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Location: Sarasota/ Bradenton - University Pkwy area
4,619 posts, read 7,541,245 times
Reputation: 6036
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For my critics, the information I provided in a couple of recent forum threads was not for the purpose of bashing North Port, nor did I have ulterior motives for putting out that information. Anyone that knows me knows my reputation for honesty and integrity.
The thread the agent is referring to, in which I am supposed to have "bashed" North Port, could be interpreted as giving newcomers to our area the impression that the city of North Port, who's population is technically larger than the city of Sarasota's population, is therefore comparable to the metro Sarasota area -- and it is not. As anyone that lives here knows, they are 2 very different places.
If you bother to read previous posts of mine, you'll also find that I point out things to watch out for, such as pin hole leaks in pipes in some neighborhoods of the popular Palmer Ranch, that some neighborhoods built in the early 2000's were known to have Chinese drywall issues, that some condo communities are still dealing with budget and reserve issues as a result of the real estate bust of 7 years ago and resulting defaulting buyers who had purchased with 100% financing, that a couple of popular condo communities have lawsuits against the condo conversion developers for construction defects.
If I were self serving as a few have implied, why would I share ANY negative information at all with readers of this forum? Gee, I guess I should have left off the posts about summer heat & humidity, spring lovebugs and covering your tropical plants when we get freezing weather. FL never freezes, right? It's always a perfect 80 degrees and sunny.
The message may not always be popular, but shooting the messenger for delivering the message isn't going to change the facts.
Maybe we need a new forum for petty real estate skirmishes.
Step back a second and just understand that when someone comes to this board and asks for a little advice on the area (granted, it all could have been easily found with a simple search), and they see all of this nonsense, it will reflect poorly on the board and the area.
Home is where you find it. Some people will love North Port, some will not.
Just like every single block, neighborhood, town, city and country on Earth.
Location: Sarasota/ Bradenton - University Pkwy area
4,619 posts, read 7,541,245 times
Reputation: 6036
Quote:
Originally Posted by BAMxi
Hello! This is my first post on this site, so I wanted to first of all introduce myself, as I am considering moving to the Sarasota/Bradenton/North Port/Venice area within a year or two. I will warn you in advance, sometimes I get off on tangents when writing, so if you're not prepared to read lots of words, you might as well move along to another post.
So, here we go: I'm 27 years old, and my wife is 30...no kids yet, and my wife is constantly reminding me of it. We're going to have to start popping them out, soon. We currently live in a suburb of Kansas City called Gardner, KS. We own a 3 bd/3 bath home here, and have been talking about moving somewhere tropical for quite a while now. Upon shoveling the foot+ of snow we received yesterday, I decided it was time to be proactive. I was turned onto this region of FL because of an article I read in Money magazine a while back where North Port was ranked the #2 most affordable place to live in the US. I had no idea one could purchase a home for the same amount or less in FL for what we paid for our basic house in nowhere, KS. And on top of that, have so many options for outdoor activities and be so near the beach! I started looking around, and it seems that prices are fairly reasonable even up into Sarasota, Bradenton, and St. Petersburg, so I'm just intrigued by the area. Upon doing some research, it seems that actual cost of living expenses like groceries might cost a little more than here in Kansas City, however even if I could spend about the same amount and not live in the barren wasteland that is Gardner, KS, I'm in.
So, I'd appreciate any advice you'd like to give on eventually moving to the area. We like our privacy, and don't mind driving a little extra to not live right on top of our neighbors. That being said, when we do move, we'll likely rent for a year or two to ensure we are happy with the area, before buying a home....so the privacy thing might not be immediately relevant. Do you think it's possible to get a reasonable rate on a rental home or apartment that isn't in a bad part of town or with paper-thin walls? I'd also like some recent insight into the employment market there. I'm a self employed network marketer, which will afford us a residual income that supports our basic expenses (rent, car payment, utilities, food, etc) by the time we move down there, however I can see us potentially looking for other opportunities for making income (possibly part time) once we get down there. We both have experience in the healthcare industry as well. My wife has her Master's degree in Social Work, and currently works at a hospital for people with mental disorders. I have a degree in business admin (management/entrepreneurship), and before making the transition to self employment, I worked for a company to assist healthcare providers maximize Medicare reimbursements. It seems that that type of employment is fairly strong in the area still, however I'd like some feedback on that. Also, if anyone feels that a certain area is more open-minded with regards to entrepreneurship, I'd love to hear about that. I really thrive from surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs, and can't really see myself going back to work for someone in the "traditional" cubicle-type job setting. I'd love to network with like-minded younger people such as myself. My wife has an uncle who lives in the area, but we'd be moving there without any real "friends" nearby (just like we did when we moved to KS).
