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Old 07-31-2007, 09:55 PM
 
8,377 posts, read 30,786,946 times
Reputation: 2423

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Quote:
Originally Posted by phantomdilbert View Post

Cars: I own a BMW so does that mean I fit in now =)? (wait, it's only a 3 series)
They might accept it in Slumrise or Cooper Sh***Y if its only a 3 series.

Anway, compared to SAN FRANSCISCO You will find a good quality of life for your $$$$ down here without sacrificing life within a dynamic metropolitan area. I mean, this isn't San Fran. ,but then again, it doesn't cost a million to live here. It only cost a HALF a million ! If your job can handle it, go for it (The problem here is that the wages tend to be sucky). The thing is, this used to be an affordable place to live by ANY standard, and because the wages haven't kept up with the incomes, this results in a lot of people moving into Southern cities.
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Old 08-01-2007, 09:49 AM
 
1,257 posts, read 4,560,439 times
Reputation: 1034
Default Chinese restaurants.

Quote:
Originally Posted by phantomdilbert View Post
English: yup that's what I experienced, I didn't see a lot of folks speaking Spanish per se. So when we did look around the various communities we are leaning towards Weston Hills. There's inventory under $1M and seems pretty attractive (especially when you compare what $1M gets you in the bay area).

We deliberately looked for places like Chinese and Japanese restaurants because that's the fare we'd miss the most. We tried out a couple Japanese (Japan Inn, Sushi Tom) and were quite satisfied with the food. yes, I know they are Chinese owned but that's even common in CA.

Schooling: we (my wife and I) are having this debate on private versus public. If we do this move (and we stay until they are of school age), my wife will have the opportunity to be very involved in the children's education.

Thanks for your feedback, do appreciate it!


I am from China and English is not my first language. So with my imperfect English, here are some Chinese restaurants I like in your area.

Peppers, located on Pines Blvd and Palm. It offers spicy hot pots (seafood buffet style). It is very popular among Chinese.

Silver Pond, located on State Road 7 and Oakland Park Blvd. Its dishes are mainly Cantonese style. They are good and comparable with the similar restaurants in bay area.

Lung gong, located in Miami on SW8th. It is not far from Weston. It offers very spicy food with emphasis on northern Chinese style and authentic Sichuan favor. If you like spicy, they have a dish with small pieces of chicken buried in a big pile of hot pepper, very hot.

Tropical, in Miami too. All my non-Chinese friends love it. It offers Dim Sum. Everytime, we have to wait in line to get a seat. I am not a big fan of Dim Sum so we only go there to entertain our non-Chinese friends.

I live in PSL now so I only get to go there during weekend.
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Old 08-01-2007, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Vero Beach, Fl
2,976 posts, read 13,335,567 times
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I have lived in Weston for 20 years. It is a diverse community. Great access to excellent shopping, airports, excellent highway system, medical facilities, etc. The schools are decent and if you are caring parents who want to see their children do well, then they will.

We have family that lived in Weston Hills that now live in Windmill Ranches. The Hills is a lovely community and if you are accustomed to living in a gated community, you couldn't do much better. Weston is lovely, well maintained, and safe.

I really would encourage you to PM me if you have any questions. Having a BMW, Mercedes, or a Camry is just fine. The housing market is in transition so be cautious when buying as many have not priced their homes realistically. As you go through the looking phase, always check Broward County Property Appraiser's Network to see the history of the house.

Good luck to you. We love living here and I am sure you will, too.
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Old 08-01-2007, 02:04 PM
 
440 posts, read 1,491,097 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jhlcomp View Post
I have lived in Weston for 20 years. It is a diverse community. Great access to excellent shopping, airports, excellent highway system, medical facilities, etc. The schools are decent and if you are caring parents who want to see their children do well, then they will.

We have family that lived in Weston Hills that now live in Windmill Ranches. The Hills is a lovely community and if you are accustomed to living in a gated community, you couldn't do much better. Weston is lovely, well maintained, and safe.

I really would encourage you to PM me if you have any questions. Having a BMW, Mercedes, or a Camry is just fine. The housing market is in transition so be cautious when buying as many have not priced their homes realistically. As you go through the looking phase, always check Broward County Property Appraiser's Network to see the history of the house.

