[billy c]

Have You Looked Into Central Floridas Citrus Hills Or Citrus Springs Area. Lots Of Very Nice Homes And I Think They Are Still Reasonable.

[butterbeans4]

Crystal River or Dunnellon. I Grew up in Dunnellon on the crystal clear beautiful Rainbow River. There's nothing like tubing down the river in summer (or some winters!)79 degrees year round. Crystal River still has reasonably prices land on the water and access to the Gulf.

[RichieD03]

I've lived in Port Saint Lucie, on and off, for about 15 years. I'm only 25, but have a realtime perspective on Port Saint Lucie.

Real Estate Boom - The real estate is extremely over priced, and that's understating things. My parents bought a house on the river in 1997 for around $231k which was fairly high at the time, but not too bad....the value of the house, as appraised in 2004 was over $1m - that's ridiculous; houses are so expensive, that everyone lives in the apartments; I searched 10 complexes, at one point in time, and no one had anything available. Also, half lots used to sell for about $4k, now the lowest you'll find is $50k for a half lot.

If you go to - zillow.com - you can do a search on pretax values on the houses in the Port Saint Lucie area. This will give you a much better idea of what you might be looking at as far as price goes. Keep in mind though, these are old satellite shots from about 3 years ago so the values may have changed.

Locale - The best location to live in PSL, is in the St. Lucie West area, if you can afford it....a lot of conveniences. Wal Mart, restaurants, all sorts of outlet stores, banks are everywhere, movie theaters...plus, the newly developing Tradition area, which is west of St. Lucie West, which looks like it came from a story book; it's a little cartoonish but is rumored to be the site for a new mall and possibly a theme park. Plus, I-95 is right next to you and you're only a 40 minute drive from West Palm.

Crime - The crime rate seems non existent - literally. People just have better things to do. The worst I ever saw was that the teens there don't have a lot of respect, and if they see you out exercising, will curse at you from time to time; you don't have to look over your shoulder though. It would appear that police outnumber residents 2-1. And there are so many undercover cop cars, there's no point in speeding or committing a crime anyways.

The biggest annoyances - a lot of people smoke weed, drag races when you least expect it, speeding, drunk driving(people just don't get caught), and the older New York and New Jersey generation that would like to "give you a piece of their mind".

School system - not all that great. The best elementary school is a private one. The best public school in the county is Lincoln Park Academy, but there's a waiting list that just keeps growing by years and it's located in the middle of the ghetto(talk about irony); they have grades 6-12 if I remember correctly. If you can afford private school for High School, send your kid to John Carroll; it's a private Catholic school(It's one of those schools where everybody knows everybody). If you're mega rich, checkout St. Edwards in Vero Beach.

IRCC is the best community college in the area, and is more than happy to increase tuition fees and costs with each semester.

Night Life - There is no night life in PSL, as there are no clubs and few bars, all thanks to the citizens. All of the fun is down south in West Palm Beach, so there are a lot of house parties that end up happening in PSL. Don't even threaten to call the cops, call them first then tell the people they're on their way...you'd be suprised how quiet things will be in 10 minutes time. The PSL cops don't see too much action, so you know they're going to be on that call like flies on shiiiierbert, especially if you tell dispatch there's underage drinking and use of controlled substances.

As far as the beach goes, you have to drive 20 minutes north by east(Ft. Pierce) or south by east(Jensen Beach), to enjoy a swim in the tri-county area's largest toilet bowl.

Jobs - Maybe it's just me, but jobs are hard as hell to get in PSL. I did 6 applications in 2 days for jobs ranging from medical to stock room, and got 2 calls back, and I only had to wait 2 months. The best paying jobs with little experience are with the city, like the Police Dept. or Fire Dept...mind you, it's tough to get onto the Fire Dept., because everybody wants to work there; and i'm not just talking about St. Lucie County residents, but as far away as the Gulf Coast and Miami. St. Lucie county is an ALS(Advanced Life Support) county, which means, there's always a paramedic at the scene of a medical emergency, which means you're not going to die anytime soon.

Hospitals - the one place I found to be most congenial, for walk-in emergencies, and doesn't make you wait for ever, is Martin Memorial Hospital. Hands down the best hospital around; unfortunately, it's not in St. Lucie County, but in Martin county which would take you about 25 minutes of driving south to get to. If you can't stomach the drive, next best is PSL Hospital, and Lawnwood Medical Center would be a last resort; they're in the accident prone section of the county so you might be waiting a little bit.



That's my take on things Ladies and Gents. Hope it helps.

Rich

[Singingmama]

Originally Posted by bobbya739

I was just wondering if you could choose anyplace in Florida to live where would it be? If nothing was holding you back and could relocate, where would you go? Just trying to take a poll. Thanks.

I vote for B uckhead Ridge. Then most of you have never heard of it. I guess that is why we all enjoy it here. Right on Lake Okeechobee. Fishing is Great!!

[RAINBOWWAVES]

The only thing PSL west has that we don't is more over priced housing and Traditions..LOL..I have the beach and the Indian river...oh and the homes on Indian River drive are in the millions, unlike PSL west...and i have a wildlife preserve....gorgeous!!!! I wouldn't live in PSL west for free...I'm orig from Jersey and $300,000 for a house and $100,000 for a lot is cheap cheap cheap...same with taxes!! PSL hosp is excelent...excelent doctors...trust me, i know. Schools don't have half the hard work Jersey does, so there should be nothing but geniuses here..LOL...school is only what a kid is willing to do with thier lives and parental support...

