I have never lived there (SW FL) but have going there since I was a baby and own a vacation condo on Fort Myers Beach.

Since you know what you like about it, I'll play devils advocate:

Are you prepared for the crowds of snow-birds and tourists that will flock down there during the "season"? Where we go, the traffic is horrible during this time and restaurants and stores are super crowded.

Likewise, are you prepared for the long, hot boring summers? My mother complains that no one comes outside in the summer and any outside activity has to take place before 10am (like golfing).

My only other comment would be that you may be a little on the young side for the area -- .

Now is a great time to buy down there. Prices are still low and have not bounced back that much. Just don't expect to get your money back if you want to sell within a few years...

Thanks stir fryi

I realize we are on the younger side but we have always wanted a house on the water and prices are such that we can afford it! Homes that were selling for 1.5 million are now on the market for 650k. This seems to be the time to buy. We have at least 2 interested parties on our current house so that is one less worry.

I am thinking most of the nicer beach areas in FL would be crowded during tourist season so I think I am somewhat prepared for that.

We have a summer cottage on Lake Erie in OH so we will not be summering in FL.

My husband is a pilot so he can have as many as 15-16 days off a month. We are not in to the night club scene so we know not too expect too much in that area. We plan on doing a lot of traveling around the country too. Just hoping oldest son finds a job when he graduates college in May or he may be picking out paint colors for his room!

A side note. We really like Fort Myers Beach too. Have been there in season and yes it is very busy but I guess that is the price you pay for 80 degree weather in February!

I think you should come down for a couple of weeks to try out more of the other nice Gulf coast cities that have what you are looking for (canal homes for boat owners, which just happens to be my Real Estate specialty!)

A few things to consider:
- Proximity to a major airport. You say you will be traveling often (to visit kids and someday grandkids)? Your DH will be based at MIA? That 3-hour commute across Alligator Alley will get very old, very fast, and unless you have accommodating good friends nearby, you'll be driving over the night before and staying in a hotel to catch early flights.
- Proximity to shopping and services. That Publix on Marco Island is tiny. No idea where the nearest Home Depot is. May not have a decent selection of doctors or dentists, specialists. Library. (At least you don't have to worry about schools anymore!)
- Snowbirds and tourists have more of an impact on those places that have narrow roads (and often drawbridges) with one-lane-each-way access, such as Marco Island (although I think I recall two narrow lanes)... can get way, way backed up. I've seen the Pinellas Bayway back up miles to I-275. Tough luck for people who live on Tierra Verde.
- How is the city doing financially? Many of the small towns have taken huge hits in income and cut non-essential services. Believe it or not, in some places, the cities own the seawalls, and don't have the money to repair them. (I discovered this trying to research seawall failures during hurricanes since they are not insurable.)

So, I'm 47 (retired Navy pilot) and live in a 3/2/2 canal house with a big sailboat and small powerboat in the back. Saint Petersburg offers restaurants, culture, and arts and I'm exactly 30 min door-to-door to TPA. The age spread and diversity here is terrific. Schools are amazing (both my sons are in a nationally-ranked high school program). Fishing and sailing are fantastic. The library system and public parks are great. The Tampa Bay Rays have made the Playoffs again last year (and despite what they say, the Trop is the BEST, and this is coming from a very recent baseball fan). So be sure to check St Pete out when you visit!

Also, feel free to contact me if you want to discuss things to look out for and check up on when looking for a canal home for a boat (more critical for a sailboat). I was fortunate to have a sailboat owner agent help me find this place, because I can't tell you how many clueless agents we worked with in other parts of country before we found what we were looking for (deep water, no short fixed bridges). Of course, a new fixed bridge to St Pete Beach that's going up has now trapped my next-door neighbor's boat, who now has to traverse miles up the intracoastal to get out John's Pass because they don't have an intracoastal mast. I promise I'm not trying to sell you anything, just trying to help out! (myGWhandle) at hotmail.com

Good luck!
Lisa A.

Just a note, who will be watching and taking care of your property if you go to Ohio during the summer and will the insurance still pay if you do not spend a certain number of days there--by that I mean, in CA if you go off for over 30 days, the insurance can and sometime does declare the property abandoned and cancel your insurance. that is why when we traveled, we had a neighbor stay their plus they took care of the pets.
Just a thought. What about mail?

marie -- snow birds leave their up north homes vacant and down south homes vacant all the time -- I have never heard of anyone having their insurance canceled (as long as they pay the premiums!). Mail is not an issue -- you just have it forwarded to where you are going to be. My parents did it for 18 years.

c9pilot -- good point about the commute to Miami. We have driven it from Fort Myers to get on a cruise ship and I agree it would get old. Also good points about living on Marco Island. On Fort Myers Beach traffic is really bad in season and going "off-island" to Walmart or Home Depot is basically an all morning project. We also have a small Publix on the island which I am so thankful for!