Good luck to you. We love living here and I am sure you will, too.
It is a beautiful place and I cannot for the life of me understand why several posters have "ragged" on the city ... I have family there and they love it .. as well I enjoy visiting .... other than Parkland or Boca Raton , Weston is your best choice if you are moving to South Florida with your family .
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Old 08-06-2007, 02:42 PM
 
4 posts, read 22,724 times
Reputation: 13
Default My experience moving to Weston, FL

We are transplants from Baltimore (husband) and DC/NoVA (myself and daughter). Both college educated, Caucasian, early 30s. My husband (finance at the time) received a wonderful job opportunity with more money, less traffic, and less stress in Plantation (12 miles away). I did my extensive research and found Weston statistically superior to anywhere else in SE Florida. Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed We even flew down and drove all around Broward County and agreed with what everyone else has said, manicured, new, beautiful homes, beautiful cars...even the people are beautiful. We were excited to start our new lives together and moved here two years ago.

Homes...unlike northern homes, there are no basements and very few closets in FL so there is no room for the "man cave". No biggie, but it will take a creative mind to relocate those jackets and that taxidermy collection that was always safe in the basement. Also they have no backyards. All the kids have to play in the street. Usually your backyard consist of your neighbor’s house or a beautiful stream stocked with fish and alligators. I see them all the time, mostly 3-4 footers but I do have seen a 5 footer. We still go fishing on the banks (our back yard) but I’m always on the look out for gators. Not very relaxing. I live in the Savanna Community. So unless you have a lanai in your backyard, your children have to play in the street. This goes for most of the communities in Weston. If you pick a place I would stay away from the NE section as it is older and has less gated communities. The good thing about a gated community is it is an association and they can create bylaws that prevent (registered) sex offenders from moving in. A city cannot do that, but a gated community with an association can. I use National Sex Offender Registry.

Many have said the people are stuck up. I like to be a bit more precise and say they have this "entitlement attitude". I find this in all of SE Florida (not just Weston). More specific to Weston is, people are nice. If you say "Hi" they say "Hi" back. But that is it! Its like they are empty. There's no, “hi new neighbor, I'm having a bbq, come on over.” And you can even forget about someone bringing you cookies or pie. I've never had anyone be deliberately be rude to me. Just selfish like talking on the phone loud when you are in line. What the statistics need to show is the plastic surgery rate. It would show the superficiality of a city over others. I guess it’s just everyone is in there own busy world.

As for Schools, my daughter will be going to 3rd grade. I have not a complaint about the school she went to, Country Isles Elementary. It really depends on the teacher you have. One year the teacher was the best and they other year she was pretty good. You do not have to worry about violence as much as fear of being sued because so and so’s daddy is a lawyer. Florida schools as a whole do not teach to learn but teach to past this test which grades your school (FCAT). But a Weston school is the best at it! I believe private schools are not exempt from this test (Kindly correct me if I am wrong). Oh, and charter schools are not better from what I am recently hearing.

Diversity...everyone is very open to different races. I have never witnessed racism and my daughter is mixed (Pakistani/Caucasian). Caucasian and Latinos are the predominate majority. So, if there is an international night function somewhere, do not expect many other cultures present other than Latin American countries.

We bought a house in 2006 and our insurance and taxes combined are higher than our mortgage. We had a 600K limit but after assessing insurance and property taxes (2% of purchase price), it got knocked down to 450K. We knew it was high but until you get the spreadsheet out and crunch numbers. Oh, and the title insurance…$400 in DC with my first home ($140K), to $2800 in Florida, which takes me to my next topic....

Corruption. Florida is so corrupt. Not in the sense you have to bribe people (well maybe, but I have not personally experience it) but everything is so gimmie money oriented. We were delighted to hear we do not have to pay state income taxes but you end up with less money in the long run when your auto, health, and home insurance is higher. FL has the highest fraudulent claims in the nation and therefore your premiums are higher. My auto insurance doubled when I got down here and I had a perfect record. “Had” because my driving has gotten so bad down here, I too, have learned that offensive driving mentality. At least in DC, when they cut you off, they put their blinker on first and the speeding stay to the left lanes! Sorry I digress, that’s a different posting. Back to corruption...after hurricane Katrina and Wilma you would here so many stories on the radio on how many women got insurance checks with false claims due to the “services” being offered. Also there are these fees everywhere, especially with buying a house. Registration fee, stamp your paper fee, licking the envelope fee. Okay I’m kidding with the last one.

