Military to Civilian in South FL (Miami, Pembroke Pines: fit in, apartment complexes, renters) - Fort Lauderdale area - Florida -Broward County - City-Data Forum

D_Coleman · 11-18-2012, 01:41 PM

Greetings everyone. I've been reading and following a lot of threads on here about the different cities people are asking about. A lot of my questions have been answered from just reading but it seems nobody has mentioned nor asked about Lauderhill, FL.
A little about myself; 23 yrs old, married, 6mth old daughter, and transitioning from active duty Army to Reserves. Interview with the Ft. Lauderdale PD in March and I've been looking for places that I can check out while I'm down in the area. Do anyone know about Waterford Park in Lauderhill? It seems like the perfect community that I'm looking for. Well, the city/community/town (w/e y'all call it) of Parkland is more on the perfect side, per se, but I really do like the community in Waterford Park. I am also going to check out Grove at Turtle Run in Coral Springs. I'm not worried about crime rate and etc because I'm from KY and have seen it all...country to the city life (not to mention I've fought two wars). I'm just more focused on my neighborhood/community being safe due to me having a family and being a law enforcement 'peace officer' because I'll be working late, early, and everything else in and around it. Any help on those two places will be great feedback, expect for the irrelevant, criticism replies. Thanks!

jhlcomp · 11-18-2012, 09:57 PM

Coral Springs has changed over the years - crime can change resale values so please do your research. I can not speak about Lauderhill. Do what most of us have done, rent for a year and give yourself time to check out neighborhoods and see what us the best fit for you and your family.

Best of luck to you and thank you for your service to our country.

D_Coleman · 11-19-2012, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhlcomp

Coral Springs has changed over the years - crime can change resale values so please do your research. I can not speak about Lauderhill. Do what most of us have done, rent for a year and give yourself time to check out neighborhoods and see what us the best fit for you and your family.

Best of luck to you and thank you for your service to our country.

Thanks. The plan was to rent a nice apartment and within the year find a nice home out somewhere in Weston or wherever is a good community with nice housing.

D_Coleman · 06-19-2013, 12:59 PM

I finally got out of the military and have relocated to Ft. Lauderdale, Lauderhill to be exact. This is just a little review on south Florida and the community I've moved to for the people that aren't from here and have questions. I'm a African-American male, married, in my mid 20's, a daughter that's 1, originally from KY but wanted to relocate deeper south when I got out of the Army. I think I went a little too far south for my liking. ATL would've been a perfect spot but I'm going to give South FL a spin for a couple years. I by far love it down here. The weather is amazing but very humid during the day. At night it's so perfect it make you want to get naked and drink margaritas somewhere. The people are rude and have no manners; not all but majority and usually they're from somewhere across the water. I got into it with a worker at Subway....Subway people. If you have thick skin and can ignore them, by all means you'll be fine. They can't drive for their life. You either have the speedy drivers that will run you off the road going 15 over or the people who will go 10 below the speed limit and act like they're driving so normal (burns me up). Oh yea, they will cut you off in a heart beat. If they THINK their car can fit in the gap, they're going to swerve right over! BAM, slam your breaks! It's very expensive but if you're from a large city, none of this should bother you.

Moving on to Waterford Park: It's a very nice community as you can see online. It's not one of those communities where they post the nice pictures online and show all of the pretty landscaping to lure people into their property. Just for clarification, those pictures of the apartment interior they show online is defiantly not what they look like. What I mean is all the walls are painted white or this badge color. You're more than welcome to pain them yourself but you have to repaint them back to the original color before moving out. Those are just "model apartments" they're showing you online. They did show us the original apartment though so I don't want you guys think I'm a retard and thought my apartment would be looking their model. I actually looked at two of the normal apartments. The landscaping is beautiful, it's gated with cameras (at the gate and at the gate ONLY), the staff is extremely nice and friendly, the pool is nice with a built in grill and waterfall, it's very quite 24/7, and the renovated apartments are very nice. However, I am very excited that I signed a "short lease" (7mths) instead of a full year. I can not WAIT to move from this place at the end of the year. If you're not from the area and want to relocate here, I HIGHLY recommend looking in the Pembroke Pines/Cooper City area. If that's too far south, look in the coral springs area. If you're wealthy and have money to spend, look in Weston area. You'll never leave from out there....it's that nice.

The reason why I'm happy about my short lease and why I'm leaving Waterford Park is because this place is a joke and beyond over priced. The more I drive around in Pembroke Pines area, the more I find brand new town home communities or apartment complexes that are VERY much cheaper than the $1500 I'm paying here a month...with a 24/7 security booth that's maned. Let's clarify this renovation of Waterford Park by the way. It's not 100%...it's just the kitchen that's renovated in all of the apartments. My three sliding doors are garbage. I'm sure they would be very much cheaper to replace instead of the cabinets and appliances. My neighbor said management told her they would renovate her apartment. However, she would have to pay an additional $800 PER MONTH to her rent. That took me off of my feet. She said she passed and they can renovate it when she move out. What put the icing on the cake for me, 2wks of living out here, my motorcycle got stolen right from in front of my residence. Now I'm talking about this quite, beautiful, gated community where there's not even a pin to open the gate. They only give the people who's on a lease one sensor for your vehicle. If you're not on the lease, you don't get a key nor a sensor. If a visitor comes, they have to look up the person they're coming to visit on the keypad, call, and they would let them in with a pin from their phone. However, if someone comes home and if a car is sitting at the gate, it's like 1-2-3 to tailgate in. My motorcycle was stolen between the hours of 0330-0500. Oh yea, for the record, I talked to a neighbor and he said his was stolen exactly 2wks of living out here. Management seems not to give two ****s and will smile in your face with an "I'm sorry." How is this community making approximately 150-250K per month but can't afford a security company to have two security guards out here 24/7. One could do roving patrol and the other could sit at the main gate checking vehicles that come in. So I went to the office and talked to the manager and come to find out, the cameras wasn't working at the moment because they had just moved their office and was updating something with the system....OOOHHHH!!!! I was ready to move out and go delinquent on my lease! The renters insurance that's mandatory doesn't cove it by the way. Just house damage...

Overall summary, nice looking community but I wouldn't recommend anyone moving here. You see Uhauls every month backed up to people door and they're moving out one by one. This place is embarrassing itself when it comes to other communities. Hopefully my review helps to the people relocating to Ft. Lauderdale and enjoy the beautiful Sunshine state

JacobMAX · 06-19-2013, 01:45 PM

That's actually a good assertion on the overall Broward County area, you do bring some pretty good points.

And also, big thanks for your service in the USAF (U.S. Armed Forces) and helping protect our Country, our freedom and our rights (I'm currently seriously considering joining either the U.S. Navy or the National Guard, hope it goes well).

D_Coleman · 06-19-2013, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JacobMAX

That's actually a good assertion on the overall Broward County area, you do bring some pretty good points.

And also, big thanks for your service in the USAF (U.S. Armed Forces) and helping protect our Country, our freedom and our rights (I'm currently seriously considering joining either the U.S. Navy or the National Guard, hope it goes well).

Thanks and if you ask me, go Air Force. Trust me, I've worked with all branches and USAF was the best and most laid back. Seems like a very relaxed, laid back environment. I'm doing reserves here in Lauderdale starting Aug so I'll see how this side of the house is. Hopefully nothing like active duty haha.

Pembroke Pines seem like a very nice place to live. That's just my opinion though. I'm still learning the area and what's the good and bad parts. Pines is building a lot out that way though. A lot of contruction...community construction at that plus you have US 1 and 595 that's pretty convient for going to Lauderdale or shooting south to Miami.