SoCal or SoFl???? (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton: crime, lawyer, landscaping)

[skylinet]

Originally Posted by 800acess

I live in South Florida for 11 years. I would move out in a sec if I could. I lived in SD for 3 years. Friendly people, good food and just an hour drive to LA.
Florida is a dump. Overpriced houses, corrupt polititians, a huge number of police officers ready to write a ticket and a very high crime rate <they are writing tickets>.
If you read the Palm Beach Post you will see that they are ready to raise property taxes 25%.
People talk about the beaches. The nice ones, you have no acess and no parking. The ones that you can go, bring a kilo of coins, you gonna need.

My advise, read the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald and Sunsentinel online.
I'm sure that you don't want to give your kids this type of life.

Then you should move...
Property value is about half of what it is in South Cali. not sure what rock you've been under. Please go and try and find a similar house to what you are in here, in Cali for what you are paying. You will get laughed at.
Tax rates are going up because assessed value is going down.
My advice read the Palm Beach Post then go read a paper over there and you'll see there's crime, and corruption everywhere, welcome to 2009.
South Florida has beautiful beaches and there are many where you don't have to pay or if you do have to pay it's not that much.
UGH...

[800acess]

Originally Posted by skylinet

Then you should move...
Property value is about half of what it is in South Cali. not sure what rock you've been under. Please go and try and find a similar house to what you are in here, in Cali for what you are paying. You will get laughed at.
Tax rates are going up because assessed value is going down.
My advice read the Palm Beach Post then go read a paper over there and you'll see there's crime, and corruption everywhere, welcome to 2009.
South Florida has beautiful beaches and there are many where you don't have to pay or if you do have to pay it's not that much.
UGH...

If you buy my house i would move the next minute.
Wrong, property taxes are 1% in Ca. PBC is 2% and going up.
Almost 50% of PBC budget is for law enforcement and firefighters.
November we will vote a 13% raise in sales taxes so FF's will have a better pension.
Yes houses here are much cheaper but it comes with crime and corruption.
Again if you think PBC is a great place to live and invest, I have a great house to sell in Wellington. Wanna make an offer so I can move out this dump?

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by 800acess

If you buy my house i would move the next minute.
Wrong, property taxes are 1% in Ca. PBC is 2% and going up.
Almost 50% of PBC budget is for law enforcement and firefighters.
November we will vote a 13% raise in sales taxes so FF's will have a better pension.
Yes houses here are much cheaper but it comes with crime and corruption.
Again if you think PBC is a great place to live and invest, I have a great house to sell in Wellington. Wanna make an offer so I can move out this dump?

Lol, sales tax in CA is a BASE of 8.25%, with some areas adding on municipal sales taxes to make the rate even higher. Income taxes range from 1% to over 10% (A person making over 43k will pay NINE POINT THREE PERCENT of income in TAXES. I don't know how much YOU make, but that means a person making a decent-but-not-great wage of 43k will pay 4000 in income taxes!!!)

Oh yeah, and your housing prices are about double for comparable properties.

How on earth do people EXPECT to have a functioning government without ANY income tax and dirt cheap property taxes? Anybody? Got a solution?


BTW, I'm sorry you find the crime in WELLINGTON to be horrible. If you think Wellington is full of crime, a full 95% of the country is a "no go" for you. Nobody told you to pay too much for your zero lot line house at the height of the bubble. It's not the "location" that's the problem here, but lack of foresight and business acumen.

[800acess]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

Lol, sales tax in CA is a BASE of 8.25%, with some areas adding on municipal sales taxes to make the rate even higher. Income taxes range from 1% to over 10% (A person making over 43k will pay NINE POINT THREE PERCENT of income in TAXES. I don't know how much YOU make, but that means a person making a decent-but-not-great wage of 43k will pay 4000 in income taxes!!!)

Oh yeah, and your housing prices are about double for comparable properties.

How on earth do people EXPECT to have a functioning government without ANY income tax and dirt cheap property taxes? Anybody? Got a solution?


BTW, I'm sorry you find the crime in WELLINGTON to be horrible. If you think Wellington is full of crime, a full 95% of the country is a "no go" for you. Nobody told you to pay too much for your zero lot line house at the height of the bubble. It's not the "location" that's the problem here, but lack of foresight and business acumen.

Actually my zero lot line measure 1 full acre and I have 5 years left in a 15 years mortage. You talk like a realtor. Wellington is becomming a gheto. Drive in the square Forest Hill Southern 441 and you will see the gheto.

South FLorida is a dump, period. Completely different from 11 years ago.
Where also can you find a bunch of city comissioners in Federal Jail?
I wonder, are you a realtor or just a government employee looking for more people to support your lifestyle?

Stay out of S Florida is a DUMP.

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by 800acess

Actually my zero lot line measure 1 full acre and I have 5 years left in a 15 years mortage. You talk like a realtor. Wellington is becomming a gheto. Drive in the square Forest Hill Southern 441 and you will see the gheto.

Not a realtor, and not city government, but thank you.

BTW, it's "ghetTo"... just like it's acCess.

BTW, Wellington 11 years ago was pretty much horses and houses. Not much going on. You are free to move elsewhere. To California even.