Another example…I would always go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival and was excited to see Florida had one. After each performance they ASK for money. “This is our living and would appreciate a tip”. It was short of a bunch of gypsies. Also any type of tourist attraction they ASK for tip or say we make our living off of our tips. Now I always tip but when I was in Alaska for two weeks I only heard one person hint at a tip and we had about 30 different services (tours, drivers, guides, waiters, etc).

Weston sponsors a lot of free community events but I would stay away from the Easter egg hunt unless you want to see 4,000 kids make 20,000 eggs disappear in 5 seconds. No joke there. Babysitters are $10/hr. Sometimes you can find one for $8 but they are not professional and do not always return your calls.

During Hurricane Wilma, we only lost our power for 20 minutes. Other sections a day or two but Weston was the first city to have their electricity back up and gas stations filled out of all of Miami-Dade and Broward. Many places went more than a month without electricity. Its funny, I just saw the movie Hot Fuzz (British Comedy) about a a town that has its village officials and shop owners in a conspiracy to keep the crime statics low to make their city more desirable. I would not be surprised if a little of this didn't go on in Weston.

Work...if you are negotiating a job down hear, ask for two weeks. I was shocked to see the norm down here is one week the first year.

After two years we have no real friends. We are now looking to move back to either Baltimore/DC area but its now too expensive after taking a huge loss on our investment in Weston. Maybe Cape Coral, FL (family there) or Charlotte, NC (no family) but statistically they have a worse crime rate than Miami. That sounds strange! Hopefully in January when they will vote on the property tax bill, the value of homes will go back just enough for us to get enough back to buy somewhere else. But in the meantime we are aggressively seeking friends, being extra nice, using Meetup.com. That way if it doesn’t work out I know I will never return to SE Florida.

I can easily sit here and complain but I will note the positives to living in Weston.
1. Winter is absolutely gorgeous!
2. Virtually no traffic, but most people commute east.
3. More laid back, but this can also be a negative, especially in the work place.
4. Very beautiful
5. Cleaner air
6. Low crime.

In short if you have to move to SE Florida with your family, the only place is Weston. Pay a little extra and its worth it, but I would avoid SE Florida altogether.

Last edited by Yac; 01-08-2008 at 06:33 AM..
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Old 08-06-2007, 05:48 PM
 
440 posts, read 1,491,097 times
Reputation: 119
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccase View Post
We are transplants from Baltimore (husband) and DC/NoVA (myself and daughter). Both college educated, Caucasian, early 30s. My husband (finance at the time) received a wonderful job opportunity with more money, less traffic, and less stress in Plantation (12 miles away). I did my extensive research and found Weston statistically superior to anywhere else in SE Florida. Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed We even flew down and drove all around Broward County and agreed with what everyone else has said, manicured, new, beautiful homes, beautiful cars...even the people are beautiful. We were excited to start our new lives together and moved here two years ago.

Homes...unlike northern homes, there are no basements and very few closets in FL so there is no room for the "man cave". No biggie, but it will take a creative mind to relocate those jackets and that taxidermy collection that was always safe in the basement. Also they have no backyards. All the kids have to play in the street. Usually your backyard consist of your neighbor’s house or a beautiful stream stocked with fish and alligators. I see them all the time, mostly 3-4 footers but I do have seen a 5 footer. We still go fishing on the banks (our back yard) but I’m always on the look out for gators. Not very relaxing. I live in the Savanna Community. So unless you have a lanai in your backyard, your children have to play in the street. This goes for most of the communities in Weston. If you pick a place I would stay away from the NE section as it is older and has less gated communities. The good thing about a gated community is it is an association and they can create bylaws that prevent (registered) sex offenders from moving in. A city cannot do that, but a gated community with an association can. I use National Sex Offender Registry.

Many have said the people are stuck up. I like to be a bit more precise and say they have this "entitlement attitude". I find this in all of SE Florida (not just Weston). More specific to Weston is, people are nice. If you say "Hi" they say "Hi" back. But that is it! Its like they are empty. There's no, “hi new neighbor, I'm having a bbq, come on over.” And you can even forget about someone bringing you cookies or pie. I've never had anyone be deliberately be rude to me. Just selfish like talking on the phone loud when you are in line. What the statistics need to show is the plastic surgery rate. It would show the superficiality of a city over others. I guess it’s just everyone is in there own busy world.

