[Cody Dawg]

I love Florida. I love everything about it. I love the diverse landscape with rolling green hills up in north central Florida...the ranchland and savannahs in the middle of the state...the beautiful white powder sand beaches on the gulf of Mexico side...the great surfing on the Atlantic side...the many cities including theme parks in Orlando and the nightlife and art districts in Miami and Sarasota...the little islands off the coastline on the west coast...and of course, the Florida Keys.

But, the hurricanes are getting to me. Every year, it seems like, we are now going through the same thing with the hurricane drill.

Is it getting to anyone else?

Throw in the extremely high cost of living here (where I live the AVERAGE home cost is now $360,000) and other places start to look a little rosier.

Anyone else think the same?

Anyway, I'm just complaining. I won't be moving anytime soon.

[turtle777]

You could move to CA. Same (or worse) housing costs and cost of living, but trading the hurricane threat for earthquakes

-t

[Josh Reid]

Or to NYC, where the average apartment costs $1 million. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A9629C8B63)

No beautiful beaches. No rolling green hills. There's lots of white powder and nightlife, however.

Edit to add: Threat of terrorism.

[Cody Dawg]

Yeah, okay.

Those are good adverse incentives.

[Teronzhul]

I was born in Florida. I like the warm weather, and I can't stand to live away from open water.

Hurricanes can be a bit of a pain, but at least they create one hell of a community building experience

[dreilly1]

Move to beautiful Western NY. The summers are awesome, and no hurricanes.
And the winters? A little bit chilly, and we get just a little bit of snow every now and then.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

I've been to Florida a few times and some of the landscape is rather nice but most of it comes off as a retirement home or tourist trap.

My friend had to work down at the Space Centre for 6 months and she was absolutely miserable down there.

[waxcrash]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

I've been to Florida a few times and some of the landscape is rather nice but most of it comes off as a retirement home or tourist trap.

My grandfather bought a summer home in Florida 40 years ago that is still in the family. Anyone in my extended family is free to stay there whenever they want. I could easily fly from Chicago to Miami for cheap on Southwest and have a place to stay for free, but I haven't been there in 14 years because of the same reasons you point out.

[tooki]

My grandma lives in Lake City. You could sell your house and buy 2 or 3 large houses there!

tooki

[SVass]

Having lived and worked at Cape Canaveral for several years, I am familiar with the area. (I've even been scuba diving off the Keys.) Every place has hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, or hordes of humanity. Every place also has its good points. More important are your friends and neighbors. sam

[sek929]

Florida uses to much concrete and stucco. A very sterile landscape if you ask me.

[MindFad]

You got me.

[Ratm]

Originally Posted by turtle777

You could move to CA. Same (or worse) housing costs and cost of living, but trading the hurricane threat for earthquakes

-t

That's what I did. Truthfully I left Miami in 95 and moved back up to NY but after several years I couldn't take it anymore--it was the snow storms that did it. So I saved up my pennies, packed up my things and moved to Pasadena, CA. This place is unlike anything I've ever seen. I wish I would have moved here sooner.

[nredman]

i hear wearing plastic bags on your head is all the rage in florida

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

I've been to Florida a few times and some of the landscape is rather nice but most of it comes off as a retirement home or tourist trap.

Quoted for emphasis.

Cody, you seem to think that Florida is the centre of the world with it's "extremely high" cost of living and so forth. I think it is about time you are put in your place

Florida was a trendy place to visit in the 70s, but now it is a vacation spot mainly for the lower class traveller. It is a budget destination for package tourists from northern England. A lot of people move there because it is cheap, especially when compared to other states like California. It might have a higher cost of living than, say, Tennessee or Alabama, but that doesn't say much!

[Cody Dawg]

What a stupid thing to say, Kerrigan.

Is that why Spielberg just bought a compound right up here in Wellington? How about Tommy Lee Jones - who lives and plays polo in Wellington, Florida, right here in Palm Beach county? Tori Amos has a place half an hour from us. Miami is FULL of celebrities left and right -- want me to name names? Rod Stewart lives here in Palm Beach part of the year, Donald Trump has a place here, Matt Lauer, Rob Thomas (the singer), Shania Twain, and I could go on and on.

Not that celebrities really matter, mind you.

There is Venus and Serena who live two miles from us in a place called Ballenisles and then there is Tiger Woods who just bought a place here, tons of golfers are here, of course.

It's just that you imply that no one wants to live here which is laughable.

There is a reason why the MTV Awards are being held in Miami now, Kerrigan.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Cody how often do you travel outside the US?

[nredman]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

There is a reason why the MTV Awards are being held in Miami now, Kerrigan.

T & A - sex sells for MTV???

