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Wife and I will be empty-nesters in 5 years. We currently live in the San Diego area, and of course, like many things about it, but I don't like the direction CA is going, and I doubt our kids will be able to afford to live here after college, so we're thinking about moving to another state.
We would be in our late 40's, so def not looking for any type of "senior living" development.
Must haves:
coastal city
waterfront home w/boat dock
upscale area
good restaurants/entertainment/shopping
proximity to decent airport
prefer a non-liberal/progressive area
I'll be selling my company when we move, so no need to factor in employment options or commute times.
I think the humidity would be the biggest change for us, but we'd probably spend most of the summer somewhere else anyway.
What city/area would you recommend for us? The only cities I've been to in FL are Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale. Enjoyed Ft. Lauderdale.
Thanks.
West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Sarasota, and Naples.......
California Natives should leave their socialist failed politics behind if you relocate to Florida. Florida is very different than California. I know because I lived out there for a period of time. Los Angeles, even back then was a horrible place to live. Nobody can pay me enough money to go back to that sh*tty state! Heads up: Native Floridians by and large are hard working decent accepting people so please for heaven sakes don't flaunt your Red Ferrari or Purple Lamborghini or build some 6 story McMansion in a pretty middle class neighborhood with steel bars on every window.
Welcome to Florida
Commiefornia "was" once a pretty conservative state though. It seems around 1980 it started to change, BUT not until the last 30 years it became really loopy. Reagan wasn't right wing but when he was governor the state was conservative.
OR and WA were conservative states too up until the 90s when then Cali started flooding that.
What do you think made California become so liberal the last 40 or so years? Illegals?
Sadly it seems FL is transitioning slowly that way as well.
Wife and I will be empty-nesters in 5 years. We currently live in the San Diego area, and of course, like many things about it, but I don't like the direction CA is going, and I doubt our kids will be able to afford to live here after college, so we're thinking about moving to another state.
We would be in our late 40's, so def not looking for any type of "senior living" development.
Must haves:
coastal city
waterfront home w/boat dock
upscale area
good restaurants/entertainment/shopping
proximity to decent airport
prefer a non-liberal/progressive area
I'll be selling my company when we move, so no need to factor in employment options or commute times.
I think the humidity would be the biggest change for us, but we'd probably spend most of the summer somewhere else anyway.
What city/area would you recommend for us? The only cities I've been to in FL are Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale. Enjoyed Ft. Lauderdale.
Thanks.
It sounds like you haven't visited Florida much, or maybe not at all in person. You really have to do scouting visits from one week to one month in duration, at different times of the year. You can rule out some areas right away if you prefer "non-liberal/progressive" areas. The Miami and Orlando areas tend to be pretty liberal or leftest areas. Also, once you get north of the Tampa to Orlando line, it starts to get cold more often in the winters. The panhandle can get very cold and cold more often. Look at the evacuation areas on the county evacuation maps. Those maps will tell you where the higher risks are for evacuations and flooding. Look at the crime maps to find out the pockets of higher crime areas. You have to decide if you want to live in a HOA area or not HOA. Being in an HOA protects you from living near run down areas with dead cars, old RV's, old boats, dead refrigerators, and other junk decorating the front lawn that is either weeds or bare dirt, in front of a house that is in disrepair. But you have to live with the restrictions in an HOA area. The gated areas are generally safer and less crime. There are downsides to the gated areas, usually higher costs and more restrictions. You have to also consider CDD costs.
Many people like living near the coastlines, but that's a positive and a negative. Living near the coastline means there's a higher risk of storm damage, higher risk of possible evacuations for hurricanes that hit or hurricanes that miss or weaken. You can't wait till the last minute to evacuation, if that becomes necessary. Living near the coastline means higher insurance costs. If you are near the coastline, you may have to live with the horrible smell of "red tide" for months. The "red tide" smell can travel up to about 6 miles inland, but usually stays much closer to the coastline. You can go long time periods without "red tide", but when "red tide" hits, you don't want to be in that area for weeks or months. Some people have to be hospitalized if they have too much "red tide" exposure, so "red tide" is not a small problem to be ignored.
The costs should be much lower in Florida, unless you are near the coastline, which usually are much higher with higher real estate costs and higher insurance costs. The heat and humidity can be really bad in the summertime. Some people get acclimated to the heat and humidity to different degrees after several years. Some people never are able to adapt. But AC is everywhere, and runs most of the year, everywhere. You might also think if you want your own pool and hot tub in a pool cage.