Anyway, respond to any part of this that you like, or none at all and just say 'hi.' It seems like there are a lot of really friendly posters on this board, and I look forward to getting to know you. Cheers!
Hi,
I too am originally from the midwest so I understand your feelings about the snow. My moving force was the gray, cloudy days upon days upon days in the winter. Couldn't take it.
But moving to FL can have it's problems too if you're not prepared. I used to work in Human Resources for a large company and part of my job was doing wage surveys and comparisons. Pretty much any industry here in SW Florida is going to pay less than what similar jobs pay in other parts of the country in the midwest, north and east. Employers sometimes call it the sunshine factor. More people are searching for jobs in FL for the weather & beaches than there are jobs available, so wages are held down. So my first suggestion to you and your wife, if you will need to work to suppliment your income, is do some serious research on jobs available in your fields before putting your home up for sale. Also check into benefits and insurance, as often people moving here assume those will be included in their employment, only to find that they are not or you will be expected to assume a larger share of the cost of your health insurance than you previously paid.
If after doing your research you decide to go for it, be sure you have a sufficient cushion to cover your living expenses for at least 6 months or more. You'll find some things such as produce cheaper here in winter months, electricity is probably going to be cheaper too. Because so much of our grocery store items are trucked in from elsewhere, you will find groceries are more expensive than in the midwest. Water bills may shock you as average for water/sewer for 2 people in our area can run upwards of $70/month. Car insurance will probably be more expensive.
Homeowners insurance undoubtably will be more expensive due to the potential for hurricanes (and in some parts of the Tampa Bay area, sink holes). You'll become well versed in things like Wind Mitigation inspections and hurricane deductibles. If you move close to the beaches you'll also learn about wind zones and related insurance costs. Flood zones can also add substantially to your annual insurance costs, so check flood zones of homes as well. Just because a property is not on a waterway in FL does not mean you should assume it is not in a flood zone.
Building here is tightly regulated due to building code changes made after hurricane Andrew in SE FL, so many building modifications and repairs here require permits to be pulled. Insurance companies are getting very particular about permits. Also roof ages. If it's over 15 years of age, even if the roof has economic life left, expect insurance companies to either refuse to insure the home for you or charge you a much higher rate than you paid when the roof was 14 years old.
Rental homes/condos are getting more expensive in Sarasota due to the increased demand for rentals. You can find cheaper rentals in areas such as Parrish & Ellenton in NW Manatee county, NW Bradenton or North Port in south Sarasota county, but you will need to factor in the commute times to the larger population areas for work and gas prices of commuting. For instance, if you found a job in south Sarasota, I would not recommend renting in NW Bradenton.
If you decide to check out St Pete, be sure to do some serious research. We often travel to the city of St. Pete for the downtown events at the bay front, antique stores and a famous used book store. The bay front is beautiful, as are the downtown city parks. But downtown St Pete has a laundry list of issues they are dealing with. You may wish to expand your St. Pete search to include places such as Largo, Clearwater, Safety Harbor, Town & Country. We had some friends from Sarasota that moved to the Indian Rocks Beach area and they love it, she actually works in the medical field at a local hospital in the St. Pete area. The St. Pete - Tampa metro area is much larger than Sarasota and will give you more job options. City-Data has a forum for St. Pete - Tampa that you may find useful.
My best advice to anyone thinking of moving here is to do your research carefully before pulling up roots and moving. For some (like me) it's the best decision they ever made. For others, moving to FL was their worst mistake and within 1 - 2 years of coming here they move back "home" again. If you can, visit the area several times and get to know it beyond the typical Chamber of Commerce/tourism type information. FL is not all palm trees and beautiful beaches (although Manatee and Sarasota county have some fantastic, public beaches running all the way from Anna Maria Island down to Venice). Staying at a beach front resort for a week is not the same as living here day to day, driving to work in traffic, working to pay the bills.
I hope you find what you're looking for, whether it's in the Sarasota area or not.
Without wanting to go back and read the particular threads on North Port being referred to, I just wanted to say in a more general way how much great info I've gotton from many people on City-Data who are so generous with their time, and this includes the realtors on this site, who I see being very helpful to people (and who, by the way, have taken the time to help me with things not even related to real estate, like providing me with driving directions and doctor recommendations).
Maybe we need a new forum for petty real estate skirmishes.