As for Schools, my daughter will be going to 3rd grade. I have not a complaint about the school she went to, Country Isles Elementary. It really depends on the teacher you have. One year the teacher was the best and they other year she was pretty good. You do not have to worry about violence as much as fear of being sued because so and so’s daddy is a lawyer. Florida schools as a whole do not teach to learn but teach to past this test which grades your school (FCAT). But a Weston school is the best at it! I believe private schools are not exempt from this test (Kindly correct me if I am wrong). Oh, and charter schools are not better from what I am recently hearing.

Diversity...everyone is very open to different races. I have never witnessed racism and my daughter is mixed (Pakistani/Caucasian). Caucasian and Latinos are the predominate majority. So, if there is an international night function somewhere, do not expect many other cultures present other than Latin American countries.

We bought a house in 2006 and our insurance and taxes combined are higher than our mortgage. We had a 600K limit but after assessing insurance and property taxes (2% of purchase price), it got knocked down to 450K. We knew it was high but until you get the spreadsheet out and crunch numbers. Oh, and the title insurance…$400 in DC with my first home ($140K), to $2800 in Florida, which takes me to my next topic....

Corruption. Florida is so corrupt. Not in the sense you have to bribe people (well maybe, but I have not personally experience it) but everything is so gimmie money oriented. We were delighted to hear we do not have to pay state income taxes but you end up with less money in the long run when your auto, health, and home insurance is higher. FL has the highest fraudulent claims in the nation and therefore your premiums are higher. My auto insurance doubled when I got down here and I had a perfect record. “Had” because my driving has gotten so bad down here, I too, have learned that offensive driving mentality. At least in DC, when they cut you off, they put their blinker on first and the speeding stay to the left lanes! Sorry I digress, that’s a different posting. Back to corruption...after hurricane Katrina and Wilma you would here so many stories on the radio on how many women got insurance checks with false claims due to the “services” being offered. Also there are these fees everywhere, especially with buying a house. Registration fee, stamp your paper fee, licking the envelope fee. Okay I’m kidding with the last one.

Another example…I would always go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival and was excited to see Florida had one. After each performance they ASK for money. “This is our living and would appreciate a tip”. It was short of a bunch of gypsies. Also any type of tourist attraction they ASK for tip or say we make our living off of our tips. Now I always tip but when I was in Alaska for two weeks I only heard one person hint at a tip and we had about 30 different services (tours, drivers, guides, waiters, etc).

Weston sponsors a lot of free community events but I would stay away from the Easter egg hunt unless you want to see 4,000 kids make 20,000 eggs disappear in 5 seconds. No joke there. Babysitters are $10/hr. Sometimes you can find one for $8 but they are not professional and do not always return your calls.

During Hurricane Wilma, we only lost our power for 20 minutes. Other sections a day or two but Weston was the first city to have their electricity back up and gas stations filled out of all of Miami-Dade and Broward. Many places went more than a month without electricity. Its funny, I just saw the movie Hot Fuzz (British Comedy) about a a town that has its village officials and shop owners in a conspiracy to keep the crime statics low to make their city more desirable. I would not be surprised if a little of this didn't go on in Weston.

Work...if you are negotiating a job down hear, ask for two weeks. I was shocked to see the norm down here is one week the first year.

After two years we have no real friends. We are now looking to move back to either Baltimore/DC area but its now too expensive after taking a huge loss on our investment in Weston. Maybe Cape Coral, FL (family there) or Charlotte, NC (no family) but statistically they have a worse crime rate than Miami. That sounds strange! Hopefully in January when they will vote on the property tax bill, the value of homes will go back just enough for us to get enough back to buy somewhere else. But in the meantime we are aggressively seeking friends, being extra nice, using Meetup.com. That way if it doesn’t work out I know I will never return to SE Florida.

I can easily sit here and complain but I will note the positives to living in Weston.
1. Winter is absolutely gorgeous!
2. Virtually no traffic, but most people commute east.
3. More laid back, but this can also be a negative, especially in the work place.
4. Very beautiful
5. Cleaner air
6. Low crime.

In short if you have to move to SE Florida with your family, the only place is Weston. Pay a little extra and its worth it, but I would avoid SE Florida altogether.
Good post and I agree with most of it although you kept saying "Caucasians " which is very ignorant on your part .... and Hispanic is not a race . Did you ever notice in Weston the many beautiful Hispanic women that happen to also be Caucasian ?

