Potential Move to Jacksonville Area (Miami: real estate, apartment, rentals)

[schmebi]

Hi...my husband is currently weighing an offer in Ponte Vedra Beach. I have not been down to the area and am wondering if anyone can suggest where I should be looking for a home. We are thinking about renting for a year and then deciding where to go from there. We have a 1st grader and a 2 year old. I don't want to spend too much on a rental but would pay a little more to have good schools and low crime.

Does anyone have any suggestions where and how I should begin my search? We would be relocating from Northern Virginia and we currently live in the subburbs. Definitely are not huge fans of city living especially with young children. Please advise!

[CELERITY]

It doesn't get any better than Ponte Vedra. It is a more expensive area than Jacksonville but depending on what your budget for housing is, it may still be less than the overall cost of Northern VA. I live in Jacksonville which is a connecting city. Be careful of homeowner's insurance, it is expensive. Ponte Vedra, being closer to the ocean, would be more than something 10 miles from the beach. Check with your current homeowner's insurer to see if they insure in FL. Some don't and some, such as State Farm, will only insure you if you currently have a policy with them, so you wouldn't want to cancel an existing policy without consecutive coverage, which can even be a rental insurance policy in the interim. USAA doesn't write FL homeowner's insurance. If you can't get a regular insurance company to insure you, then you have to go through the state and that can be 3 times as much. You can check out what property tax rates will be in Florida also by going to that county's property appraiser web site. It would be St. John's County for Ponte Vedra and Duval County for Jacksonville. Before I could recommend any neighborhoods, I would have to know your price range. Also, don't forget...no state income tax in FL and registering you car every year is based on weight, not value. Ours runs about $40 per year. Just keep in mind, where one thing may be more expensive, others may be much less. In all, we have a good quality of life in this area.

[kort677]

PVB would be an ideal place to look, there are many places to rent while you learn the area, there are homes at almost every price point, it's a wonderful place to live and the public schools are as good as they get in FLA.
For rentals try http://www.stocktonrealestate.com/
they have a good handle on the PVB rental market

[Karla with a K]

I echo what CELERITY and kort677 say.
PVB is a great place to live. We lived there for 4 years.

The only thing I have to add is I called State Farm the other day to find out about insurance for my friend that is looking to buy a house. Here was their advise. He needed to switch his car over so he could then get a rental policy for the place he was currently renting, then when he buys the house they will switch it to a homeowners policy. When I asked why he couldn't just get a rental policy the agent said SF frowns on just writing rental without additional policies. It seems to be a loophole they have found to be able to get HOI policies aproved.

Karla

[riveree]

Originally Posted by schmebi

Hi...my husband is currently weighing an offer in Ponte Vedra Beach. I have not been down to the area and am wondering if anyone can suggest where I should be looking for a home. We are thinking about renting for a year and then deciding where to go from there. We have a 1st grader and a 2 year old. I don't want to spend too much on a rental but would pay a little more to have good schools and low crime.

Does anyone have any suggestions where and how I should begin my search? We would be relocating from Northern Virginia and we currently live in the subburbs. Definitely are not huge fans of city living especially with young children. Please advise!

Really all of Ponte Vedra is nice.

The rentals won't be cheap due to the beach proximity and overall upscale reputation of the area, but you'd probably be happy with the area and the schools.

If you do a search in the threads, other threads have mentioned some apartment hunting websites that might help. Also, I believe realtor.com has a rental search.

[schmebi]

Thanks so much everybody!

[he's so hott]

Originally Posted by myfask

I echo what CELERITY and kort677 say.
PVB is a great place to live. We lived there for 4 years.

The only thing I have to add is I called State Farm the other day to find out about insurance for my friend that is looking to buy a house. Here was their advise. He needed to switch his car over so he could then get a rental policy for the place he was currently renting, then when he buys the house they will switch it to a homeowners policy. When I asked why he couldn't just get a rental policy the agent said SF frowns on just writing rental without additional policies. It seems to be a loophole they have found to be able to get HOI policies aproved.

Karla

That doesn't sound right. I've had SF only for rental insurance when I lived in Miami, Chandler and now here in Durham/Raliegh. I think the agent was trying to up-sale.

[cyrece]

Try rentclicks.com

[stevep]

Schmebi, we moved to Jax from Northern Va approx 5 yrs ago. We're 4 miles from the beach in Jacksonville and bought a new 3200 sq ft home for almost the same price that we sold our 1150 sq ft condo in VA. Your commute and traffic will be CONSIDERABLY less than Virginia, real estate and rental prices will be less, you'll be closer to the beach and you won't have to deal with the winter. Ponte Vedra is a very nice area - you should be able to get more for your money compared with Northern VA. The only areas that might be more expensive are the homes either directly on the beach or a couple of streets from the beach.

[5FLgirls]

You can't go wrong with PVB for your family. You are in the suburbs here!! The schools (pre-school onward) in St. Johns County are great. It's a family town. And there's a lot of people on the market willing to lease for a year. Why don't you call a local realtor and ask them about the area and rental prices right now? I'm sure that they can tell you more. As long as you have a great realtor who really knows the area, you should be fine. Also try realtor.com rentals, put in PVB or 32082. Although it's hard to get a great idea from that web site, you should be able to see if there's anything worthwhile for you in your price range. There aren't very many undesirable neighborhoods around here. I didn't originally want to live at the beach because you pay more but our realtor kept steering us this way. After a long battle with her, we finally bought in Ponte Vedra Beach and I don't regret it for a second.