[Kerrigan]

Well of course the elderly like Tommy Lee Jones live in Florida, but as for the rest of the famous people who own homes there, like Donald Trump, they own homes *everywhere* from places as nice as Manhattan to other places out in the middle of nowhere like Colorado or Arizona (or Florida).

When a celebrity wants a place that is hot, cheap, and more predictable than foreign real estate, they buy a home in Florida. And then they visit there for maybe 4 days out of the year during the winter.

Of course you know, I'm just giving you a hard time. In all honestly, in the list of America's most fashionable places, I would definitely rank Miami / South Florida in the top 28.

[laieboy]

How about moving down here to Hawaii where the weather is beautiful all year round...

[Captain Obvious]

Miami does not have a high cost of living compared to other populated areas.
Juniper/North Palm Beach's median home value is not 350K.
And Florida as a whole is trashy and uncouth.

You live there because the government subsidizes your insurance so you can afford to rebuild your homes despite the lack of logic in doing so.

[Doofy]

This thread seems like a good excuse to post a pic of the hardest man in America.

[Cody Dawg]

Juniper/North Palm Beach's median home value is not 350K.

First of all, it's Jupiter, not Juniper.

Captain Obvious you're right. The median home price in Palm Beach county is not $350K.

It's 380K.

And the median home price for Jupiter is $5,600,000 which you can see here.



to you, Captain Obvious.

[Kerrigan]

Thanks to google maps I see that Jupiter Island is not even part of Jupiter City. I see you were intentionally vague in your proclamation that "Jupiter" has a 5mUSD median home price.

The actual city of Jupiter has a median home price of 259,700 dollars, which is not so different from the $225,000 national average.

And Palm Beach County's median home price is skewed by the multi-million dollar mansions, to quote the article you linked.

So no matter how you spin it, South Florida is by no means "extremely expensive", but rather it is just in line with everywhere else in US.

[Cody Dawg]

Show me a home in Jupiter - that is livable - that is $259K AND NOT AN APARTMENT OR A TOWNHOME.

There are NO homes anywhere where I live - townhomes included - that are less than a STARTING PRICE of $400K.

I live across from the water on the ocean so Google some real estate right here - in JUPITER - where I live.

Let me know where I can get oceanfront property for $259K and I'll buy it tonight - seriously.

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

Show me a home in Jupiter - that is livable - that is $259K AND NOT AN APARTMENT OR A TOWNHOME.

$259,500 home, looks liveable to me.

Jupiter may be a nice suburb but it is not the fashionable city of opulence and erudition that you keep boasting about. Face it, it's an average city, and it's taken a real estate bubble just to nudge it past the national median.

[rozwado1]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

My friend had to work down at the Space Centre for 6 months and she was absolutely miserable down there.

LOL. That's because there's nothing to do in the Cape - that's why they decided to shoot rockets off there!

I'm about 30 miles south of there and there's not much to do here either. Nightlife is non-existant, so I have to shoot over to Orlando or down to W.Palm or Miami to get out.

Ehh, hurricanes? They're good for me I guess - Construction industry: hurricanes = money.

edit: I'd say about 60% of the people I know down here would have a hard time affording the home they currently live in today. It's weird because people get stuck in homes because the market value jumps 25% a year. (Not used to that in MI)
It's good if you got here 15 years ago and bought every lot you could - like my cousin.

[Doofy]

Nope, not even starting to get expensive.

[Cody Dawg]

Kerrigan, I just looked that home up and it is out in the middle of Jupiter Farms - out in the non-zoned area that used to be swampland. And, yes, I think it's an okay house, but it's not in a decent school district, it's not anywhere near the beach, it's about 7 miles west of Jupiter proper. It's not even in a decent neighborhood. Yeah, it's an okay house but it is 1400 SQUARE FEET! That's laughable! So, you're in the middle of nowhere, you have 1400 square feet, and it looks poorly built besides - for $259K.

I wouldn't touch that house for anything.

Besides, I never said that I lived in Jupiter. I live NEAR Jupiter across from the ocean. (I live in an area called Captain's Key.)

[budster101]

Move to Chicago. You could then enjoy.

- Frigid Winters
- The Windy City (Very Windy)
- We don't have summer, we have 'Road Construction'
- The Filth
- Corruption (Everywhere)
- Horrible Job Market
- The Tollway System (Lack of System) 80 Cents per Toll, unless you have iPass...
(They were supposed to do away with tolls, now they have outlined a plan to make it automatic and perpetual)

Florida has great roads
Great weather
(I have family all over Florida, and they love it.)

Job market is worse than Illinois...

[Cody Dawg]

budster, you're definitely an honorary Floridian.

[ghporter]

Kerrigan, Tommy Lee Jones is from and lives IN San Antonio, Texas. What made you think he was from Florida?

Sure, there ARE retirement communities all over Florida-some places there have more native New Yorkers than equivalent-sized parts of New York. But you can (and apparently it's easy to do) easily overgeneralize based on that sort of thing.

