Cooper City? (Miami, Pembroke Pines, Plantation: for sale, apartments, rentals)

[lbmommy]

My family and I will be moving this summer for my husbands job. He will be working near the Orange bowl site. He commutes from LI to Queens now, so a long commute is a nonissue. We will only have about 3 days to look and decide on a place, so I am doing legwork now. We want to rent a TH in a gated community w/ a pool and play area. We spend 1875 for a small house in Long Beach, NY 2 blocks from the beach(ahhh, the beach with snow on it is a beautiful thing). I need to make sure our daughter is in a good school. She will be starting 2nd grade. It seems like she will be ahead. When do gifted classes start? I have focused on Cooper City. It is similar in size to where we live now. I want to have an active community center, my daughter ice skates and swims she is a Girl Scout... lots of stuff. Is Cooper City a good fit? Is someplace else better? We also have a son who will be almost 3 when we move. I stay home with him. Thanks so much for your time

[Marlin331]

As I told you in the Miami forum, Cooper City is a good fit for you if you are focusing primarily on Broward County. Other nice areas to consider are Pembroke Pines, Weston, Davie, Plantation, and (west) Miramar.

[tankev]

Cooper City looks nice. It is pretty rural. So is Southwest Ranches which is a little farther west than Cooper City. Weston and Davie are in the same general area as Cooper City and Southwest Ranches. I can only speak for Weston. Almost all neighborhoods are gated with play areas, very good schools, community centers and tons of activities. If you plan to rent a in a gated community make sure you get a realtor to go with you. You can't get into some of the neighborhoods without one. There are also many apartments in Weston that you can look into that are gated but you will be able to get in and speak with the office without a realtor. Here is a web site to check out
www.westonfl.org
Oh, Drive time from Weston to Miami (my husband works in Coconut grove) is on average 45 minutes to an hour. All others mentioned in my post and in crisp444's would be a little less. Good Luck

[lbmommy]

When you say rural, what do you mean exactly? I lived in Indiana until 2006 and have been in NY since then. I can't imagine more rural than corn fields. I actually thought SW Ranches looked cool, the concept at least, but a bit out of our price range.

[tankev]

Oh no, when I say rural I mean you could possibly have a half acre yard! My last move was from rural PA. No part of South FL is like rural Indiana or PA. I am not sure about Cooper City but in Southwest Ranches there are many horse farms and some cattle. Just a little slice of country surrounded by the congestion. Parts of Davie are like Cooper City and Southwest Ranches. There is plenty of shopping and dining right outside those areas.
The south part of Weston is right on the boarder of Southwest Ranches. There are many townhome and apt. rentals right there in a community setting. Use your time wisely when you come down. There is a lot to see here. It took us a close to 2 days just to go through Weston including checking out schools.

[trekker954]

i'm very familiar with long beach NY and recently bought a home in west miramar and know all the areas you are looking at. First of all, put the imagine of rural out of your mind. That poster didn't use the right word when describing cooper city. Cooper city would probably be a good fit for you, what you want, what you are use to and your price range. Cooper city is a very nice community, but older than the others that have been mentioned, however, cooper city doesn't have many gated communities. were you going to rent of buy? 3 days isn't much time to find a place. there is so much for sale here, i must have looked at 50 homes before finding my dream house. good luck, you'll love it, I certainly do (originally from LI and then DC). you can keep the snow.

[tankev]

Your right Ishoupe rural probably wasn't the right word for Cooper City. I have only driven by on Griffin Rd.
My apologies.

[lbmommy]

We are looking to rent. We will be there for 3 years only, so buying seems a little pointless. I figured since Cooper City elementary schools all seem pretty even, we would tell a realtor our specific wants/needs and hopefully line up 6-10 places for us to look at and pick from those. That is what we did when we moved to Manhattan in 2006. Looked day one, chose day 2. Are the schools ok? Coming from LB I worry she will be way ahead and get bored.

[Shoegal1075]

I don't think you have to worry to much about her being ahead, I have a lot of friends who have moved to SF and specifically have a friend who livesin cooper city ad her kids adjusted just fine and I'm from NYC. They have hjonors programs and magnet schools in florida, so even if she is on the brighter side, she shoud do just fine. I'm glad you guys clarified rural, because my idea rural was dirt roads and so on. I'm now open again to Davie, but from my research, mirimar and pembroke's schools are not as good as the other cities mentioned.

[trekker954]

From my research (and I wasn't needing schools) but all said, cooper city schools should be good. What i can see if some of these areas are quite big, spanning I75 (great to the west), so so to the east. And there seems to be an elemenary school every few blocks. I don't really know the difference in education between public, charter and private schools down here. From what I'm told, the schools west of I75 in pembrooke and miramar are excellent as well.

If my memory serves me Long Beach had a large jewish population. I have not seen that down here, but I can say Broward is far less diverse than where I left in Northern Virginia if you can imagine that.

I'm loving south florida; there are various cultures, but everyone has been very warm and nice.