Where should we look? (Jacksonville, Plantation: homes, neighborhoods, new construction)

[dlws92]

My DH is very close to accepting a job offer from a company west of Jacksonville so I've been looking online at realtor.com and such but was hoping to get a more insiders view of what neighborhoods might or might not fit for us.

Our budget is $300-$400K but we can go up a bit more. Our preferences include: not doing much work to the house, having more than 2000 sq. ft., great room/den connected to kitchen floorplan, and 3 or more bedrooms.

Here's the problem....we currently live in a new construction neighborhood in the midwest. It's very conservative. We are....a bit out of the mainstream. We're Jewish, we homeschool, and aren't interested in having the right car/clothes and so on. While there haven't been any direct problems, we haven't really made friends with people in our neighborhood. It's not them..it's us!

So...while something like Oakleaf Plantation looks good on paper...are we going to stand out? Should we focus on more urban areas? Are there areas we really need to avoid?

Debby

[riveree]

Hi Debby,

If you are active in the Jewish faith, you might want to consider the Mandarin area of Jacksonville.

Mandarin has a few synagogues (near San Jose Blvd) and many jewish families live close by so they can walk to temple. Mandarin is also a very nice, family-friendly, safe and fairly convenient area (some traffic issues, but it can be dealt with).

There are still pockets of new construction and some resales of homes that are just a few years old that would fit your description...from what I can tell these ones are in the low $400's and up.

Oakleaf Plantation is in neighboring Clay county (your husband will be working in Duval). There are a lot of threads on Oakleaf, so you might want to do a search. I don't imagine you would have any problems in Oakleaf, but I consider Clay county to be a bit more conservative than some other areas. You will be out in an area that is still developing too (was all rural...now developments are popping up), so that is something to consider as well (having to drive a distance for many things).

Your price range and your needs can be met in a lot of areas around here, so you have a lot of options......that's good news !

[FLPL75]

Hi Debby.
How far "west" of jacksonville will he be working?
Along with Mandarin depending on how far west his job will be, you can look in the Southside area around 9A. 9A will take you right over to 295 and the west side.
There are quite a few families that homeschool. I live in the 9A area and one of our new neighbors is a Rabbi that told me he is starting a new synagogue in the area.
You will find most of the homes have the greatroom connected to the kitchen open floorplans.
Karla

[he's so hott]

Originally Posted by dlws92

My DH is very close to accepting a job offer from a company west of Jacksonville so I've been looking online at realtor.com and such but was hoping to get a more insiders view of what neighborhoods might or might not fit for us.

Our budget is $300-$400K but we can go up a bit more. Our preferences include: not doing much work to the house, having more than 2000 sq. ft., great room/den connected to kitchen floorplan, and 3 or more bedrooms.

Here's the problem....we currently live in a new construction neighborhood in the midwest. It's very conservative. We are....a bit out of the mainstream. We're Jewish, we homeschool, and aren't interested in having the right car/clothes and so on. While there haven't been any direct problems, we haven't really made friends with people in our neighborhood. It's not them..it's us!

So...while something like Oakleaf Plantation looks good on paper...are we going to stand out? Should we focus on more urban areas? Are there areas we really need to avoid?

Debby

I think Rivee pointed you in the right direction with Oakleaf and Mandarin. Oakleaf has plenty of homes in the price range you're looking for. A couple of months ago I worked for UPS and Oakleaf was my route. I can tell you from that perspective that all of the neighborhoods back there and there are a lot, are filled with either Northeasterners from NY, people from Ohio, South Florida, California and some from Jacksonville. You won't have a problem being Jewish. That area itself is starting to get built up really fast. There are more homes being built back there everyday and Super Target opened in March in a center that will contain Kohls and Home Depot as well as a bunch of chain restaurants. The homes back there are large once you get up into the 500k range.

You have two grocery stores in Publix and Winn-Dixie off of Argyle Blvd. Traffic is a mess on Argyle but it is being widened so that should help things. You're only a few minutes from the mess that is known as Blanding Blvd and from there you can go to Orange Park Mall and the restaurants in that area.

[hulalula]

That area itself is starting to get built up really fast. There are more homes being built back there everyday and Super Target opened in March in a center that will contain Kohls and Home Depot as well as a bunch of chain restaurants. The homes back there are large once you get up into the 500k range.