Step back a second and just understand that when someone comes to this board and asks for a little advice on the area (granted, it all could have been easily found with a simple search), and they see all of this nonsense, it will reflect poorly on the board and the area.
Home is where you find it. Some people will love North Port, some will not.
Just like every single block, neighborhood, town, city and country on Earth.
You're absolutely right; when my wife and I were looking for a place in Sarasota, I came here frequently (still do) looking for insight and advice. After reading some of the regulars' posts here, in particular Blueherons (love her pithy snarkiness!) It seems that not everybody has great information to impart. I find it better to just go down every year and spend two weeks learning the area and enjoying the beaches.
Welcome Dear. I am James Shaun . I am new on this forum. I have heard umpteen good comments about this forum. Now finally i have decided to sign up and join the company of good people here. I hope we will have a good time by helping each other.
wow, thanks for all of the replies! I thought I had subscribed to this thread, and was somewhat disappointed to not get any e-mails saying anyone had responded. I just happened to be browsing and stumbled upon my own thread at two pages! haha. I'm going to work my way through and read everyone's answers now, thanks again for your help!
I'm in Kansas City, having just witnessed the SECOND DOUBLE-DIGIT SNOW EVENT IN 1 WEEK.
I'd live in a refrigerator box out back'a Nort Port, at this point.
I literally laughed out loud at this, as it is exactly how I'm feeling right now. HAHA! Yes, my wife and I have lived in the Midwest our whole lives, and are just over it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules
For my critics, the information I provided in a couple of recent forum threads was not for the purpose of bashing North Port, nor did I have ulterior motives for putting out that information. Anyone that knows me knows my reputation for honesty and integrity.
The thread the agent is referring to, in which I am supposed to have "bashed" North Port, could be interpreted as giving newcomers to our area the impression that the city of North Port, who's population is technically larger than the city of Sarasota's population, is therefore comparable to the metro Sarasota area -- and it is not. As anyone that lives here knows, they are 2 very different places.
If you bother to read previous posts of mine, you'll also find that I point out things to watch out for, such as pin hole leaks in pipes in some neighborhoods of the popular Palmer Ranch, that some neighborhoods built in the early 2000's were known to have Chinese drywall issues, that some condo communities are still dealing with budget and reserve issues as a result of the real estate bust of 7 years ago and resulting defaulting buyers who had purchased with 100% financing, that a couple of popular condo communities have lawsuits against the condo conversion developers for construction defects.
If I were self serving as a few have implied, why would I share ANY negative information at all with readers of this forum? Gee, I guess I should have left off the posts about summer heat & humidity, spring lovebugs and covering your tropical plants when we get freezing weather. FL never freezes, right? It's always a perfect 80 degrees and sunny.
The message may not always be popular, but shooting the messenger for delivering the message isn't going to change the facts.
I actually came upon your previous post about North Port having the higher population, and it was also probably you who mentioned this "Chinese drywall" that I ended up researching afterwards. I appreciate all objective info on the topics at hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules
Hi,
I too am originally from the midwest so I understand your feelings about the snow. My moving force was the gray, cloudy days upon days upon days in the winter. Couldn't take it.
But moving to FL can have it's problems too if you're not prepared. I used to work in Human Resources for a large company and part of my job was doing wage surveys and comparisons. Pretty much any industry here in SW Florida is going to pay less than what similar jobs pay in other parts of the country in the midwest, north and east. Employers sometimes call it the sunshine factor. More people are searching for jobs in FL for the weather & beaches than there are jobs available, so wages are held down. So my first suggestion to you and your wife, if you will need to work to suppliment your income, is do some serious research on jobs available in your fields before putting your home up for sale. Also check into benefits and insurance, as often people moving here assume those will be included in their employment, only to find that they are not or you will be expected to assume a larger share of the cost of your health insurance than you previously paid.
If after doing your research you decide to go for it, be sure you have a sufficient cushion to cover your living expenses for at least 6 months or more. You'll find some things such as produce cheaper here in winter months, electricity is probably going to be cheaper too. Because so much of our grocery store items are trucked in from elsewhere, you will find groceries are more expensive than in the midwest. Water bills may shock you as average for water/sewer for 2 people in our area can run upwards of $70/month. Car insurance will probably be more expensive.
Homeowners insurance undoubtably will be more expensive due to the potential for hurricanes (and in some parts of the Tampa Bay area, sink holes). You'll become well versed in things like Wind Mitigation inspections and hurricane deductibles. If you move close to the beaches you'll also learn about wind zones and related insurance costs. Flood zones can also add substantially to your annual insurance costs, so check flood zones of homes as well. Just because a property is not on a waterway in FL does not mean you should assume it is not in a flood zone.
