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Sure, buy a "fixer upper" with school age children. Smart. Whatever.
No heat in winter but be ready to run the a/c non stop from June through Oct.
No where is cheap to live. Some places are more financially afforable than others, but no place is "cheap".
Really classy people drink beer on the beach. It's always a treat to watch drunk middle age men fall in the sand as you try to have a nice day at the beach with your family.
But, then again, when one thinks of PC, it wouldn't be a surprise.
Memoriesbre--There is no thinking required in Charlotte County. When the majority of the population of the county is bringing their retirement income & spending it with open arms, why "think"?
I agree with you 100%. Drinking beer on the beach?? Oh how nice is that!
No thinking about what is right for the county, why should they? They are retired or just do not have a clue...???
Cheap houses? under $20K, $50K, if you want to live in a dump....
geez... if this is the way people are thinking lately in PC, good luck..
Location: Lake Suzy, FL Beautiful rural village in the SW corner of DeSoto CO adjacentPuntaGorda/PT.Charlotte
3 posts, read 7,699 times
Reputation: 12
Well... I hoped, planned, plotted, prayed and schemed for 25 years trying to figure a way to move to South West Florida. My experience had mainly been with the Fort Myers area, which I found to be friendly and full of nice people. In the past few years though, Fort Myers had a huge growth explosion and has become very congested and seems to have really picked up the pace with crime. My daughter met and married a fellow from St. Pete and his work required them to move to Fort Myers. She has a great job and a nice smaller home in the Fort Myers Villas area ... a grand baby came along three years ago and I finally got my wish to move here with my husband.
I choose the Port Charlotte area because it had a wonderful small town feel, is relatively convenient to the mid-sized cities of Sarasota and Fort Myers, there are a number of older people in the work force and I am older and need to continue working until I am in my grave; there is little crime, people seemed very friendly, and the homes are very nice for the money.
What I found to be the case within the last 7 months, living here: I have a great house on a beautiful lot, which we did not pay cash for ... so payments must be made. There seem to be a lot of people who expect folks from other areas of the country to be able to pay cash for homes here?! There are so many wealthy that move here, I think the Florida real estate industry has no clue that most home owners in the rest of the USA have their homes financed. There is very little crime as compared to the larger cities. The traffic really wasn't that bad even during season as compared to the larger tourist areas. There are things to do within the community. Such as: restaurants, bars, parks, churches, the harbor and the gulf, nice grocery stores, etc. There is a mall but it is dead with businesses there going belly-up left and right. I am holding my breath to see which is the next business to go broke there and am praying it isn’t going to be a major department store. The mall management are complacent and don’t do any aggressive promoting of the facility to drive business and activity there. The business community, for the most, rolls over and plays dead, with the attitude that when the season is over there is no more business to be had and they don’t promote and just give up! There are tons of vacant closed up businesses all over the area throughout North Port, Venice, Englewood, and Port Charlotte. There is a definite laid back land of manyana attitude with business.
If you want to work and make over $9.00 an hour you must be an RN, a MD or in management. It is about the same in Sarasota unless you are willing to travel deeper in, a 50 minute or more drive to the better jobs. I'm not certain about the pay rates in Fort Myers yet. With the price of gas, you had better figure earning a little over $2.00 more an hour to make it come out with the mostly 8.00 an hour jobs here. The biggest problem is finding full time work.. the businesses advertising for workers want you to work part time or to be seasonal.
There are other issues with finding work that are hidden. I applied for a job at the Charlotte Sun for advertising sales, with 8 years of experience in the field and a briefcase full of former national accounts including companies like BassPro, Ranger Boats, Skeeter, and Mercury Marine and was told by the hiring manager that they didn't hire me because they always choose a local applicant over someone who isn't. I wonder what the heck she thinks that I am ... a New Yorker commuting down here to work! Her background in advertising was that she had worked in a title company and two of the other ad people that I met there had been former car salesmen, that was their ad sales background. It is obvious that there aren't too many other places where they have folks getting advertising sales experience, so I assume that it doesn't matter how qualified you are in your field, if they know someone that is applying for the same job you are it doesn't matter if you are qualified or not, it just matters that they are a crony. My husband has been in auto sales for the past 16 years and is Master Certified by Lincoln Mercury, was the top sales person where he worked and has applied for several openings and has never heard a word back from any of them. There might be 10 real jobs being advertised in the papers, and some of those ads have been running since I moved here in February. So not just are ther no jobs, there are especially no jobs if you are a new comer!
