is moving to jacksonville good? (St. Augustine, Pace: apartment complex, insurance, new house)

[ninaheidi]

Hi,

i am planning to move down to JAx from VA. i visited it and i loved it, considering the cost of houses, etc. Could any one help me with the following?

1. how diverse is it?
2. is it solely church driven politics and culture?
3. i am an IT consultant, so wondering how are the jobs in there?
4. are prices of houses and economy dropping?

really appreciate your help

[dizliz0925]

Originally Posted by ninaheidi

Hi,

i am planning to move down to JAx from VA. i visited it and i loved it, considering the cost of houses, etc. Could any one help me with the following?

1. how diverse is it?
2. is it solely church driven politics and culture?
3. i am an IT consultant, so wondering how are the jobs in there?
4. are prices of houses and economy dropping?

really appreciate your help

1. Jacksonville is pretty diverse. You have a wide variety of professionals, and blue collar workers. Racially, there is a good mix of black, white, asain, arabic, and philipino communites.
2. Most would have you believe that 1st Baptist rules this town, but I don't believe it. Jax isa pretty conservative town, but you have a good amount of liberals (BTW - not a dirty word people!). In terms of diversity, there is a good mix of Prodestant, Catholic, and Jewish Communities in town (not sure about Islamic worship in town, but I'm sure there are places to go).
3. Modis is a professional staffing firm in town, and has their name on the most prominent building in the Jax skyline. Not sure of the market, but you can google them by entering 'MODIS IT'
4. There seems to be a great deal of housing inventory (especially new houses) in and around town. I heard on the radio that some new builders were offering up to 60k off the prices of their houses. Some are giving away plasma TV's and some are even offereing to pay property taxes for a year.

Hope this helps....Welcome to town! (From where in VA are you moving?)

[ninaheidi]

Hey thank you so much for your help.

i am moving from VA, just fed up with the traffic and the phase of life here. i want to have fun and also work good, so jax seemed a gud place, i hope i am right

[Ken2zz]

Have you been to Jacksonville during rush hour?

You don't know me but please take my advice DONT LIVE BY THE NAVY BASE AND THE APARTMENT COMPLEX MANY OF THEM LIVE IN

NEVER GET A PARKING SPACE AT NIGHT AND THE TRAFFIC IS MESSED UP

IE; BLANDING Blvd exit on 295 and south from there

[fastninja500]

I've been a "lurker" on this forum, reading up on all other posts. This post is a bit long. Please bear with me. I'll try to be as thorough as possible.

Our company, which I'd rather not disclose for now, is encouraging it's employees here in NYC to move to Jacksonville. I'm seriously considering taking tha packge and moving down there. I've always enjoyed all our vacations in various parts of Florida in the years past.

I'll be making a couple of scouting trips in February. I'd like to narrow down my search. I'm assuming that living in Duval county is expensive. I know St. John's county is expensive as well. What about Clay county?

Can you folks give some feedback on the towns/cities I've listed below ? I'm looking at the map and kinda guessing where I'd like to look to live.

St. Augustine - My number one choice. I've visited several times in previous years, but as a tourist. So I don't know the real picture here. Is land expensive there? Is it relatively safe? I estimate it's about 40 miles one way to Jacksonville. How bad is the traffic? 1 hour?

Switzerland ? - nice name, but don't know anything about it.

My wife and I have a 12 year old boy. So school is very important. Any highly rated Catholic/Christian schools around? If not, which would you consider to have the good public school system? My son's a straight A student and also loves sports. And he's coming from one of the best school systems in North Jersey. So we'd like a similar environment to keep him challenged and busy. IF we we can afford it.

Ideally, we'd like to avoid living in a gated community. Rather, we'd like to buy a 3 to 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home, 15 to 20 years old, on at least 1 acre of land, maybe a pool too. What would be a good ballpark figure for something like this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You very much !

PS. Why are there so many "gated" communities around? Is it really unsafe? Or is that just another marketing ploy by developers, to charge more?

[fastninja500]

My apologies to Ninaheidi. I guess I sort of "pirated" her post! I'm kinda new at this, so I don't know the proper etiquette. Should I delete my post and start a new one for "moving to Jacksonville"?

[Karla with a K]

fastninja500
one important thing to consider is where in Jax will you be working ? this will have an impact on where you live.
Would I want to drive from St Aug to downtown Jax every day? No lol.
If you are transferring down from living in North jersey you will be surprised with the housing prices. Not to mention the property taxes.
St Johns county schools are very good. there are also private schools that are very good
Let us know what part of town you will be working in and we can make more suggestions.
Also if you want let us know what price range you are looking for.

Karla
(former Jersey girl)

[wacahootaman]

I think the job market is good here. I have seen lots of help wanted signs lately. Of course, these are usually service jobs but I suspect the professional jobs are also plentyful.

[fastninja500]

Karla, please see my response (in Italics) to your queries:

1.) "one important thing to consider is where in Jax will you be working?" -
Looking at the map, I think our Jax office is just south of the Jacksonville city proper.
DEER LAKE DRIVE
JACKSONVILLE, FL 32246
Any recommended towns/cities close to this address?


2.) "Would I want to drive from St Aug to downtown Jax every day? No lol" -
that bad, huh? Is that about an hour drive each way?

3.) "If you are transferring down from living in North Jersey you will be surprised with the housing prices. Not to mention the property taxes" -
When you say surprised, do you mean that prices and taxes are high compared to Northern NJ?

4.) "St Johns county schools are very good. there are also private schools that are very good" -
I heard that too. But I need more specifics. Possibly even recommendations for specific schools. I'm trying to find a website where I can compare school performance between St. Johns county (FL) and Morris county (NJ) just to get a better picture. So far, haven't had any luck. Any leads would be appreciated.

5.) "Also if you want let us know what price range you are looking for" -
as CHEAP as possible, . Seriously, though, I was under the impression that some of the advantages of moving to Northeast Florida were reasonably priced homes, property taxes, insurance and lower cost of living. At least compared to the prices we have here in NJ. Is this not true anymore?

6.) Additional question: given the office address above, is it feasible to live north of Jacksonville, rather than south of JAX? Like towards the Georgia border? We live in the Northern NJ suburbs and would like to look for a similar environment, only warmer. From past experience, I know Floridians are very friendly people, which is another reason we'd like to move there.

7.) The town of Switzerland - what's that like? My wife has a fixation on the town's name

Thanks very much for your reply.

Michael

[fastninja500]

wacahootaman, thanks for the reply too. It's good to know that there are more jobs in the area.