Building here is tightly regulated due to building code changes made after hurricane Andrew in SE FL, so many building modifications and repairs here require permits to be pulled. Insurance companies are getting very particular about permits. Also roof ages. If it's over 15 years of age, even if the roof has economic life left, expect insurance companies to either refuse to insure the home for you or charge you a much higher rate than you paid when the roof was 14 years old.
Rental homes/condos are getting more expensive in Sarasota due to the increased demand for rentals. You can find cheaper rentals in areas such as Parrish & Ellenton in NW Manatee county, NW Bradenton or North Port in south Sarasota county, but you will need to factor in the commute times to the larger population areas for work and gas prices of commuting. For instance, if you found a job in south Sarasota, I would not recommend renting in NW Bradenton.
If you decide to check out St Pete, be sure to do some serious research. We often travel to the city of St. Pete for the downtown events at the bay front, antique stores and a famous used book store. The bay front is beautiful, as are the downtown city parks. But downtown St Pete has a laundry list of issues they are dealing with. You may wish to expand your St. Pete search to include places such as Largo, Clearwater, Safety Harbor, Town & Country. We had some friends from Sarasota that moved to the Indian Rocks Beach area and they love it, she actually works in the medical field at a local hospital in the St. Pete area. The St. Pete - Tampa metro area is much larger than Sarasota and will give you more job options. City-Data has a forum for St. Pete - Tampa that you may find useful.
My best advice to anyone thinking of moving here is to do your research carefully before pulling up roots and moving. For some (like me) it's the best decision they ever made. For others, moving to FL was their worst mistake and within 1 - 2 years of coming here they move back "home" again. If you can, visit the area several times and get to know it beyond the typical Chamber of Commerce/tourism type information. FL is not all palm trees and beautiful beaches (although Manatee and Sarasota county have some fantastic, public beaches running all the way from Anna Maria Island down to Venice). Staying at a beach front resort for a week is not the same as living here day to day, driving to work in traffic, working to pay the bills.
I hope you find what you're looking for, whether it's in the Sarasota area or not.
This is all very good, thank you again for your honest input. After looking around in various areas, we would be planning to rent wherever we decide to move for at least a couple years before buying another house. I don't want to get stuck in the same trap we're in right now, where we thought KC would be a great spot for us for a long time, and just kind of ignored all of the issues we saw with the area and rushed into buying a house. I blame the first time home buyers' tax credit for tempting us with free money. haha joking! As i mentioned in my OP, I think one major draw of the area in general is the amount of house one can get for the money, even as compared to KC. We live actually about 30 minutes outside of downtown KC in Gardner, KS, and houses in my area are going for $150k-$200k depending on size and lot size, and don't really appear any better than the homes in the $125k range in the W and SW Florida area. And being within driving distance of so much outdoor activity alone makes moving more appealing to me. I understand this is likely because of the employment market, however we have the luxury of having our income follow us wherever we live, so that's not of huge concern to me. My interest in employment in the area would mainly be to supplement what we would already have coming in, and also just to help us get established in the area by meeting new people, and keep us from sitting around bored every day. I suppose we could find jobs of interest to us first, and that would at least make our decision of where to live much easier! haha
I've spent a lot of time on the Internet looking at rentals lately, and it seems that we could get a decent 3bd/2bath home in pretty much any suburb in the area for between $1000-$1500 per month (according to trulia.com rentals). Plus, I'd like for the next home we buy to be the one we raise a family in, so in addition to learning what area we'd be happy in, we'd likely be saving up to get something in the $200k and up range. That seems to get an exponentially nicer home in SW FL than here in the KS, where it'll just get you a slightly larger piece of barren land surrounding your house.
I think we're just going to spend some time down there and determine which areas we like best and go from there. It's almost more difficult to see an even playing field of potential places to live, as we have a lot of ruling out to do. Since creating my first post, I've done enough research to make me realize that the North Port area is not the only affordable place to live in Florida, however its somewhat centralized location to several larger cities makes me still think we should strongly consider it.
Many young people enjoy the Lakewood Ranch area, nice family oriented area, with apartments, homes for rent and of coarse ownership.
I have owned several homes in Manatee County, I like it here!
There is a mental health/drug rehab facility in Bradenton, it is called Manatee Glens, might be a place for your wife to find employment.
Good Luck!
This is very helpful. Thank you for the info!
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