For us, living about 30 to 40 minutes from the coastline makes more sense. The real estate is less expensive. The evacuation risk is dramatically less. When we want to walk around near the coastline, or go to the beach, we would just drive over there. If we want to own a boat in the future, we'll keep the boat in a harbor, maybe join a boat club, or maybe rent boats, or take a charter fishing boats.
People drive fast in Florida. If you drive at 75 or 80 mph on the freeways, you will generally never be stopped. I've driven at 80 mph, cruising on the freeways, and I'm passed by highway patrol cars. Faster speeds on the freeways is totally normal, and is accepted by everyone, including the police. But on the downside, the higher speeds can result in horrific accidents. The auto insurance rates are about double from my auto insurance rates in Minnesota.
If you have a good retirement income stream, you will really appreciate Florida having no state income taxes. There's still sales taxes, and other fees. For example, to change your car registration to Florida, it will cost you at least a $400 one time fee. Some areas have toll roads, especially around Orlando. It's a no brainer to have a SunPass transponder to get a discount on the tolls. There are some bridges that have tolls. For example, the Sky Bridge that connects St Petersburg to the south is $1.50 cash or $1.07 with the SunPass. The tolls are not extreme, like in the New York / New Jersey part of the country, where the bridge tolls could be $12 or more.
We have been researching Florida for many years, and did many in person scouting trips. We will be Florida residents before the end of this year. For us, it works out much better in our retirement years, since we would have had our income cut in half, both working in the IT industry, if we moved to Florida during our working years. There are downsides to living in Florida, but there are more upsides to living in Florida, in my opinion. There's no perfect place to live. We also researched living in Southern California on-line and in person, the weather is great, but we ruled out California because of the extreme leftist control of the state, which is destroying California.
You really need to do much more research on-line, and then take several scouting trips to Florida at different times of the year, not just during the winters, but also in the middle of the summers. If Florida is too hot and humid for us during the summers, we can go elsewhere to escape the heat and humidity. However, to us, it's not bad before 10 AM and after 6 PM, even in the middle of the summers in Florida. In the middle of the day, it's not that bad if we are just walking between the car and stores, doing errands. In the winters, the weather is fantastic. There are occasional cold snaps that last for about 1 to 3 days, then it warms up again. After researching more on-line and the in person scouting trips, you'll then be able to figure out if moving to Florida is right for you, and where in Florida is right for you.
It sounds like you haven't visited Florida much, or maybe not at all in person. You really have to do scouting visits from one week to one month in duration, at different times of the year. You can rule out some areas right away if you prefer "non-liberal/progressive" areas. The Miami and Orlando areas tend to be pretty liberal or leftest areas. Also, once you get north of the Tampa to Orlando line, it starts to get cold more often in the winters. The panhandle can get very cold and cold more often. Look at the evacuation areas on the county evacuation maps. Those maps will tell you where the higher risks are for evacuations and flooding. Look at the crime maps to find out the pockets of higher crime areas. You have to decide if you want to live in a HOA area or not HOA. Being in an HOA protects you from living near run down areas with dead cars, old RV's, old boats, dead refrigerators, and other junk decorating the front lawn that is either weeds or bare dirt, in front of a house that is in disrepair. But you have to live with the restrictions in an HOA area. The gated areas are generally safer and less crime. There are downsides to the gated areas, usually higher costs and more restrictions. You have to also consider CDD costs.
Many people like living near the coastlines, but that's a positive and a negative. Living near the coastline means there's a higher risk of storm damage, higher risk of possible evacuations for hurricanes that hit or hurricanes that miss or weaken. You can't wait till the last minute to evacuation, if that becomes necessary. Living near the coastline means higher insurance costs. If you are near the coastline, you may have to live with the horrible smell of "red tide" for months. The "red tide" smell can travel up to about 6 miles inland, but usually stays much closer to the coastline. You can go long time periods without "red tide", but when "red tide" hits, you don't want to be in that area for weeks or months. Some people have to be hospitalized if they have too much "red tide" exposure, so "red tide" is not a small problem to be ignored.
The costs should be much lower in Florida, unless you are near the coastline, which usually are much higher with higher real estate costs and higher insurance costs. The heat and humidity can be really bad in the summertime. Some people get acclimated to the heat and humidity to different degrees after several years. Some people never are able to adapt. But AC is everywhere, and runs most of the year, everywhere. You might also think if you want your own pool and hot tub in a pool cage.