I wouldn't call Talahassee a "retirement community," for example. Most major college towns would be a bad fit for that term. I remember when I was attending Florida State's extension campus while stationed in Panama being asked to stop by the Registrar's office during normal business hours...it's kind of a long drive from Panama City, Panama to Talahassee...

The "Space Coast" is anything but "retirement oriented." It's aparently all about high tech (Harris RF, among others, is headquartered there).

And the Keys are...different. Key West is more like the French Quarter in New Orleans than any retirement community I've ever heard of.

In Central Texas we have specifically built retirement communities on the Sun City model. But are they what Texas is all about? Not at all. You cannot generalize about a large place just by one or two factors.

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by He said

Kerrigan, Tommy Lee Jones is from and lives IN San Antonio, Texas. What made you think he was from Florida?

Originally Posted by She said

How about Tommy Lee Jones - who lives and plays polo in Wellington, Florida

I assumed iWrite was correct about this, but I guess not?

No offence iWrite, I think you're a great MacNNer and I love your dog's picture and I'm glad you like Florida, but it seems now that nearly everything you've said to me in this thread has been exaggerated.

[ghporter]

Tommy does have a house in Florida-a lot of people have vacation homes there. I didn't really read iWrite's post, or I would have commented on it directly.

[Kerrigan]

Of course, there are few celebrities or truly rich people that actually live in Florida.

Let's see, the most famous people who actually live in Florida for more than 5 days out of the year would probably be Carrot Top and that girl Kendra who was on the Apprentice. But I guess she doesn't count anymore since she moved somewhere south of obscurity.

[cpt kangarooski]

Ugh. I grew up in Florida, and I got out at the first opportunity. Aside from visiting relatives once in a while, I avoid the place like the plague.

Incidentally Cody, one of the main reasons that many wealthy people buy homes in Florida is because there is an exception in the bankruptcy laws that prevents houses in Florida from being seized by your creditors. It's basically just a financial thing, especially since only a few other states allow this, and they're all worse places to live.

As for Tallahassee, that's where I'm originally from, you're right. It's not a retirement town. OTOH, it's boring, it's got horrible weather, it's surrounded by hicks, and has no industry or purpose other than to support the state government and a lot of students at a party school. It suffers from sprawl (as does every other urban center in the state) and is an awful place to be.

Personally, I can't wait until three things happen to Florida: The aquifer dries up due to so much water being wasted on lawns, golf courses, and sugarcane; oil becomes so expensive that people are discouraged from driving, which is the only way of getting around, public transit being such a joke statewide; and oil similarly makes AC too expensive to be used as much as it is now. When this happens, people will flee the state in droves. It's just not livable.

[TailsToo]

After living in Dallas for the last 4 years, I can say that I would gladly take the hurricanes if I could move back! (too bad it's become way to expensive to live in West Palm Beach... even my friends that do live there are starting to move north because they can't make ends meet there.)

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by sek929

Florida uses to much concrete and stucco. A very sterile landscape if you ask me.

As a builder's son I am amazed you don't know the reasons for this. You ever been to Florida?

My opinion on living in Florida:
It's a nice place to visit. During certain seasons Period.

As far as retirement, I'll probably move further North. I want to live where I can't see or hear my neighbor. Vast wastelands of scrub brush and/or forests of trees are my ideal neighbors.

[Cody Dawg]

Tommy just built a huge addition to his polo home down here - he has a huge ranch here.

As far as Florida goes, I'm sure some can take it and some can leave it.

I have a place in Seattle and another place on the west coast of Florida. I would prefer to live in Seattle for half of the year and winter on the west of Florida. But, that's not possible right now for a lot of reasons.

I definitely would rather NOT live in Palm Beach county. Too crowded and too many people from the northeast. I'd much rather live in the middle of nowhere in an old home on some land - kind of like where I grew up (a big farm.)

[sek929]

Originally Posted by budster101

Move to Chicago. You could then enjoy.

- Frigid Winters
- The Windy City (Very Windy)
- We don't have summer, we have 'Road Construction'
- The Filth
- Corruption (Everywhere)
- Horrible Job Market
- The Tollway System (Lack of System) 80 Cents per Toll, unless you have iPass...
(They were supposed to do away with tolls, now they have outlined a plan to make it automatic and perpetual)

Florida has great roads
Great weather
(I have family all over Florida, and they love it.)

Job market is worse than Illinois...

I'll agree with the great roads... But summer in Florida is so unbearably humid its insane. Many people who have lived there come back with less of a tan than I have. They live through air conditioning.

Winter retreat maybe, but summertime is brutal.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Railroader

As a builder's son I am amazed you don't know the reasons for this. You ever been to Florida?

