Moving from Raleigh to Jax or St. Aug (Jacksonville: real estate, crime rates)

[sawadi]

We are moving from Raleigh to JAX or St Aug. Do you have any advice on an area that is suitable for a family with 1 child (he's 8 years old). We are in our late 30's. We keep getting mixed messages about JAX. I've been reading the posts about the crime rates, schools systems & real estate. But it's hard to know until you get there. So any advice would be welcomed.

[riveree]

I think one reason you'll see a variety of opinions is the sheer size of Jacksonville. The city is 840 square miles, so we have many different types of neighborhoods - good, bad, and in-between. Some neighborhoods are very convenient to everything, others are far from most things.

Schools in Jax differ as well. Like all of Florida, we go by the FCAT rating system. We have A-rated, B-rated, C-rated and D-rated schools. Generally, the neighborhoods most of us recommend on this forum tend to have the better rated schools (A & B). We also have a good amount of parochial and private school choices along with a public magnet program and private charter schools. So for a sheer variety of education options, Jacksonville has a lot.

The entire state of Florida has been hit hard by the current real estate crisis. Jacksonville was one of the last cities to be affected, but we have been affected now as well. As a buyer, you're in a great position to get a really good deal on a home right now.

There's no way to advise you on the neighborhood for you without knowing a lot more detail about what you are looking for. If you can give us some details about the type of house you're looking for, the type of neighborhood you envision, how much you want to spend, what you'd like to be near (shopping? the beach? downtown?), we can help you target in on some areas.

Without these details, you'll only get responses of people touting their own areas. This won't be valuable to you because the advice won't be tailored for you.