Originally Posted by 800acess

South FLorida is a dump, period. Completely different from 11 years ago.
Where also can you find a bunch of city comissioners in Federal Jail?
I wonder, are you a realtor or just a government employee looking for more people to support your lifestyle?

Stay out of S Florida is a DUMP.

I wonder if you're the same guy named "Frank" that posted almost the exact same thing on the Palm Beach Post today? Are you really that miserable?

[THX 1138]

Originally Posted by 800acess

If you buy my house i would move the next minute.
Wrong, property taxes are 1% in Ca. PBC is 2% and going up.
Almost 50% of PBC budget is for law enforcement and firefighters.
November we will vote a 13% raise in sales taxes so FF's will have a better pension.
Yes houses here are much cheaper but it comes with crime and corruption.
Again if you think PBC is a great place to live and invest, I have a great house to sell in Wellington. Wanna make an offer so I can move out this dump?

The proposed fire tax increase is 17.2% for Wellington. That's about a .50 cent per $1K of taxable value over the current rate. This is to be used to pay for fire/rescue services and only effects those areas that use Palm Beach Fire/Rescue services.

Palm Beach County has proposed a 15% tax rate hike, which would be .36 cents over the current rate per $1K of taxable value.

Supposedly the tax increase would be transparent to over half the property owners in PB County due to the declined home values you probably wouldn't notice an increase.

In California, at least San Diego the property tax rate is around 1.2% and also your taxes will never increase over 2%/year unlike here shortfall let's raise taxes an absurd amount. There is something in San Diego called Mello-Roos which is another tax plan that makes you pay more, but I don't know much about it.

I think the biggest thing is personal income tax in California, sales tax and home prices in general are higher. Anyone who makes over $47K/year would be paying 9.3%.

I guess you can look at that as they might have lower property taxes but they are getting you elsewhere.

The point is, this crap exist in CA too.

[THX 1138]

Originally Posted by 800acess

Actually my zero lot line measure 1 full acre and I have 5 years left in a 15 years mortage. You talk like a realtor. Wellington is becomming a gheto. Drive in the square Forest Hill Southern 441 and you will see the gheto.

South FLorida is a dump, period. Completely different from 11 years ago.
Where also can you find a bunch of city comissioners in Federal Jail?
I wonder, are you a realtor or just a government employee looking for more people to support your lifestyle?

Stay out of S Florida is a DUMP.

I have to admit Wellington has indeed changed, there are areas that are ghetto'ish or attract the element, thanks to "Section 8 accepted" rentals. You can see the bad looking areas, between Wellington Trace & The 12th Fairway across from Publix on Forest Hill Blvd, same area that school teacher (who was having sex with his students) shot the intruder who was trying to rob him. Also around Wellington Trace and Greenview Shores, real nice area.

Do these places look as bad as other areas in the county, no but they sure look out of place in Welly World and 10+ years ago you didn't see that stuff around here.

You can thank the mall for the influx of crime, ask the PBSO office in the old Wellington mall to release crime data on how often they are over at the mall and you will see. I go to the mall once and a blue moon because I think it sucks and attracts trash and I always see PBSO nearly each time I'm there.

[faithfulFrank]

800access,

I'm sorry you are so unhappy where you are. Life is indeed too short to be unhappy.
As a Professional Firefighter for 18 years, and having a career in law enforcement before that, (I live in NY state) I take offense at your ridicule of firefighters and Police officers.

Now I know nothing about the departments down there. I hear they make much less then I do in NY, but I do know that I earn every penny of my paycheck, doing and seeing things you will never see.

Do I think government is too big and wasteful......yes. But the primary goal of Government is to keep people safe, so IMHO, military, law enforcement and fire/ems is the primary reason for gov't.

It's funny....everyone wants to bash us until they are having a heart attack, car accident or their house is burning.

If you think you can do my job, then take the tests.....no one gave me my job, I earned it.

Respectfully, Frank (not the guy from your local newspaper)

[thitzler]

I lived in SoCal off and on from 1993 to 2007 and you will absolutley love the weather. Around mid-summer my frined from Miami would come to visit because he could no longer tolerate the the high heat and humidity in FL. And then again I have a friend on the east coast of Florida that tells me the weather is really only bad for a couple of months. Still, there is no comparison in my book - So Cal is hands-down some of the best (most comfortable) weather in the US. Warm days to be outside and enjoy nature and cool nights for nice sleeping.

It is true that in general most everything in So Cal costs a bit more than the national average. Housing is an exception - it is outrageously expensive in many areas. Sperling's Web Site will allow you to run a cost of living comparison between cities. Check it out.

The few surprises you will find is the low cost of utilities in So Cal. I had no a/c and did not need it, so I only had a small electric bill. Running an a/c for 5 - 6 months in Florida will cost you. Also, the home insurance in many coastal areas of Florida is very expensive. That I can understand with all the storms, but also be cautious of car insurance. My rates moving from suburban Chicago to Sarasota would have doubled.

Good luck. I think both areas are nice.

[SAKIRAV]

I love Florida as I may have said a few times here, but hands down if I were younger, single and a few other reasons, I'd be in California by tomorrow morning. I'm NOT JOKING. GL wherever you go.