to get the fort myers newspaper. Again, Sara and Bryan, if I had to do this all over again, I would never, never move here. If your hearts are so set on moving to Florida, please think about an area that at least has "companies" or a college to anchor it. The biggest company here is Chicos woman apparel and they are in big trouble right now financially. Even Naples is nicer for people with young children and they have a very strong police force. And they have everything a young family could possibly need. When you get up to Tampa/clearwater area the temp goes down about 8 degrees and it is hot, but not as hot as this area. Clearwater/st.pete is difficult to access from my sisters point of view. She lives there. I know some long time punta gorda residents who recently moved to Lake city, gainseville, ocala and they are much happier.

[SuzieQFL]

I just finished typing a few paragraphs about Punta Gorda and then lost it before I could post it. I hate it when that happens!

Don't listen to bitter people who tell you ALL about a particular city and don't even live there.

I've lived in Charlotte County for 33 years and I can tell you that Marie3
doesn't know what she's talking about.

Punta Gorda is small, quaint and a typical Florida town. Street lamps, downtown restaurants and shops. It's located in a harbor, but since the harbor is rather shallow we don't get large ships in here. If you boat or sail, it's ideal.

It has its share of retirees, but also young professionals. The economy sucks just about everywhere, and our economy here is suffering because Hurricane Charley in 2004 brought in investors like crazy. A lot of people took the money from the insurance companies and got out of dodge. Investors came along and bought houses for a cheap price, fixed them up and sold them at top dollar. Housing skyrocketed, mortgage companies gave mortgages to just about everyone - and now that prices are way down, they owe more than their house is worth - therefore, we do have a ton of foreclosures. The good news is that if you want to move here, housing prices are really good right now.

Port Charlotte is just across the bridge and there is a mall there with Dillards, JC Penney, Macy's, Bealls (Florida store....love it) Sears and several smaller stores like Things Remembered...stuff like you see in a typical mall, although ours isn't huge. We have Wal-Marts all over the place, between Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, and a huge Wal Mart distribution center in South Punta Gorda. By the way, the Wal Mart in Punta Gorda didn't close, but they did leave the store they were in to move to a new larger store.

The best way to determine ANY place as a potential new neighborhood is to come and look at it. If you are young with children, my suggestion would be North Port. There are a lot more younger people there, and lots of kid stuff to do. Also, the schools here are good. We also have a newspaper
Sun NewsPapers Port Charlotte. Check it out.

Good luck!

[FLBob]

I agree with SuzieQFL her description is how I view Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte. If you're looking for construction related work now may be a bad time to move.
Health care, and retail are the most likely employment options.
There's crime but compared to other areas I think it's on the low side.
Punta Gorda is not beach area, more of a boating and fishing area.
Englewood or Venice would be better if you are thinking beach.

[Big House]

I think Punta Gorda is a great place. I've been researching and looking there for a few months. This is the thread I started quite some time ago. There is a lot of valuable information on this thread. I hope it helps.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/flori...da-anyone.html

[SoFLGal]

You should come down and check out the area before you make any decisions. I would agree 100% with SuzieQFL. What type of job are you looking for? Have you researched what school you would send your children to?

[121804]

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.

We moved to SWFL due to my husband's job situation that had him placed in Fort Myers. We were a young couple with a young child. Heard awful things about FM & Cape Coral, so we decided to check out Punta Gorda. We had a very short window, so to excessively research it was out of the question. We saw it once prior to moving there.

Not going to drag on or bash other posters. Just going to tell you that Punta Gorda is great if you are retiring. It revolves around its retirees. There is very little to do with young children in Punta Gorda minus, yes, a park & looking at the harbor.

We lived in Punta Gorda Isles & in a 6 block radius were the only family with a young child. In the summer, the street next to us had 7 out of 9 of its homes boarded up b/c of snowbirders. The population was much older than regular communities & not really the nicest group of retirees, either. It was not a good experience.

In short, just not a really great choice for young families. Very little is offered in the area & Port Charlotte is just plain depressing with a mall that has a few big chain stores that you see everywhere & food court. But across the street is a flea market & carnival thing that is open year round if that's your thing. Oh, we did use the play area at the mall during the peak of summer. My child enjoyed it b/c he could run & play. There is a YMCA in Port Charlotte & PG. I believe the PC one offers things for older kids. The PG one doesn't offer as much.

Lots of places in FL have cheap rent due to the housing crisis. Owners are beyond desperate. But they are not going to pay the rent. You are & you have to find a job in the are that will pay the rent along with other bills while supporting a family. If one is retiring & looking for an easy p/t job, those are every in PG. The problem is none of these places have strong professional offerings for those not retiring. The job market for those who need to support a family is very, very dismal right now. That's fairly common across the US, but SWFL is in a much worse situation b/c it's lackluster job market is parred with a very poor housing market. The situation in PG is a little more extreme than other areas.

Punta Gorda relied on construction after the hurricane which drew in a younger crowd who also was middle class. Unfortunately, home construction is all about dead there & commercial is doing ok but more empty than filled. If you are in the health profession there are possibilites. Other than that, it's service/retail.

PG is small & quaint. It's a nice place to stop by for a day visit if you are a working family. If you are retiring, there is boating & fishing nonstop along with golf.

Jobs: customer service unless you are in the medical field.

Crime: very minimal. Nothing to worry about. It's a safe area

I'm not a FL person. Has never been my dream to move there & I was in tears when I heard he was being sent to Fort Myers. Just not my thing, so I went into the situation a more than a little jaded. My dh thought it would be "paradise" & wanted to move 3 weeks after we got there. There are little to no sidewalks. Quite impractical when you have a child & would like to go for a walk. Wasn't really crazy about the fire ant situation & they would mound on the grass, so it was always fun to watch my son run in the grass (which is not really grass but some sort of sod that has to tolerate heat & sun) & run over fire ant mounds. I searched high & low for things geared for kids in PG. THere is a pretty decent MOMS group. The heat & sun is what it is. It's hot. For fun we'd go to Publix & talk to the bakery lady who'd give my son a free sugar cookie. That was the extent of interaction.

Just not the place for us. Doesn't mean it's not the place for you. If your kids are in middle school, things may be a little better. I had a 1 yr old with another one on the way.

As I've been posting lately, if you are retiring, PG is perfect. If you are older, PG is perfect. If you are a young family, not the place at all. I believe the median age in 2006 was 63.

Just keep researching & if your dream is to move to FL, visit it many times prior to moving. As the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for, for you might just get it!

Sorry for dragging on!!!

[marie3]

I agree that North Port is better for young families. Alot of my clients with young children live in North Port. It's true that Punta gorda would be a great place to retire, but like a lot of the posters stated, not much to do for children.

[Augie]

A number of your observations could be helpful, but your hysteria is over the top. I came from NJ to Punta Gorda about 6 years ago and live happily in PGI. A family planning to move here should check out the area throughly, but PG is not hell on Earth (that's reserved for Baltimore). About the only caveat regards the tough job market, if one is not retired..

By the way, where in Punta Gorda do you live that it is scorchingly hot from 7-9 months a year???