Who has made the move to FL?

[dznyacct]

I have lived in Indiana all my life and dream about moving to Florida someday soon hopefully. My husband is a hard sell because of the hot summers. I have promised him a house with a pool. Our son is finishing up his PhD in Physics and is starting his job search. He's looking in the Spacecoast area. I think if he moved there, I could twist my husband's arm to move. We have a few friends in the Orlando area and have picked their brain on what cities would be a good fit for us. We are looking at Winter Garden or the Clermont area. The cold, ice and snow of the Midwest winters are getting unbearable for me.

 

[TeamSherrill05]

Chiming in just to follow along! Also interested in moving to Florida (the space coast area), coming from Oklahoma.

We are looking to move from Oklahoma in January, want somewhere between Lakeland and the Atlantic.

 

[Tylerxxo]

I have lived in Indiana all my life and dream about moving to Florida someday soon hopefully. My husband is a hard sell because of the hot summers. I have promised him a house with a pool. Our son is finishing up his PhD in Physics and is starting his job search. He's looking in the Spacecoast area. I think if he moved there, I could twist my husband's arm to move. We have a few friends in the Orlando area and have picked their brain on what cities would be a good fit for us. We are looking at Winter Garden or the Clermont area. The cold, ice and snow of the Midwest winters are getting unbearable for me.

I live in clermont! Beautiful town, not too busy.

 

[NinaBella]

Have him create a profile for USAjobs.gov.

 

[wendow]

I live in clermont! Beautiful town, not too busy.

Is this a good town for families?

 

[Tylerxxo]

Is this a good town for families?

Yes. Clermont is safe and has fantastic schools. Montverde academy is one of the top schools. I believe it’s k-12. I went through all school here and attended the state college we have called lake Sumter. The larger university called university of central Florida is driving distance that a lot of students do. Olympians train here too which is neat. A lot of bicyclists year round so the speed limits are relatively lower. A lot of people commute to either Orlando or Maitland area for work. We are also really close to Disney ^_^. We are in lake county so we are surrounded by a bunch of lakes. Clermont is also full of hills which makes it breezy.

 

[seasheller]

We have spent winters in Florida for the past 21 years, but would never live here permanently. We go back to Wisconsin (recently moved to Minnesota). Sold our Florida house last March, but hubby wanted to get away from the snow again this winter so we are back and renting for two months. First thing the realtor and the TV technician told us when we arrived was how unbearable the summer had been - worst in many years. Allegies now are awful. While we owned the Florida house, the homeowners insurance cost three times as much as our Wisconsin insurance even though the Wisconsin house was worth three times as much as the Florida house. Florida seems to have continual problems with electrical/telephone wiring no matter where we lived - rented several different places before buying a home here, but experienced outages everywhere. Issues with drinking water - and then there are the sinkholes. If you come here watch where you settle to live. I'm ready to leave for home in a few weeks even though we will have snow when we get there.

 

[wendow]

Yes. Clermont is safe and has fantastic schools. Montverde academy is one of the top schools. I believe it’s k-12. I went through all school here and attended the state college we have called lake Sumter. The larger university called university of central Florida is driving distance that a lot of students do. Olympians train here too which is neat. A lot of bicyclists year round so the speed limits are relatively lower. A lot of people commute to either Orlando or Maitland area for work. We are also really close to Disney ^_^. We are in lake county so we are surrounded by a bunch of lakes. Clermont is also full of hills which makes it breezy.

This sounds like a really lovely town! My kind of place

 

[wendow]

We have spent winters in Florida for the past 21 years, but would never live here permanently. We go back to Wisconsin (recently moved to Minnesota). Sold our Florida house last March, but hubby wanted to get away from the snow again this winter so we are back and renting for two months. First thing the realtor and the TV technician told us when we arrived was how unbearable the summer had been - worst in many years. Allegies now are awful. While we owned the Florida house, the homeowners insurance cost three times as much as our Wisconsin insurance even though the Wisconsin house was worth three times as much as the Florida house. Florida seems to have continual problems with electrical/telephone wiring no matter where we lived - rented several different places before buying a home here, but experienced outages everywhere. Issues with drinking water - and then there are the sinkholes. If you come here watch where you settle to live. I'm ready to leave for home in a few weeks even though we will have snow when we get there.

Sinkholes do concern me. How common are they?

 

[floridafam]

Sinkholes can happen. There’s no real way to predict where or when.

True about the electrical outages. Our power went out just this morning for no reason. FPL has been making upgrades to try and address the problems.

You need a generator here, for sure. Our power was out for three days after Irma. Four days after the storm before Irma.

