Comparing Hollywood & Sunny Isles to SoBe (Miami, Miami Beach: real estate, to rent)

[elchevere]

I am 2 weeks into my month long experiment in SoBe and love it. To no surprise, everything in SoBe is expensive--chuckling at the 640 sq foot studio available at Continuum for only $ 880K.

If I moved here, would most likely move to Sunset Harbour, Bay Road (north of Flamingo and avoiding that building altogether) or Venetian Island where at least I have access to locals restos (love Sardinia and the Pubbelly group).

I had a chance to check out Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood and it seemed like a cool neighborhood with lots of restos that I could walk to....how is Hollywood and other areas such as Sunny Isles as a place to live for an active single, 50YO professional who is bringing his job with him and would prefer to be within walking distance to most places (food, beach, coffee shops, bank, post office, etc) and I MUST be within 20-25 minutes of an airport.

My biggest beef about SoBe so far is the cost of eveything (besides real estate, restos are very expensive--thank heavens for Joe's Takeaway here in SoFi) and the health clubs suck (Equinox in SoFi is a joke--more like a Bally's, but they still charge $150/mo).....I hear the LA Fitness and Equinox in Aventura (unlike in SoBe) are real nice....I would not mind driving 10-15 minutes if I were going to a top of the line gym.....I am also hoping these other areas are not 'family suburbs' where I would be bored out of my mind. As an example, I would probably outgrow Delray Beach (Atlantic Ave) in 2 months or less and the crowd seemed to be homogeneous (all white), a bit narrow minded (you MUST be fluent in Spanish if you live in Miami Beach...huh??) and a bit "Jersey shore-ish" as in the TV show, to me. What types of crowds are in Hollywood, Sunny Isles (European, Latins, mix) etc.

Perhaps my best bet is to rent a car for a day or two and spend some time in these other areas--but, I figured I would check here first. If there is another neighborhood in between Hollywood and SoBe I should check out that meets my criteria, please enlighten me. Thanks in advance.

[hurricaneMan1992]

Walking distance to everything, it is the case in Sunny Isles but not Hollywood. In Hollywood you mostly have tourist shops, restaurants, and bars. HOWEVER I would point out that Sunny Isles is not nearly as pedestrian friendly as Miami Beach. Traffic is generally more aggressive and frustrating, too many strip malls and strip mall driveways and condo driveways where drivers block the sidewalk or don't properly yield, not enough crosswalks and/or they take forever to change the walk signal.

LA Fitness in North Miami is a good one. The one in Aventura is more of an "old school gym rat" atmosphere (which does appeal to some...including myself, I really do miss that gym ). Now Equinox in Aventura Mall is really nice. All of these places are not too far from SIB.

SIB is definitely pushing the 20-25 minutes to the airport thing. Some days it's more like 20 minutes just to get to I-95...

Venetian Isles, especially Belle Isle, and the sunset district are more toned down than most of South Beach. But there are also lots of local businesses along 5th and 6th st, and even Washington below, say, 11th is not as hectic as Collins, Ocean, and Lincoln. Near the Whole Foods is another area to check out, not to mention South of Fifth.

You might also look in to Surfside--lots of local stuff there and not so many tourists, and definitely not the party animal tourists. "The strip" is really only two blocks, but you've also got Bay Harbour Islands, Bal Harbour ($$$ but you tend to actually get what you pay), and North Beach pretty close by. Surfside would be closest to the North Miami LA Fitness. Airport commute is still pushing your limits, though...