My opinion on living in Florida:
It's a nice place to visit. During certain seasons Period.

As far as retirement, I'll probably move further North. I want to live where I can't see or hear my neighbor. Vast wastelands of scrub brush and/or forests of trees are my ideal neighbors.

I know the reasons, but white (ish) stucco still rules the landscape and is very bland IMO. Even our wood houses up here would withstand way more than those crappy shacks they built pre-Andrew. Fact is even though the houses were at more risk the codes were far more lax than up north, where houses are built to last, not to save as much money as possible.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by sek929

I know the reasons, but white (ish) stucco still rules the landscape and is very bland IMO. Even our wood houses up here would withstand way more than those crappy shacks they built pre-Andrew. Fact is even though the houses were at more risk the codes were far more lax than up north, where houses are built to last, not to save as much money as possible.

They get a lot more sun down there. White reflects the solar rays and reduces a need to cool the interior of the house. It's for economic reasons. Go to Mexico and 90% of the cars are white.

Wood rots fast and is harder to get down there making it more expensive. They also have a greater termite problem. Hence the white concrete stucco houses. A concrete house in colder climates has problems with the temp cycles and doesn't last as long as wood structures.

[sek929]

I'm not arguing about that, purely aesthetics is my only reason.

It might be have a purpose, but its far more bleak, plus palm trees give zero shade.

[Railroader]

You think that way simply because you grew up where you did. They probably don't like the things you like about your area.

Some native Floridians might think "Ugh, you can't see anywhere with all these Maple trees all around. And jeesh, there's a zillion leaves to rack up every Fall, and the trees looks dead!"

[sek929]

Not really. I'd rather live in Virginia than Florida. I've seen quite a bit of Florida, perhaps I am biased towards what an area should look like but its just not my cup of tea. I don't find it overly nice or a paradise. Its a big swamp with no trees and alot of urban sprawl and parking lots.

Floridians have a good cause not to like New England, last year was record snowfall for Cape Cod and I look forward to ice and coldness in the coming months. By no means a perfect area, but I'd rather live here than FL.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by sek929

Not really. I'd rather live in Virginia than Florida. I've seen quite a bit of Florida, perhaps I am biased towards what an area should look like but its just not my cup of tea. I don't find it overly nice or a paradise. Its a big swamp with no trees and alot of urban sprawl and parking lots.

Floridians have a good cause not to like New England, last year was record snowfall for Cape Cod and I look forward to ice and coldness in the coming months. By no means a perfect area, but I'd rather live here than FL.

And I like Michigan because we are surrounded by fresh water and a lot of little small lakes inland. There is a huge variation in the species of trees here and an abundance of forests. I LOVE snow. I even like the look the trees have in the winter with bare branches.

But I bet Floridians love the ocean and the deep water fishing. The swamp hunting and the abundance of wildlife it contains a habitat for. Personally, I don't really like the salty ocean and the year-round heat. But some people love it and I can appreciate that.

It's like any other preference. I hate the color purple, but I can understand someone else loving it.

Your preferences are yours and theirs are theirs. You have to open you mind.

[andi*pandi]

$400k for a coastal home is a steal, and not a fair comparison to "normal" housing costs. Coastal homes in MA (most of New England likely) go for much, much more than that.

[wdlove]

Hi Cody,

I have lived in three different places. It seems that each place has its advantages and disadvantages. One just has to learn to accept both.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

Kerrigan, I just looked that home up and it is out in the middle of Jupiter Farms - out in the non-zoned area that used to be swampland. And, yes, I think it's an okay house, but it's not in a decent school district, it's not anywhere near the beach, it's about 7 miles west of Jupiter proper. It's not even in a decent neighborhood. Yeah, it's an okay house but it is 1400 SQUARE FEET! That's laughable! So, you're in the middle of nowhere, you have 1400 square feet, and it looks poorly built besides - for $259K.

I wouldn't touch that house for anything.

Besides, I never said that I lived in Jupiter. I live NEAR Jupiter across from the ocean. (I live in an area called Captain's Key.)

Cody. You have just called my home cheap and unliveable. Why is it that where the median people live is unliveable? I am 30 minutes from the shore, and that's good enough for normal people.

I have liked every part of the U.S. that I have visited: WA, CA and FL, and I think I would be happy to live in any of those places.

Home is where the dream job is.

[wallinbl]

Originally Posted by Railroader

But I bet Floridians love the ocean and the deep water fishing. The swamp hunting and the abundance of wildlife it contains a habitat for. Personally, I don't really like the salty ocean and the year-round heat. But some people love it and I can appreciate that.

I can play golf 12 months a year. The vegetation is rather bland, and I don't care for palm trees all that much, but I don't have to put up with winter. Sure, you can get the same thing in parts of California, but they have Californians there, and that's worse than winter.