relocation from UK where to settle? (Miami, Miami Beach: to rent, mover, condo)

[kiwiuk]

Hi,

Would love some advice please We may be relocating due to work to Miami from the UK. Am interested in local opinion on good places to live.

We are: family of 4, children aged 4 and 6yrs.
Looking for middle class/upper middle class safe family oriented area, homes rather than condo heavy.
Safe for us to walk around
Being middle aged we don't need a lot of high energy/nightlife! But good range of shops and places to eat, parks and activities for the kids are a must. Yoga for mum and golf for dad would be great too..

If you are able to suggest an area we'd love to know any good schools in the area you would recommend too (public or private).

Budget would be up to 8k a month, although of course less would be preferred if possible (4-6k?). Would need 4 bedrooms and a garden (with actual grass) for kids to run around in. A pool would be wonderful as the heat is going to be a shock for us......!

Not panicked about being right next to a beach, but within say a 30-45min drive to one if we want to go on the weekend.

thanks so much for any advice you can give

[flyers29]

Pinecrest or Palmetto Bay. Though if work is near downtown you may also want to consider Coconut Grove or Coral Gables.

[Rekichi]

Traffic in Miami is a nightmare, so I recommend living as close to your place of work as possible.

But the neighborhoods that the previous poster said are great.

Also I recommend you to act quickly if you want to purchase a home, because mortgage rates might rise soon.

[pierrekid]

Pinecrest, coral gables and Coconut Grove. Especially with the golf bit these places will be your best bet.

[ruski]

Where in Miami is the office location for this new job?

[ace587]

I would go for the Grove

[Coconut1]

I would look at South Miami in addition to what others have suggested.

[kiwiuk]

I believe its around SW 72nd ave area..... Thanks for all the suggestions, I've been looking at pinecrest and palmetto bay, also coral gables, but was very interested to know what you guys as locals would suggest, if there were any areas that were safe, maybe not as 'upmarket' as pinecrest so a little cheaper on the rent but still with good elementary schools nearby.
We are a little spoilt here, we live in a smallish town, and live on the edge of the town centre so barely need to use the car...we can walk to town which has pretty much everything we need on a day to day basis including cultural/arts stuff and a sports centre with pool (take a 30 min drive to the mall 2 or 3 times a year to top up on clothes, household bits and pieces etc...), school is only a 15 minute flat walk away, and we have a hundred acre public park with amazing playgrounds literally behind our house. London is a 50 minute train ride away if we want to head to the big smoke, and yes we can even walk to the train station in 20 minutes! It really is a beautiful spot

I've noticed folks talking on the various forums about the need to drive everywhere so that'd be a culture change for us, we tend to put the kids on their scooters and just walk everywhere here I'd like my kids childhood to remain active, so hence the reason i'm looking for a safe area with parks and playgrounds so that we can as much as possible continue with this lifestyle. I'm guessing being able to walk to school too is probably asking a bit much but that's ok.

Having not been to Miami before we are going in blind so it's great to have local insight into the areas, especially with what I've read on the safety aspects of certain areas. Reality of Surrey is that you can live anywhere - it's all safe so this is a new situation for us. You get burglaries and car theft occasionally as you do in any western culture, but nothing 'scary'. I've been looking at that colour coded map which one of your members put together showing the good and bad areas to live in and assuming that we want to be on the dark or mid green sections, there are some large green areas further out - Redland, country walk, lakes by the bay, the hammocks, glenvar heights that seem to be mostly surrounded by other green areas. What are your thoughts on these areas as good family areas to live in?

Plan will be to rent for 6-12 months to get the feel for the place and then consider buying once we're comfortable with an area and settled....

Thanks everyone!

[bale002]

Originally Posted by kiwiuk

I believe it's around SW 72nd ave area.....

72nd Avenue runs almost the entire length of Miami-Dade County. Where exactly is your place of work? At least a cross street.

To live without a car in Miami-Dade County both your place of work and your residence must be along the Metrorail corridor and/or near the Metromover, which usually means a condo, or Miami Beach (a municipality).

Having said that, your best bets in terms of family-oriented neighborhoods (good private and public schools and parks) are the municipality of Pinecrest - starting price for old houses around $800,000 - and Coconut Grove (part of the City of Miami) which is probably more expensive because closer to Brickell/downtown, followed by South Miami and Coral Gables (both municipalities), as mentioned.

But 72nd Avenue is nowhere near downtown/Brickell (neighborhoods of the City of Miami) and in Pinecrest it is exclusively residential.

Your job could be near the airport/Flagler Street. In that case, Coral Gables and South Miami would be closer. Of the two, Coral Gables probably has better public schools, but personally I would not recommend either one (others will disagree). There are parts of South Miami and nearby unincorporated areas that will have less expensive single family homes (and probably larger lots) than Coral Gables.

Assuming your job is near the airport, perhaps look in the area south of A.D. Barnes Park, specifically south of Bird Road (40th Street), east of the Palmetto Expressway, west of Red Road (57th Avenue), and north of Sunset Drive (72nd Street). Roughly half of that area is South Miami and the other half unincorporated Miami-Dade County. Most of that area is green, even dark green, on the Neighborhood-O-Meter of Miami-Dade County (you mention Glenvar Heights), though with a few rough patches on the northern and eastern edges. Tropical Park, which is huge, is also nearby, a bit to the west/northwest.


Good Luck!

[kiwiuk]

wow - def don't need a house that big! I guess the best way to describe it is middle America?? Reasonable sized home with a garden in a friendly area with other families around, kids biking around the neighbourhood and friends nearby to play with after school..... Maybe that kind of sitcom idyll doesn't exist anymore

So I looked up a few mpegs on You Tube to see if there were any folks had taken of the suburbs i'm looking at (Coral Gables, Pincecrest, Palmetto Bay, Coconut Grove seem to be the ones most are recommending...). From the ones I've seen on C.G it seems VERY posh - when it showed the shops it was brands like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany's! Would this be the poshest area? Could not classify us as posh so could pretty much rule out that suburb if it's all ladies that lunch and skiing holidays in France..... Some of the houses I've looked up on estate agent sites seem a bit OTT, lots of marble, arches and pillars - like they're trying to be a mini mansion. So if that impression (limited admittedly from a few websites) is correct we'd probably feel a bit out of place there... Do let me know if I've got that all wrong though!

Coconut Grove looks nice and seems to be a bit more....funky?? If that's the right word? Some independent stores mixed in with the chain stores, lots of outdoor eateries and houses still nice but not as 'mansion-y' as C.G.

Could find any on Pinecrest or Palmetto yet, was tired and had to go to bed

Thanks for all your replies - it's so great to get the local view as there's only so much you can pick up from the internet.