You have two grocery stores in Publix and Winn-Dixie off of Argyle Blvd. Traffic is a mess on Argyle but it is being widened so that should help things. You're only a few minutes from the mess that is known as Blanding Blvd and from there you can go to Orange Park Mall and the restaurants

The only problem is the traffic in that are is awful. Getting off the interstate at the blanding exit is a nightmare in the afternoon. Something I wanted to throw out is Camden County, GA. We are right over the state line in Ga and the cost of housing is much lower here. The navy base brings in a large variety of people so you don't really feel like an outsider.

My neighbor across the street is Jewish and they do drive to Jax for temple and her husband drives to Jax for work everyday.

If you are interested in more info on Camden County let me know at glitterbugs@tds.net

[Jax]

I agree that the traffic in Orange Park is a mess. I hope no one takes offense to this, but the area is a bit more "bubba"...if you know what I mean. That said, Oakleaf Plantation is nice, and I'm sure lots of professionals live there, but it's pretty far out there, in my opinion. I think the beach is like an hour away from Oakleaf. I agree that you may want to check out Mandarin, or even St. John's County (such as Julington Creek Plantation), just south of Mandarin. Very family oriented down here in Julington Creek, although a little bit of a drive to get to Target, the mall, etc.

[5FLgirls]

Why don't you call a few of the local temples ask their advice? I googled synagogue and jacksonville, fl - & found nine but they're mostly in and around Mandarin. It also depends on whether or not you're conservative, orthodox or somewhere in-between. Personally, I found that Mandarin had more jewish folks but I didn't like the traffic, schools, etc but it's centrally located with everything there. If you're homeschooling, it really won't matter where you live but wouldn't you want to live close by a good temple so that you can socialize right away and meet people?? And if you're jewish from the midwest - don't get too excited about kosher foods, etc., in the local grocery stores. I wanted cheese blintzes and it took publix (one of the supermarkets) six weeks to get it!

[riveree]

Originally Posted by 5FLgirls

Why don't you call a few of the local temples ask their advice? I googled synagogue and jacksonville, fl - & found nine but they're mostly in and around Mandarin. It also depends on whether or not you're conservative, orthodox or somewhere in-between. Personally, I found that Mandarin had more jewish folks but I didn't like the traffic, schools, etc but it's centrally located with everything there. If you're homeschooling, it really won't matter where you live but wouldn't you want to live close by a good temple so that you can socialize right away and meet people?? And if you're jewish from the midwest - don't get too excited about kosher foods, etc., in the local grocery stores. I wanted cheese blintzes and it took publix (one of the supermarkets) six weeks to get it!

I love the cheese blintzes too! Some Publix locations have them all the time and some don't....they need to get that straight!

I forgot to add this link earlier, it might have some good resources:

http://jewishjacksonville.org/

[kort677]

Originally Posted by riveree

I love the cheese blintzes too! Some Publix locations have them all the time and some don't....they need to get that straight!

I forgot to add this link earlier, it might have some good resources:

Jewish Jacksonville

if y'all want a laugh, think of this, sawgrass CC, which is as white bread as it gets serves cheese blintzs at their brunch buffets. who'd thunk it?

[dlws92]

Thanks for all the great responses! I'm sure when we talk to our realtor next week, she'll have some ideas but in our experience (6 moves in 10 years) realtors often have their hands tied about being *really* honest about a neighborhood...either by law or by their own bias.

The job is out near Baldwin which isn't that far west, is it? and it looks close to the GA border...

We're reform, not particularly observant...and I'd call a local temple but the last time we did that we ended up in one of the snootiest areas we've ever lived in. Different temples have their own character, right now we drive over 20 miles each way to a temple with a strong social action agenda. On our way we drive past the "in" temple. I don't know a nice way to ask over the phone, "Are you one of *those* temples?" If there are a large number of Jewish people in Mandarin, I'm guessing there is a variety of synagogues.

I'm in trouble with the Jewish food thing if you had to ask for blintzes...we live in Chicago and for our son's bris I wanted to fedex in "real" bagels from New York because I think everything else here is inferior

I am so looking forward to having no snow this winter!

Debby