Work in Ponte Vedra Beach Where to live?? (Jacksonville, Englewood: transplants, rentals)

[tatismommy]

Hi -my husband just had a initial phone interview with a company in Ponte Vedra Beach this week. We have done a lot of research on moving to Florida but never had looked at the Jacksonville area until this job popped up. SO we don't know anything about the schools or best family friendly areas. We have a 1st grader and a 4 yr. so schools are really important to us. We would look at renting at first until we got used to the area. So where are the good areas to live-if our job is actually in Ponte Vedra? We don't mind a 20-30 min. commute. What we would be looking for is good schools, nice community(would love one with a pool and playground), also I have seen that Ponte Vedra is most likely out of our price range. We would like to stay under 300k if at all possible, but need at least 4 bedrooms. Is this even possible in St. John's County? I have looked a little bit at Orange Park-how far is that from Ponte Vedra? Any advice on the area would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[riveree]

You can live right in Ponte Vedra, it's part of St. John's county, if that's the county you wanted to live in (Jacksonville is Duval county).

There are nice rentals there, so getting settled in that way should be no problem.

Now buying a 4 bedroom home in a community with pool, etc. for under $300k in Ponte Vedra might be a problem, but once you're here you can look around and see what you think. You can come in a few miles from the beach and buy a decent home for $300k, but it may not be in a development with a pool, etc. So then you come in a few more miles from the beach and you up your chances of getting the pool, etc. Of course, if you can really afford $400k, don't hold back - look at the $400k homes, it's a whole different tier.

Orange Park is waaaaay far from Ponte Vedra - it's 2 counties away . You'd be commuting from St. John's county (Ponte Vedra) through Duval (Jax), across the river (Saint Johns River) and into Clay county (Orange Park). I'd forget that idea entirely.

I notice you're skipping over Jax entirely. If you're priced out of Ponte Vedra, Jacksonville is right there - you can be very close to Ponte Vedra by just jumping over the Intracoastal into zips 32246 & 32224. These are great areas with many A-rated schools and would make an excellent commute to Ponte Vedra .

[FLPL75]

I love Ponte Vedra The other day when I was reading the paper I was looking at rentals in the area and was surprised at the reasonable rent some were asking.
Another area to consider is 32256 the Baymeadows 9A area the elementary and middle schools (Twin Lakes) are both "A" schools. This area is about 17 mins to PV .

Karla

[David in JAX]

Please be aware of a couple of things. Depending on where you are moving from, an A rated school in Florida may be an A+ rated school or an F rated school compared to where you live now. Don't take it for granted that an A rated school is actually a good school. A lot of people move here and regret sending their children to Florida public schools. Also, you may want to do a cost of living analysis before you move here. Do not use the online calculators. It is probably in your best interest to do an item by item comparison of utilities, fuel costs, consumer goods, housing costs, etc. between Jacksonville and your home now. The cost of living in Jacksonville is much more expensive than many areas of the country and a lot of transplants (like me) realize it after they move here. After doing these two things, you will probably have much better idea of where you would like to live before you move here.

[tatismommy]

Thank you for all of the advice so far. Good to know how far out Orange Park is. Sometimes just looking at a map doesn't give you the best idea. I am not against living in Jacksonville, I had just read that St. John's County schools are better. I did look at those zip codes and there does seem to be some nice homes that might fit what we are looking for. The cost of living seems to be comparable to where we are now, I know there are always factors that you don't think about until you are there. In our city now you can't get a decent house for under 250k and the schools are very good. We live a ways out from a lot of stores(we just have a grocery store) and we have to drive to get anywhere. We are just about 25min. away from Salt Lake City and are wanting to escape the cold weather. Last winter in was cold for nearly 6 months straight. If anyone can tell me where to find good rentals and about new home builders that are building nice communities and homes(and where to avoid)I would really appreciate it. Thanks
Jenn

[David in JAX]

