Saint Johns Golf and Country Club (2015, renting, appliances)

[BatchT]

Hi all,

Another NY family moving down to the Jax area in August. We just spent the weekend checking out homes in Saint Johns county and fell in love with the SJ golf and country club development. We liked that it wasn't as sprawling as nocatee and durbin crossings and already completely developed (also, the gas appliances is a huge plus!). We've got three kids with two starting kindergarten this fall. Anything we should know before narrowing our search to just this community? Anything similar we should consider? Price range is 325k-400k..

Thanks!!

[Peter the Brit]

You may find many snow bird and older families in SJGCC and also check out the cdd taxes and monthly fees
You may want to look at Palencia which again has quite high overheads but seems to have younger families

[ctown83]

SJCC is definitely a nice community with a good layout. It is zoned for Liberty Pines Academy which is a K-8 school that is rated good. There are quite a few kids between SJCC and St. Johns Forest right across the street. Another nice neighborhood you may like is the King and Bear in WGV. It is also zoned for excellent schools, laid out nice, and has a golf course. Good luck!

[williamwebb49]

Didn't I read in here that SJGCC only had one (1) rather poor ISP/cable option called Litestream that many people would rather not deal with. That would keep me from considering living there.

//www.city-data.com/forum/jacks...itestream.html

[SaintCabbage]

What part of the area will you be working in? If it's downtown, King and Bear or World Golf Village is going to be a long haul every morning.

FWIW, Nocatee is all gas appliances isn't it? Durbin used to not allow it, but you can now get it with some builders (at a hefty price).

[RSWATTY]

St. Johns Golf and Country Club looked awesome when we drove through and explored it. You may want to check out St. Johns Forest as well. No golf course, but it still has some new construction going on in case you're interested in a new house. St. Johns Forest is a gas community as well.

Both St. Johns Golf and St. Johns Forest are zoned for Liberty Pines Academy. My daughter is in kindergarten there this year, and we are very pleased with the school, and especially with her teacher. It is a K-8 school, but the 6-8 part is separated from the K-5 part very well. They even have 2 different buses for every neighborhood, 1 to pick up and drop off the middle schoolers and one for the elementary kids.

[BatchT]

Thanks for all the great info! Hadn't even heard of Saint Johns Forest, we'll definitley take a look. I'll be working in south jacksonville very close to Saint Johns Town Center. Don't mind a 30-45 min commute, beats the hour plus train and subway I currently take but King and Bear seem a bit too far... Also, not the biggest golfer, we just thought the development looked very well taken care of with great amenities..

We checked out liberty pines and the reveiws look great, saw some grumblings on one site about the principal, any merrit to that?

[Hellokitty4]

We have been living in SJGCC for almost a year, and we really like it here. It is a nice community with good amenities (a good size pool). I see a lot of elementary school age children here. We like the location (very close to 95) and having a golf course. We don't get to play golf that often because of our young children, but we often take a nice, long walk in the neighboorhood. A drive to St. Johns Town Center will be 25-30 min. Not bad.

As someone mentioned, Litestream is the only option here. They are not great, but we learned to live with it.

We will be moving to Nocatee this fall, because we decided to get a house built. We moved from NJ last year, and we are currently renting. When we were looking to purchase a few months ago, there were not many houses on the market here. Now there are a lot more. I hope you find something you like here in SJGCC.

[Acebab]

St John's Golf is a great family neighborhood! I know several people that live there and they all love it! LPA is also a great school! All my friends have been very happy there! One thing you might want to think about is renting for a year to really get to know the area and then decide where you want to buy! I can imagine that having to make that decision quickly can be a bit stressful and I have met many people that state if they had to do it over again, they would have rented first! We looked in SJGC, almost built in St John's Forest, but after a year of looking, debating, etc. ended up in Nocatee and we LOVE it!!!! So many families and kids, lots of parks, close to the beach - and our new K-8 school is under construction to open in 2014-2015 school year. I get that one of the nice things about SJGC is that it is already established... but on the flip side, Nocatee is still new and growing so everyone moving into Nocatee is new. It makes it a very nice transition to a new area. Good luck with your decision! You can't really go wrong!

[masonsmom4]

If you care about your cable tv or internet service I would give serious consideration to the Litestream problem. I may be wrong but I think they are locked in with them for several more years so there is not going to be relief coming any time soon.