It appears that the community practices extreme cronyism in their hiring practices, and that there are also very few jobs. I have gotten dressed up like you would to go on an interview, with resumes in hand, going door to door to businesses where I would be qualified for the type of work they would need. Most of the places where I have gone, have been surprisingly nasty to me like, treating me like I was trying to sell them something, when all I was doing was inquiring and wondering if they might know of something. I was amazed at the attitudes and actually went home in tears a few times. I was hoping to do a little networking and maybe find something. So now, I am trying not to be cynical or negative, but I am really beginning to feel that the businesses community doesn’t like new comers here.
You would think that at a time when they have lost at least, 20,000 or more residents, that folks here would be happy to see someone wanting to be a part of the community, and making an effort. I really hope that I am wrong, and it was just a few sour grapes, a few ignorant people that I happened to run into ... but I am starting to wonder if we made a terrible mistake moving here and have committed economic suicide.
Once you get past the grocery stores and restaurants you will find that there are people working in jobs here poorly spoken with such poor grammar, who appear so incompetent and sloppy in personal appearance, that they couldn't buy a job in another part of the country. Possibly they are hangers on from the population and building boom, when businesses were just taking whatever they could get to have the workers they needed. Anyway, please take my word, the economic condition here is horrible.
The rest of the country may be in a recession, but this area acts like it is in a depression. The business community attitude is so defeatist. To make it worse, the commissioners and the politicians who are in charge of things here are incompetent to do what is needed to breathe new life into the community. They have done nothing to attract real job industries to the area like successful communities that know to attract industry with tax breaks and raising bonds and going after federal grants to bring in real jobs. They really think that the beautiful blue gulf is all they need to keep their community alive. They haven’t realized the competition that they are having with the south western United States for the retirement dollar, and depend too much on tourism. The small amount of real industry that they have, they try to legislate into oblivion like the phosphate mines. City leaders appear to have a greed mindset, planning and scheming how much they can raise their citizens taxes and slam new business with impact fees. The area city councils who are more concerned about having business exteriors that please them than bringing real stability and income to the community. Port Charlotte has stayed small and relatively undeveloped is because it’s leaders seem rooted to old thoughts, and are too self focused with no peripheral vision. They did nothing to grow the community before their building boom with real income for their people and community, are doing nothing that isn’t tourism focused now, and don’t seem to want to change.
So what am I saying? I love the climate, my house, my lot and my neighborhood. I will work at trying to be a productive part of the community, and it appears that it is going to be a lot of hard work. I really have no choice but to make this my home because I am here now, and my circumstances don’t allow for an easy change. Perhaps those wanting to move to the area, if you need to work, should try closer to Sarasota or Fort Myers, or buy a vehicle that gets great gas mileage. Am I sorry that I moved here? So far it has been a great disappointment and hardship. I’m going to work really hard both mentally/spiritually and in whatever job I can come up with to make the very best out of my choice to make this my new home.
Location: Lake Suzy, FL Beautiful rural village in the SW corner of DeSoto CO adjacentPuntaGorda/PT.Charlotte
3 posts, read 7,699 times
Reputation: 12
Dear Mr. Monkey Mane:
"Half of these idiots are running right back up I-75 to places like E TN and north GA, and NC- heck, many of them didn't have any business coming to FL in the first freakin place- n'er-do'wells, scammers, runnaways-from-their-pasts, fortune seekers, and wannabe beach-bums. Let them exit, it's for the best, for them financially and many solid FL residents and citizens who can, and wish to build a community.
I think Port Charlotte shall rebound even though it's taken longer than anyone thought...but the pure attraction of FLORIDA will eventually prove a positive, but not for everyone- some shall fail- others will prosper"
This is the attitude that I have run into over and over again as a new comer to Port Charlotte. The "rude and crude" attitued that is mentioned by other posters here, and makes me uneasy in my choice to make a home here, and makes others feel that there is no real comradery to fertilize roots in the community.
