Moving to Jacksonville Area (University, Orange Park: real estate, apartment, rentals)

[jacslynn]

I am considering moving to jacksonville from cincinnati, ohio. (I am originally from minnesota.) I have visited jacksonville on vacation a few times and loved it there. My question is about locations. It has been a few years since I have been there and I am planning to come down for a visit in a week and a half. I am not sure where the best place to start looking is. I am a registered nurse in need of a hospital to work at....i have been looking at the mayo clinic website for jobs. I also have 3 children....ages 13, 10, and 19 months. So, I need an area with a good school district because being a nurse....I cant really afford private schools especially since my 13 year old is way ahead and my 10 year old is a special needs child and the private schools in ohio charge by the hour for speech, physical, and occupational therapy which my 10 year old needs. And they also charge extra for enrichment classes to keep my 13 year old interested. I am looking to rent a house for a while before buying. Any information would be very helpful.

[apvbguy]

Originally Posted by jacslynn

I am considering moving to jacksonville from cincinnati, ohio. (I am originally from minnesota.) I have visited jacksonville on vacation a few times and loved it there. My question is about locations. It has been a few years since I have been there and I am planning to come down for a visit in a week and a half. I am not sure where the best place to start looking is. I am a registered nurse in need of a hospital to work at....i have been looking at the mayo clinic website for jobs. I also have 3 children....ages 13, 10, and 19 months. So, I need an area with a good school district because being a nurse....I cant really afford private schools especially since my 13 year old is way ahead and my 10 year old is a special needs child and the private schools in ohio charge by the hour for speech, physical, and occupational therapy which my 10 year old needs. And they also charge extra for enrichment classes to keep my 13 year old interested. I am looking to rent a house for a while before buying. Any information would be very helpful.

the best advice would be to lock in the job before coming here.
the better schools would be found in PVB, st johns county and that would be about a 15 minute ride to work.
There are some nice areas in Jacksonville close by Mayo but the schools can be hit or miss, especially the high schools.
Jacksonville does have 2 very good HS but they require passing a test to be accepted and a long commute, and if your child doesn't get accepted the local school may or may not be good.
In PVB you're pretty much assured of being in a very good school district. Many people will say that PVB is expensive, but that isn't the case, there are many very nice homes listed between 250k and 400k.
if you're willing to endure a longer commute you could go out to Julington creek,NW st johns and you can be certain of finding an affordable home and good schools.

[jacslynn]

Thanks so much your info is quite helpful. Currently I am commuting about 50 minutes each way to work. Is Julington Creek further than that? I really don't want to commute more than what i currently am.

[apvbguy]

Originally Posted by jacslynn

Thanks so much your info is quite helpful. Currently I am commuting about 50 minutes each way to work. Is Julington Creek further than that? I really don't want to commute more than what i currently am.

julington would be between 30 to 50 minutes, depends on the time of day, and from julington to mayo is almost a reverse commute

[riveree]

I would look right around Mayo initially.

Believe it or not, as of right now, only Jax has any A-rated high schools at all (Jax currently has 3 of them). And the high schools have always been the Duval/Jax weak spots, the Elementary and Middle schools tend to fare better anyway. By no means an I saying you should select Duval's school system over St. John's or Clay's, etc., I'm just saying don't write them off......the playing fields may be levelling .

Anyway, back to location: Right around Mayo is a great location to live - tons of nice-looking neighborhoods (many of them very upscale), close to some of the best shopping, restaurants, etc., and less than 10 minutes to the beach. Check out zip 32224 and just to the north of that, zips 32246 & 32225.

Ponte Vedra, as mentioned, would be worth a look too, though since you're looking to rent a HOUSE, you might find it prohibitively expensive. If you were going to rent an apartment, I'd say PV would be competitive enough in rent, but I'd expect rental HOUSES to be much higher than just over the line into Jax (32224, etc.).

Hope that helps .