For us, living about 30 to 40 minutes from the coastline makes more sense. The real estate is less expensive. The evacuation risk is dramatically less. When we want to walk around near the coastline, or go to the beach, we would just drive over there. If we want to own a boat in the future, we'll keep the boat in a harbor, maybe join a boat club, or maybe rent boats, or take a charter fishing boats.
People drive fast in Florida. If you drive at 75 or 80 mph on the freeways, you will generally never be stopped. I've driven at 80 mph, cruising on the freeways, and I'm passed by highway patrol cars. Faster speeds on the freeways is totally normal, and is accepted by everyone, including the police. But on the downside, the higher speeds can result in horrific accidents. The auto insurance rates are about double from my auto insurance rates in Minnesota.
If you have a good retirement income stream, you will really appreciate Florida having no state income taxes. There's still sales taxes, and other fees. For example, to change your car registration to Florida, it will cost you at least a $400 one time fee. Some areas have toll roads, especially around Orlando. It's a no brainer to have a SunPass transponder to get a discount on the tolls. There are some bridges that have tolls. For example, the Sky Bridge that connects St Petersburg to the south is $1.50 cash or $1.07 with the SunPass. The tolls are not extreme, like in the New York / New Jersey part of the country, where the bridge tolls could be $12 or more.
We have been researching Florida for many years, and did many in person scouting trips. We will be Florida residents before the end of this year. For us, it works out much better in our retirement years, since we would have had our income cut in half, both working in the IT industry, if we moved to Florida during our working years. There are downsides to living in Florida, but there are more upsides to living in Florida, in my opinion. There's no perfect place to live. We also researched living in Southern California on-line and in person, the weather is great, but we ruled out California because of the extreme leftist control of the state, which is destroying California.
You really need to do much more research on-line, and then take several scouting trips to Florida at different times of the year, not just during the winters, but also in the middle of the summers. If Florida is too hot and humid for us during the summers, we can go elsewhere to escape the heat and humidity. However, to us, it's not bad before 10 AM and after 6 PM, even in the middle of the summers in Florida. In the middle of the day, it's not that bad if we are just walking between the car and stores, doing errands. In the winters, the weather is fantastic. There are occasional cold snaps that last for about 1 to 3 days, then it warms up again. After researching more on-line and the in person scouting trips, you'll then be able to figure out if moving to Florida is right for you, and where in Florida is right for you.
Well, it's nearly impossible most of the time to drive 75-80 on I75 30 miles north of me lol. Try more like 65 if lucky unless it's early in the morning. The traffic flat out sucks. I would love to be able to drive 65 mph up by Bradenton. With all the construction up there it sucks. been 5 years I've been down here and the same area is still torn up in the same area. 30 miles south of me on the weekday some way. More like 65mph.
This sucks because I drive fast cars. My Camaro SS on the highway runs smooth and it always wants to get up. I find myself driving 85-90mph in it because it doesn't want to coast at lower speeds on the highway.
Well, it's nearly impossible most of the time to drive 75-80 on I75 30 miles north of me lol. Try more like 65 if lucky unless it's early in the morning. The traffic flat out sucks. I would love to be able to drive 65 mph up by Bradenton. With all the construction up there it sucks. been 5 years I've been down here and the same area is still torn up in the same area. 30 miles south of me on the weekday some way. More like 65mph.
This sucks because I drive fast cars. My Camaro SS on the highway runs smooth and it always wants to get up. I find myself driving 85-90mph in it because it doesn't want to coast at lower speeds on the highway.
Maybe that depends on if you are driving during rush hours or the off-peak hours. We're retired, so we tend to avoid driving during rush hours whenever possible. There's tons of traffic around the Sarasota/Bradenton/LWR area during rush hours, but outside of the rush hours, there's drastically less traffic when most of the working people are at work, and off the roads.
There's a massive amount of construction, expanding I-75! Eventually, that construction will be done, and the traffic should flow much better.
Maybe that depends on if you are driving during rush hours or the off-peak hours. We're retired, so we tend to avoid driving during rush hours whenever possible. There's tons of traffic around the Sarasota/Bradenton/LWR area during rush hours, but outside of the rush hours, there's drastically less traffic when most of the working people are at work, and off the roads.
There's a massive amount of construction, expanding I-75! Eventually, that construction will be done, and the traffic should flow much better.
I drove home from just north of Tampa yesterday morning. Even 530am in Tampa area there was traffic on 75. I mean granted not heavy traffic but still a lot more cars than I'd expect 530am.
I was also amazed around North Port 630 quarter to 7 in the morning at all the cars out and I was heading south too not towards Sarasota. I'm never typically driving at that time but was shocked at the amount of traffic still.