You all welcomed the real estate speculaters with open arms, happy to drive your home prices out of the stratosphere and make yourselves undesirable to the rest of the country who would have come here to be real community. Your prices became too high because of greed. Your homes were built on a false economy of speculation because you and your community want the easy money. Instead of worring about and focusing on your property values going down because the people who came here didn't belong here, focus on doing something to give your community some other reason to be here besides the climate and the Gulf of Mexico. These are different days and different times. If all you concentrate on is the price of your homes, then the day will come when you will be priced out of your home and you will be like Naples, where only the wealthy vacation homes are and ther are no workers who can afford to live in the area to work in the community's businesses. Create a diversified economy that depends on many factions, not just a false economy or weak economy with no legs to it, built on real estate prices and toursim. Then you will have a community to live in that can't fail, is always rich in people, comminity, jobs, and income. Attitudes like yours don't grow real communities, but destroy them. I'm sorry but you are really being rude and your kind of rudeness doesn't do anything to better this community.
Well... I hoped, planned, plotted, prayed and schemed for 25 years trying to figure a way to move to South West Florida. My experience had mainly been with the Fort Myers area, which I found to be friendly and full of nice people. In the past few years though, Fort Myers had a huge growth explosion and has become very congested and seems to have really picked up the pace with crime. My daughter met and married a fellow from St. Pete and his work required them to move to Fort Myers. She has a great job and a nice smaller home in the Fort Myers Villas area ... a grand baby came along three years ago and I finally got my wish to move here with my husband.
I choose the Port Charlotte area because it had a wonderful small town feel, is relatively convenient to the mid-sized cities of Sarasota and Fort Myers, there are a number of older people in the work force and I am older and need to continue working until I am in my grave; there is little crime, people seemed very friendly, and the homes are very nice for the money.
What I found to be the case within the last 7 months, living here: I have a great house on a beautiful lot, which we did not pay cash for ... so payments must be made. There seem to be a lot of people who expect folks from other areas of the country to be able to pay cash for homes here?! There are so many wealthy that move here, I think the Florida real estate industry has no clue that most home owners in the rest of the USA have their homes financed. There is very little crime as compared to the larger cities. The traffic really wasn't that bad even during season as compared to the larger tourist areas. There are things to do within the community. Such as: restaurants, bars, parks, churches, the harbor and the gulf, nice grocery stores, etc. There is a mall but it is dead with businesses there going belly-up left and right. I am holding my breath to see which is the next business to go broke there and am praying it isn’t going to be a major department store. The mall management are complacent and don’t do any aggressive promoting of the facility to drive business and activity there. The business community, for the most, rolls over and plays dead, with the attitude that when the season is over there is no more business to be had and they don’t promote and just give up! There are tons of vacant closed up businesses all over the area throughout North Port, Venice, Englewood, and Port Charlotte. There is a definite laid back land of manyana attitude with business.
If you want to work and make over $9.00 an hour you must be an RN, a MD or in management. It is about the same in Sarasota unless you are willing to travel deeper in, a 50 minute or more drive to the better jobs. I'm not certain about the pay rates in Fort Myers yet. With the price of gas, you had better figure earning a little over $2.00 more an hour to make it come out with the mostly 8.00 an hour jobs here. The biggest problem is finding full time work.. the businesses advertising for workers want you to work part time or to be seasonal.
There are other issues with finding work that are hidden. I applied for a job at the Charlotte Sun for advertising sales, with 8 years of experience in the field and a briefcase full of former national accounts including companies like BassPro, Ranger Boats, Skeeter, and Mercury Marine and was told by the hiring manager that they didn't hire me because they always choose a local applicant over someone who isn't. I wonder what the heck she thinks that I am ... a New Yorker commuting down here to work! Her background in advertising was that she had worked in a title company and two of the other ad people that I met there had been former car salesmen, that was their ad sales background. It is obvious that there aren't too many other places where they have folks getting advertising sales experience, so I assume that it doesn't matter how qualified you are in your field, if they know someone that is applying for the same job you are it doesn't matter if you are qualified or not, it just matters that they are a crony. My husband has been in auto sales for the past 16 years and is Master Certified by Lincoln Mercury, was the top sales person where he worked and has applied for several openings and has never heard a word back from any of them. There might be 10 real jobs being advertised in the papers, and some of those ads have been running since I moved here in February. So not just are ther no jobs, there are especially no jobs if you are a new comer!