[titaniummd]

Originally Posted by jacslynn

I am considering moving to jacksonville from cincinnati, ohio. (I am originally from minnesota.) I have visited jacksonville on vacation a few times and loved it there. My question is about locations. It has been a few years since I have been there and I am planning to come down for a visit in a week and a half. I am not sure where the best place to start looking is. I am a registered nurse in need of a hospital to work at....i have been looking at the mayo clinic website for jobs. .

There are so many hospitals and doctors' offices here. Especially in Doctor's Inlet, Orange Park, Fleming Island, in addition to Jacksonville. There are U of F, Mayo, Naval Hospital Jacksonville and Shands. Don't limit your searches.

Are you an ER, CICU or ICU nurse? There are so many venues and opportunities for you here. Good luck.

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Second, you should research the schools that can help with your children's needs, their talents and interests. It's best to interview teachers and principals (we did) and visit schools.

Once you have found that school, be it private or public and you have found work, then find a place that won't make life difficult to commute.
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I didn't notice what price range you were shopping and if you had $ for down payments.
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There are a variety places to live (planned communities, communities without home owner's associations, trailer parks, plots of land, condos, townhouses, etc). It's a buyer's market, right now.

I don't know anything about the rentals.

[FLPL75]

A few others to keep in mind
St Lukes Hospital right at JTB & 95
Plus the new Baptist South right at 95 & Old St Augustine rd
As titaniummd said we have tons of health care options.
Oh yes they are building a new High School at 9A & Baymeadows
Both the elementary & middle school in that area are both "A" schools.

[riveree]

........Memorial on University Blvd, then there's the hospital at the Beach (forget the name??), there are Baptist hospital locations all over........

Yup, plenty of hospital here .

[jacslynn]

Thanks to everyone for the information, it has been very helpful.

[Kimknapp]

Originally Posted by jacslynn

I am considering moving to Jacksonville from cincinnati, ohio. (I am originally from minnesota.) I have visited jacksonville on vacation a few times and loved it there. My question is about locations. It has been a few years since I have been there and I am planning to come down for a visit in a week and a half. I am not sure where the best place to start looking is. I am a registered nurse in need of a hospital to work at....i have been looking at the mayo clinic website for jobs. I also have 3 children....ages 13, 10, and 19 months. So, I need an area with a good school district because being a nurse....I cant really afford private schools especially since my 13 year old is way ahead and my 10 year old is a special needs child and the private schools in ohio charge by the hour for speech, physical, and occupational therapy which my 10 year old needs. And they also charge extra for enrichment classes to keep my 13 year old interested. I am looking to rent a house for a while before buying. Any information would be very helpful.

I live in Orange Park a bedroom community of JAX. I am in real estate and relocated 7 years ago! We love it. We moved from Upstate New York.

What kind of nursing? I have friends at Orange Park Medical, St Vincents and Baptist.

I would locate a knowledgeable real estate professional in the area you are looking that knows the market. Getting the best value will depend on their familiarity with the market It's watching how many times a home has been listed, have the sellers moved out, did they buy another home already? How much do they owe? This information is easy to gather if you are working with someone already on top of the market. Also which builders are offering what incentives?

Also make sure you have a reputable lender. This is such a problem in this business. The predator lenders are still out there. Because consumers only have a real estate transaction a few times in their lives they hardly have time to become experts. This gets taken advantage of. I hope this helps.

In Fleming Island our kids walk and ride bikes to school, crime is low, we have "A" rated schools. What kind of special needs program? Clay County and St Johns I know have great programs.

[color=black]The planned communities offer a unique lifestyle we had never seen before moving here. It's like Norman Rockwell or as we joke sometimes Pleasantville. Property taxes are much less than NY and there is no state income tax. We still have homestead exemption as well. We'll see how the November vote goes on the super tax break. Housing prices have come down 20% in the last 15 months which is awesome for anyone looking to buy. Moderator cut: realtor soliciting