[RichieD03]

There's a house about 1/2 a mile to the south of Midway Rd., on Indian River Drive, that's an old plantation house. It's a huge white house with a big fountain out in the front. Doors were big, kitchen was big, the porch looked like it could hold 200 people.That's got to be one of the biggest houses I've ever been in. My little brothers were good friends of the teens that lived there, and went to school with them.

St. Lucie West has a few million dollar houses, granted, St. Lucie West itself is only like 6 years old compared to the over 100 year old, Indian River drive area . Starting with The Reserves at the PGA club....that's all doctors, lawyers, and car dealership owners. Off of California in St. Lucie West, there's 2 twin gated and guarded mansions next to each other, owned, suposedly by some russian mafia types.....they take up their whole little block. give it another few years, and it's going to be just like a downtown West Palm Beach with residential housing.

I know what you mean about PSL being cheap compared to Jersey. My wife's mother used to own a 4 story town house in Staten Island(close enough), and was one of the few, who actually had a back yard. I think she sold it for about $400k, a while back. Now that house can't be bought for less than $900k - maybe more....and the neighborhood is kind of trashy to boot.

You're not kidding about the schools being easier in Florida. When I moved up to the Chicagoland area as a junior, they weren't playing, but I brought my gpa up from a 2.5 to a 3.9, the whole year, taking college prep and honors courses. I move back to Florida, and it's a joke; they're one league behind my old school. And they put me into classes that had the same name, only I was chapters ahead of everyone and had to take the same freakin tests over. As a transfer up north, they make everybody take an aptitude test for High School too; something Florida didn't do. School requires more than parental support and life decisions by the individual. You need guidance and enrichment from the teachers as well; something that only 2 teachers in Florida were able to give me.


There's more cohesion with team sports too, up north, than down in south Florida; from what I saw. If you didn't show up to track practice, or wrestling, they made sure to hunt you down, pull you out of class and chew you out. Even then though, everyone who played a sport showed up everyday for practice because they knew that's what they had to do to compete. My school in Florida.....in track, the sprinters might show up once a week, our top distance runners never showed up, our distance coach was a soccer player who never showed up...what a joke. That's not to say all of the area schools were like that, but one bad apple ruins the bunch in my book.

I've since relocated with my family to the Upstate New York area. It's way prettier than anything PSL will ever be able to offer and it's cheap, however, the winters are a living hell. You can easily get 6 inches in one snowfall, and if it doesn't melt, the next snow is going to turn it into ice. And the people up here are a lot nicer.

[bunnywabbit!]

A "perfect location" for me would be one where a car is not a neccessity, the community looks out for one another and refuses to give housing to undesirables, and -especially in Florida- where there are plenty of big shady trees!!

[brian_2]

"..the newly developing Tradition area, which is west of St. Lucie West, which looks like it came from a story book; it's a little cartoonish but is rumored to be the site for a new mall and possibly a theme park. Plus, I-95 is right next to you."

That sounds like h-e-l-l to me.

[pslOldTimer]

Originally Posted by brian_2

"..the newly developing Tradition area, which is west of St. Lucie West, which looks like it came from a story book; it's a little cartoonish but is rumored to be the site for a new mall and possibly a theme park. Plus, I-95 is right next to you."

That sounds like h-e-l-l to me.

(Chuckle) Well, I can see how you'd think that. But, they actually carry it off pretty good, and it's a hot property for young families.

The idea they had was pretty radical for Florida; take an area of a couple of square miles and develop it like a traditional ("Tradition", get it?) small town, a place in which you canlive, play, work, go to school, shop and be entertained, all without leavingyour own community.

The "cartoonish" aspect is their attempt a blending modern construction methods with traditional architecture. They carry it off pretty well, with front porches, rear detached garages on alleys, Key West or Florida Cracker style design with a bit of Victorian thrown in. However, they do this with concrete porches and Cool Deck, not painted boards, and the porch railings are PVC. It works pretty good; it looks traditional but is low maintenance, important for today's active families.

The mall is off to one side, along the Interstate, and will include several upscale stores as well as a Tarjay. The new Walmart and Sam's Clubs are a couple of miles away in Port St. Lucie, proper.

The schools in St. Lucie County were long under court ordered integration dating from the 60's. They're out from under the fedeal court oversight, but they still have to make a concerted effort to balance the schools. Tradition made history by gaining approval for the neighborhood kids to go to their neighborhood school. They did it by donating the school...

They are now working on the "work" part of the equation; they've set aside land and money to entice biotech companies to the area. As most Floridians know, the Scripps Institute signed on in Palm Beach County. The Tradition developers (Core Development), the city and the county have been working together to attract spin-offs in the research industry. They lost Burnham Institute to Orland, but just signed Torrey Pines bioresearch outfit. They have also already attracted several other companies to move to the area.

You'd have to see it to appreciate it. There's a mix of single houses, townhouses and condos, many of the houses are within walking distance of the first commercial strip inthe community (which looks like a downtown from Mayberry), and the community center is shaped like a New England church, complete with spire.

The theme park is kind of a "who knows, maybe someday" kind of thing. The city talks about building their own water park, and if it was located near Tradition, Core would help out.

[elfyum]

Originally Posted by bunnywabbit!

A "perfect location" for me would be one where a car is not a neccessity

YES!!! Hey wait a minute! You DON'T need a car in Sunny Isles!!!