It appears that the community practices extreme cronyism in their hiring practices, and that there are also very few jobs. I have gotten dressed up like you would to go on an interview, with resumes in hand, going door to door to businesses where I would be qualified for the type of work they would need. Most of the places where I have gone, have been surprisingly nasty to me like, treating me like I was trying to sell them something, when all I was doing was inquiring and wondering if they might know of something. I was amazed at the attitudes and actually went home in tears a few times. I was hoping to do a little networking and maybe find something. So now, I am trying not to be cynical or negative, but I am really beginning to feel that the businesses community doesn’t like new comers here.
You would think that at a time when they have lost at least, 20,000 or more residents, that folks here would be happy to see someone wanting to be a part of the community, and making an effort. I really hope that I am wrong, and it was just a few sour grapes, a few ignorant people that I happened to run into ... but I am starting to wonder if we made a terrible mistake moving here and have committed economic suicide.
Once you get past the grocery stores and restaurants you will find that there are people working in jobs here poorly spoken with such poor grammar, who appear so incompetent and sloppy in personal appearance, that they couldn't buy a job in another part of the country. Possibly they are hangers on from the population and building boom, when businesses were just taking whatever they could get to have the workers they needed. Anyway, please take my word, the economic condition here is horrible.
The rest of the country may be in a recession, but this area acts like it is in a depression. The business community attitude is so defeatist. To make it worse, the commissioners and the politicians who are in charge of things here are incompetent to do what is needed to breathe new life into the community. They have done nothing to attract real job industries to the area like successful communities that know to attract industry with tax breaks and raising bonds and going after federal grants to bring in real jobs. They really think that the beautiful blue gulf is all they need to keep their community alive. They haven’t realized the competition that they are having with the south western United States for the retirement dollar, and depend too much on tourism. The small amount of real industry that they have, they try to legislate into oblivion like the phosphate mines. City leaders appear to have a greed mindset, planning and scheming how much they can raise their citizens taxes and slam new business with impact fees. The area city councils who are more concerned about having business exteriors that please them than bringing real stability and income to the community. Port Charlotte has stayed small and relatively undeveloped is because it’s leaders seem rooted to old thoughts, and are too self focused with no peripheral vision. They did nothing to grow the community before their building boom with real income for their people and community, are doing nothing that isn’t tourism focused now, and don’t seem to want to change.
So what am I saying? I love the climate, my house, my lot and my neighborhood. I will work at trying to be a productive part of the community, and it appears that it is going to be a lot of hard work. I really have no choice but to make this my home because I am here now, and my circumstances don’t allow for an easy change. Perhaps those wanting to move to the area, if you need to work, should try closer to Sarasota or Fort Myers, or buy a vehicle that gets great gas mileage. Am I sorry that I moved here? So far it has been a great disappointment and hardship. I’m going to work really hard both mentally/spiritually and in whatever job I can come up with to make the very best out of my choice to make this my new home.
Well, all I can say is that the NY or NJ people that move into the area are always getting a bad rap. Weather it's going on an interview for a job, or something else, the NY or NJ transplants are looked at like they have three heads by the Mid-western folks. NY and NJ people are considered rude to the other residents of that area. They seem to not want to deal with people from NY or NJ... nuff said?
Location: Lake Suzy, FL Beautiful rural village in the SW corner of DeSoto CO adjacentPuntaGorda/PT.Charlotte
3 posts, read 7,699 times
Reputation: 12
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so frank
Well perhaps I shouldn't have been so frank about the experience, but I was truly shocked by the reason given to me for not considering my experience. I still don't understand that kind of thinking when related to hiring practices. If no one would hire anyone because they were not a local then there would be about 200 people living in the area, because no one could afford to live here but people who don't have to work. The area is truly more working residents than retired people. Those making plans to come here need to realize just what they may be up against.