You will love the weather in JAX compared to SLC and Ponte Vedra is a very nice area. I personally love Utah (very beautiful in my opinion), but I couldn't live there just because of the winters. Please be advised that the cost of living is a good bit higher in JAX than in SLC (a transplant friend of mine estimated about 15% higher). You may want to try rentclicks.com or rentalhouses.com when you are looking for a rental. SJCounty is very overbuilt right now and a lot of people are renting their homes so it should be very easy to find a rental. I have two friends that are renting homes in northern Saint Augustine while they look for one to purchase that are very happy.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by David in JAX

Depending on where you are moving from, an A rated school in Florida may be an A+ rated school or an F rated school compared to where you live now. Don't take it for granted that an A rated school is actually a good school. A lot of people move here and regret sending their children to Florida public schools.

That's very true. I always say "people don't move to Florida for the schools."

I think a lot of us point out the "A" schools because:

1) You'd want at least an "A" school by Florida standards, and even that may not suffice (if you can afford private school, I'd highly recommend that over ANY of the NorthEast Florida public school systems).

2) There's this misconception that every school in Jacksonville is awful and every school in St. John's county and Clay county is top-notch and this is simply not true. Jacksonville has good schools just as St. Johns and Clay have bad schools - so you want to look before you leap .

[David in JAX]

There's this misconception that every school in Jacksonville is awful and every school in St. John's county and Clay county is top-notch and this is simply not true. Jacksonville has good schools just as St. Johns and Clay have bad schools - so you want to look before you leap .

You are exactly right. I think most people believe that all of Jacksonville's schools are inferior to SJ and Clay county schools no matter what. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jacksonville's Stanton School (public highschool in JAX) is considered one of the top public schools in the country. I know that this is getting off base, but you are exactly right. A newcomer should always look at the individual schools their children would attend and not the districts as a whole.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by David in JAX

You are exactly right. I think most people believe that all of Jacksonville's schools are inferior to SJ and Clay county schools no matter what. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jacksonville's Stanton School (public highschool in JAX) is considered one of the top public schools in the country. I know that this is getting off base, but you are exactly right. A newcomer should always look at the individual schools their children would attend and not the districts as a whole.

Yes, Stanton College Prep is a Duval public high school and it is not only consistently A-rated, but it has national recognition as one of the top schools in the nation.

Paxon is another one (A-rated and national recognition).

Douglas Anderson is also A-rated.

The rest of the Duval high schools are not doing as well as these above though. We have overcrowding which will hopefully be alleviated soon with the new high school being built. Once the pressure is off some of the cramped high schools we'll hopefully see some inprovement.

The new high school will probably fare well with the ratings too I'd imagine. The new ones usually start off well - you can see that with the new high schools in St. John's. The newer St. John's high schools are both A-rated, the other 2 older high schools are rated C & D. Clay county too has it's mix of A, B, C and, up until last year, a few D rated high schools (they've come up from last year's report).

Elementary and Middle schools fare a lot better in all three counties - it's pretty easy to find a neighborhood with an A-rated school in any of them.

[FLPL75]

These are the results from the AP tests that were given
as you can see Stanton had the best results

Advanced Placement test results

During the 2006-07 school year, the number of AP exams taken by Duval County students increased dramatically, while the success rate decreased from 44 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2007. Here is how each high school fared.

1st number is how many passed, 2nd how many took the test 3rd % passed

Douglas Anderson School of the Arts 303 707 43%

Baldwin Middle-High 6 168 4%

Englewood 52 430 12%

First Coast 45 735 6%

Fletcher 472 1795 26%

Forrest 18 426 4%

Andrew Jackson 15 307 5%

Robert E. Lee 15 451 3%

Mandarin 569 1740 33%

Terry Parker 110 908 12%

Paxon School for Advanced Studies 846 1897 45%

Frank H. Peterson Academies of Tech. 10 125 8%

Raines 3 302 1%

A. Philip Randolph Academies of Tech. 3 119 3%

Ribault 0 163 0%

Sandalwood 191 1179 16%

Stanton College Preparatory 1761 2736 64%

Ed White 70 569 12%

Wolfson 192 968 20%

Total 4681 15725 30%