Hispanics can be Caucasian , Black , Asian or Indigenous .... White Americans of which I am one do not have the market cornered on the Caucasian race .

In the future you would be better off saying that Weston is a mix of White Americans or Anglos and Hispanics . Sorry to get off on this , but it was the only negative to an otherwise insightful post .

Last edited by Yac; 01-08-2008 at 06:33 AM..
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Old 08-06-2007, 06:02 PM
 
8,377 posts, read 30,786,946 times
Reputation: 2423
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccase View Post

In short if you have to move to SE Florida with your family, the only place is Weston. Pay a little extra and its worth it, but I would avoid SE Florida altogether.
Weston is not the "Only place". How about Cooper City, Davie, Boca Raton, Coral Springs, Parkland? I would take Parkland over Weston any day for a snooty upscale community(even though I like Weston very much), Davie has friendly people who are mostly White if that's important to you and a rural feeling with second-to-Weston schools, Coral Springs has the 10th lowest crime rate in the United States and is very diverse by every stretch of the word with good schools and restaurants and nice people, Cooper City has a close-knit family neighborhood feel (and is also mostly non hispanic White if that's important), and Boca has EVERYTHING, but yes, the people can be jerky there.

All of those cities have good schools and lower-than average crime, and if public schools aren't that important, you can add Plantation, west sections of Delray Beach, Pembroke Pines, west Sunrise,Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale East of US1 (close to the fun, but isolated from the crime, plus you have a million to spend anyway!) your list of nice places to live in Broward and south Palm Beach County that are at least better than the average in almost every respect.

Last edited by compelled to reply; 08-06-2007 at 06:14 PM..
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Old 09-22-2007, 03:46 PM
 
2 posts, read 6,522 times
Reputation: 11
My family is about to relocate to Broward County after living in Indiana for nine years. My husband and I both went to college in SF and lived there (Palm Beach County) for three years after. We are very excited to be coming back and until I found this site. I have been reading many of these SF posts and the more I read the more anxious and worried I get. There seems to be a distinct undertone to most of these posts. White = good... Non-white = undesireable. I mean I'm not naive but is it really that bad down there. I mean posters are actually recommending neighborhoods based on the whiteness of the area. Where do all the normal, (read) unmaterialistic ( but can appreciate the finer things), hardworking educated, non criminal families with elementary school-age children, who also want to live in a low crime area but do not require it to be "white" or "south american latino" majority live? I mean my husband has been offered an amazing job and I should be ecstatic yet I am very very very disheartened.
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Old 09-23-2007, 11:40 AM
 
23 posts, read 81,979 times
Reputation: 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by phantomdilbert View Post
Thanks again to the lively replies.

Motivation to move is based on numerous factors, primarly that an opportunity arose that would allow me to give my family potentially a better quality of life. It is a career opportunity, albiet much more risky considering we would have to relocate for this.

Private versus public: the debate on this is larger than this particular thread. I personally don't mind private per se, I went to a Catholic faith private school for 12 years and funny enough went to a Jesuit graduate school. However my wife went through all public school. Who has more moral upbringing? My wife =).

Cars: I own a BMW so does that mean I fit in now =)? (wait, it's only a 3 series)
I live in Weston and a 3 series BMW? Hmmm, nope doesnt mean you fit in, sorry lol
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Old 09-24-2007, 09:34 AM
 
49 posts, read 200,847 times
Reputation: 20
I live in Weston (The Isles At Weston) and YES, we are gated and very nicely manicured---but to be honest--I don't really know any of my neighbors. Everyone is either working or in their houses...Everyone (most everyone) has a pool in the back -yard--so never has a reason to go to the REALLY, REALLY, nice rec. center with huge pool. I have lived in this area (Weston) for 14 years and I honestly don't think I would live anywhere else until the kids are grown and gone.... Except- we just got transferred to The Bay Area CA.....and have no choice, but to move. I'm hoping to find an area similar to Weston in CA.... Wish me luck.. If anyone knows of a similar type of city out there...feel free to let me know!!!!! Thanks. One more thing--- The traffic on 595 East in the morning is really bad until 9am -after that is gets easier--and its easy before 7 30. on the drive home its bad from 4 45- 6 30. But compared to other commutes its not that bad!!!
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