All of my neighbors here are from New Jersey... in fact the majority of folks that I have met here are from there. You guys are in the majority and certainly not a minority here. I am more of a midwesterner and have been made to feel the same way that you do. Three headed! I even have a little bit of a southern accent and still was made to feel out of place in the situation I previously mentioned. I guess we all might as well be from Mars! Well. This is my new home. It is my home because I chose it to be and I don't give up easily. I do however wish that I could delete the above post... I really didn't intend to be so graphic. I guess I was still in disbelief about what had been said to me. I love the paper because it is all about the community, and that is hard to find these days with all of the big conglomerantes that have taken over local publications and have made them generic with no local personalities.
Just don't come here without a job. My saving is dwindling and I am not picky about the jobs I have been trying for. This job market is depressed, and scary. I am becoming quite concerned about making ends meet, and I don't even have to earn that much to get by.
South Fl Gal, pm me and let me know how to get in touch with you if you would like.
If you have kids going to school be sure to be picky on which school they go to. It could be the difference between being a junkie and going to college.
Moving from Michigan to Florida. Young couple with 2 kids, 1 starting middle school and 1 in preschool. Looking to rent a home, looking for good middle school, safe area. Trying to find a fun neighborhood-preferably not a lot of seniors. Looking from Naples to Bradenton. Port Charlotte is on the radar at the moment. We are moving in 3 weeks! HELP!
Moving to Florida, we just moved as well but from Minnesota. Currently we live in Heron Creek in North Port. Like you my wife and I are still fairly young (mid 30's- I hope that is still considered young and we have two kids as well. In Minnesota we had a very nice neighborhood where we could go for walks, rollerblade and go for bike rides with the kids. Unfortunately, after looking at over 90 homes we can't seem to find a neighborhood where we feel we can do this safely. In this area there are no such things as sidewalks and the streets in most neighborhoods are very narrow- therefore if you are riding your bike with your kids in the street it's going to be very difficult to do. Many of the neighborhoods in this area (Punta Gorda, North Port and Port Charlotte) are underdeveloped. Meaning you might only have 3 homes on a block and the rest look like nasty dump sites (called wooded lots- but there are no tall trees just ugly ground cover). In this area you are looking at a very blue collar area where people park there RV's in their yards and even park there cars on the grass ( I guess people don't know what a garage is used for). Sorry to be negative, but we have been very dissapointed.
Now, if you want to look in a gated community (where we currently live (Heron Creek) you will have the very nice neighborhood and the sidewalks. Unfortunately, we are probably one of only 5 couples in the whole development who are under 50 years old. In fact when we go for walks the older people come outside to ask us if we are lost since there are not use to younger couples living in the neighborhoods. To live in a gated community you have to pay HOA fees- here it's about 3,000 a year. It's a beautiful place where all the lawns are well manicured as they (the complex) cut your grass for you. Most of the homes are on a golf course. Unfortunately, to live in here they are making everyone become a member of something (either the golf course (25,000 a year), Tennis courts or some type of member where it will cost you thousands extra a year in addition to your 3,000 in HOA fees.
We also looked in Bobcat trail, not as nice as Heron Creek but a little bit more affordable. I have heard since you also live in a gated deed restricted community- many of the neighbors nit pick and turn you in for breaking community rules (that is just what I have heard so I'm really not sure).
The one thing I would suggest for you and your family is to rent as we are until you become comfortable with the communities and where you would like to live and raise your family. My wife looked into the school and the schools in Sarasota County are rated higher on www.greatschools.com
you might want to look for yourself. After my wife and I have looked in Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte and North Port- we are really looking towards Sarasota. For you Naples will probably be the nicest- but most expensive. Bonita Springs is a nice area you may want to check out. Ft. Myers also has some nice areas. I hope this helps you out. We are currently living what you and your family are about to go through. Any questions write them on here and I'll check back.
How close are you to moving now? We are new here ( North Port ) from MI. as well
I wonder if there is a MIchigander thread?
ECBS- My family and I just moved here from Minnesota and we currently live in Heron Creek. How do you like it here so far? As you can tell from my long response, I'm not thrilled with the area. Best of luck to you and your family.
Lance
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If you are from NY or NJ..
We Just Moved as well