Late afternoon on the way up wasn't quite as bad as I expected though in the area. That could be due to some are still working from home though.
Something needs to be looked into on the construction. It's only expanded a few miles over the last few years in that area.
Construction in Florida moves at a snails pace. Almost makes you wonder if they pave these roads by hand! And half the time I never see anyone even working. Just barricades up.
I drove home from just north of Tampa yesterday morning. Even 530am in Tampa area there was traffic on 75. I mean granted not heavy traffic but still a lot more cars than I'd expect 530am.
I was also amazed around North Port 630 quarter to 7 in the morning at all the cars out and I was heading south too not towards Sarasota. I'm never typically driving at that time but was shocked at the amount of traffic still.
Late afternoon on the way up wasn't quite as bad as I expected though in the area. That could be due to some are still working from home though.
Something needs to be looked into on the construction. It's only expanded a few miles over the last few years in that area.
Construction in Florida moves at a snails pace. Almost makes you wonder if they pave these roads by hand! And half the time I never see anyone even working. Just barricades up.
That sounds like rush hour traffic to me. Do you ever drive on I-75 in the middle of the normal workdays? What you might be experiencing is the strong working economy. I still live in Minnesota in he eastern suburbs of St Paul. I used to commute between the eastern suburbs of St Paul, and near downtown St Paul on I-94. Normally, during rush hours, the traffic was bumper to bumper, stop and go, crawling along. During the 2007 -2008 recession, there were months where the slow down became less and less of a problem. There was several months, where there was no slow down at all. That corresponded to the deepest part of the recession. Some of my co-workers thought that the lack of traffic was a great thing. But I thought that the lack of traffic was a bad thing, because so many people were unemployed, and not driving during rush hours.
We don’t live in Florida yet, but we visited Florida many times. Since we’re retired, we usually drove on I-75 away from the rush hours. But once and awhile during rush hours, and the traffic is pretty bad. Even during rush hours, it’s nowhere as bad as LA rush hour traffic in Southern California. We also visited Southern California a lot as a possible retirement location. It’s been a couple months since we‘ve been in Florida. How is traffic on I-75 away from rush hours?
That sounds like rush hour traffic to me. Do you ever drive on I-75 in the middle of the normal workdays? What you might be experiencing is the strong working economy. I still live in Minnesota in he eastern suburbs of St Paul. I used to commute between the eastern suburbs of St Paul, and near downtown St Paul on I-94. Normally, during rush hours, the traffic was bumper to bumper, stop and go, crawling along. During the 2007 -2008 recession, there were months where the slow down became less and less of a problem. There was several months, where there was no slow down at all. That corresponded to the deepest part of the recession. Some of my co-workers thought that the lack of traffic was a great thing. But I thought that the lack of traffic was a bad thing, because so many people were unemployed, and not driving during rush hours.
We don’t live in Florida yet, but we visited Florida many times. Since we’re retired, we usually drove on I-75 away from the rush hours. But once and awhile during rush hours, and the traffic is pretty bad. Even during rush hours, it’s nowhere as bad as LA rush hour traffic in Southern California. We also visited Southern California a lot as a possible retirement location. It’s been a couple months since we‘ve been in Florida. How is traffic on I-75 away from rush hours?
Traffic isn't terrible outside rush hour. Still busy though closer to Tampa even on weekdays. Again tampa region is different than southwest fl. Tampa is a major city with big businesses so naturally a lot more traffic and working class. Like the town I live in after 7 there us hardly even traffic because most of the residents are retired folks.
lots of relocation from other states to FL. We liked the panhandle the most, so if you need to see any homes near Destin let me know
That’s a very old post. I moved from Minnesota to Florida, south of Tampa, three years ago. The weather in the Florida panhandle is much more like the weather in Alabama or Georgia, than in the Florida peninsula. It gets really cold in the Florida panhandle in the winters. We can go for years without a frost, but you’ll have freezing temperatures every winter in the Florida panhandle. We considered the Orlando area, but the traffic is terrible in the Orlando area and there are toll roads all over. We spend less than $10 a month on average for tolls on the Sunshine SkyBridge that connects St Petersburg to the south. If we lived in the Orlando area we’d spend at least $200 a month on tolls. Trying to avoid the toll roads makes your life miserable, when you’re stuck in heavy traffic. It’s hotter in the summer and colder in the winter in the Orlando area, in central Florida. Driving around your immediate area only 5 miles can take a half hour in the Orlando area.
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