We have the special roof straps, the nails, a new roof, impact windows and doors, etc. All of this helps keep our insurance premiums down.

 

[westcoastfldisneygirl]

I've been in central Florida since I was 7 (25 now). I absolutely LOVE my state, I can't imagine being anywhere else. We bathe in orange juice, ride an alligator to work, and always wear a bathing suit under our clothes (kidding)

true that.

And eat Publix subs all day everrrrryyyyyyy day (chicken finger sub with ranch is the bomb)

 

[Tylerxxo]

true that.

And eat Publix subs all day everrrrryyyyyyy day (chicken finger sub with ranch is the bomb)

It's all about Publix!!!

 

[SandyinMonterey]

And willing to share how you like it and have adjusted to FL?

We are considering moving from CO (we are native Texans) where we have lived since graduating from college. It's something we have been talking about for about 10 years. We're both a bit weary of the cold and longing for more of a 'warm weather state'. Our oldest graduates this year so it seems like an ok time to move and she is chronically ill and the cold here in CO is very hard on her physically. She does really well when we are in FL or back home in TX.

Moving back to TX is high on our list since all our family is there but we aren't closed to other states. I grew up vacationing in FL, and we vacation there once a year (mostly WDW). He has job alerts set up for both TX and FL and lots more comes up for FL.

Just wondering if anyone else has moved to FL, if you were not from there and knew no one, and how you like it? My dh sees a lot of jobs in jacksonville but I've never been to Jacksonville so I have trouble getting on board. I'm not 'married' to having to live in Orlando and just curious what the other cities are like...for families...I've got 4 kids, 1 will enter college, other 3 homeschooled but we stay very active in community activities.

Anyone want to share with me? I'd so appreciate it!

We almost moved to Florida in 2006, to Lighthouse Point to be exact. At the time, real estate was booming and a 1950's major fixer upper on the canal could easily run a million dollars. We were living in California at the time, originally from NJ. When I looked into car and home insurance, I was shocked. It was so expensive. A lot more than what we were paying in California. Our car insurance would of more than doubled. At the time, our insurance company wasn't writing policies in Florida and we'd have to go under an "umbrella". I now live in Georgia. I love where I live now but the summer months do wear on me. I've seen to run into many people who have moved here to Georgia from Florida. Mainly for work. They say work/jobs are unstable and hard to come and it's mostly tourism jobs. Also been told that Jacksonville and Panama City are horrible places to live. But, if it's something you're really interested in....visit, do your research.

 

[floridafam]

How could I forget about pub subs?

Yummy

 

[wendow]

How could I forget about pub subs?

Yummy

Dh & I are visiting different cities in April. Will have to stop by a Publix for a sub

 

[wendow]

So, lots of talk about high car and house insurance. I'm curious what everyone considers "high".

Here in CO, our house insurance is just over $1600 year. We have a pretty avg policy, not cheapest and not most expensive.

Car insurance is $1800 year...three cars, three drivers (one teen)...two old cars (2004, 2005) and one newer (2016). Again an average policy.

 

[floridafam]

We moved here in 2004 between two large hurricanes. We evacuated to Disney twice.

You have to get used to having an evacuation plan in case of a storm. We stayed here for Irma. The highways were at a standstill and there wasn’t a hotel room available anywhere. We had a long break without a storm but Irma was pretty bad. Gas stations ran out of gas, Publix was closed, etc.

 

[floridafam]

We pay $1500 per year to insure our house. We were looking at $5000 per year until we had a wind mitigation done and received credit for all the hurricane proofing we did. Not all companies write policies in FL. A lot of people get thrown into Citizen’s Insurance. It is the insurer of last resort.

In most cases, it doesn’t make sense for us to even file a claim because our rates will double.

 

[floridafam]

DS’s university was closed for two weeks after hurricane Irma hit. As soon as they said they were closing, he packed up and got a ride home in the middle of the night. We didn’t want him getting stuck on 95 with no shelter.

Going back to a dorm, that had no AC and no power to all the mini fridges for two weeks, was interesting.

 

[wendow]

We moved here in 2004 between two large hurricanes. We evacuated to Disney twice.

You have to get used to having an evacuation plan in case of a storm. We stayed here for Irma. The highways were at a standstill and there wasn’t a hotel room available anywhere. We had a long break without a storm but Irma was pretty bad. Gas stations ran out of gas, Publix was closed, etc.

We were actually in Orlando before Irma and flew out right before MCO closed. Because I am from TX and my family had all just gone through Harvey, I was watching the storm at Disney and went ahead and bumped up our flight days before flights started being cancelled. By the time most people at Disney started paying attention, flights were full. Anyways, definitely reminded me of hurricane evacuations I experienced growing up.