One more thing to thing of --- the FL homestead exemption is not nearly as good as other places (like Michigan, where I live). You can only take $25,000 off of your taxable value whereas in MI we only pay property taxes on half the taxable value of our home. The lack of state income tax is certainly appealing though.

It is a great time to buy down there -- just be really sure because your property value is not likely to increase much for a long time. Let us know what you end up doing!

"The market is such that we can afford a 3/2 on a canal"---

Don't overlook the high homeowners insurance rates. You'll need a flood policy too. Collier county among other lower SW florida areas; has a fairly active history of hurricane force winds.

C

We moved here because the trade-offs made a move to Florida pretty even financially...higher home and boat insurance, but no income taxes. Add flood insurance, but subtract slip fees for the boat(s) and dry storage fees. Limited income potential (for a computer programmer vice remaining near Silicon Valley) but much lower cost-of-living (than California anywhere).

But I would give more thought to stir-fry's comment about being too young for some of the communities. Make sure you can stay active and enjoy the sports and hobbies that you are interested in. Don't grow old early. Not that I don't enjoy an afternoon playing mah jongg with the ladies, but that's after a morning of sailing on days that I'm not bike riding. Outdoor photography, kayaking, swimming. There are so many things to do, I'm turning stuff down all the time. Make sure there are lots of opportunities to enjoy your Florida lifestyle.

And make sure that you have someone to cover your windows and take care of your boat (probably put in dry storage anyway) during hurricane season in case there is a storm warning while you are up north. A lot of people put them up when they leave town, but then your house screams "I'm totally empty for months...rob me!"

I'm loving this thread!

Thanks all for the good advice! There is so much to think about before uprooting our lives.

Fortunately the housing market we are in now has remained stable and we have at least two very serious parties interested in purchasing our house which is not even listed just word of mouth. This makes our house hunt a little easier since we know what we can afford. We will be factoring in insurance fees and maintenance fees too. I would hope there would be bonded services that could upkeep the property while we were away since there seems to be many other snowbirds in the area.

We will be looking on the lower end of what we can afford so a fixer will be fine and will keep me busy for quite some time. We are boaters and bikers so those will definitely be in the future. I am a gym person so I would think that would be a good place to meet people also as long as it is not silver sneakers!

We hope to finally take advantage of our travel benefits and see all the places we have talked about over the years. I volunteer at an animal shelter here so hope to do more of the same.

C9 pilot thanks for your helpful advice. I am not sure if our search will take us as far north as you but I would definitely touch base with you for ideas. DH has spent 25 years commuting to New York, Chicago and Miami so a 2 hour drive will be like a dream come true for him!

Since you're talking about a fixer, if you need windows, consider impact windows, which will save you the trouble of having to worry about having someone put up shutters. They are pricey, though.

But keep in mind that impact windows will still break...but the glass holds together because of the film applied to them, and that helps prevent intrusion into the house. If they get hit, they will still need to be replaced.
Everyone will tell you that if you replace, you are REQUIRED to get impact windows and doors, but be sure to check with your code, because almost all ( if not all) allow the shutter option. If you choose to do shutters, you will have more options in style and design. However the windows will still need to have a Florida product number to be installed, which meets minimum wind and fire code and some other requirements, but lower than impact windows. We are sad that there are no longer any approved Miami windows to be found, although we learned they are still made for the export market to the Caribbean.
I have friends that did a horrible remodel that might have been redeemed had they used Florida windows vice impact. They had a grouping of windows to make a peaked design placed on the water view side of the room, but since they were impact, they had huge frames and tiny panes and basically, you can't really see outside much. Sure, they would have had to store shutters in their garage (like we do for our non-impact custom mahogany front door), but goodness, we haven't put them up since we moved here (5.5 years ago). The most we've done is strip the canvas and sails from the boats and double up the lines and fenders.
Just more things to consider!

>Everyone will tell you that if you replace, you are REQUIRED to get impact windows and doors

Hmm, I live on a barrier island off the east coast and I have never heard anyone say that.

It is true that impact glass will shatter if it gets hit with something, but shutters can also break when that happens, and more disastrously.

>since they were impact, they had huge frames and tiny panes

Confused by this. It's true that the frame of an impact window goes further into the wall, but it should not make any difference at all in the amount of visible glass. There are places, like my upstairs sliders, where I couldn't use impact glass because there's not enough wall at the sides to anchor them properly, but if there were, the amount of actual window would be identical with regular glass.

Ultimately it's all a question of balancing budget and convenience.

I will say that whatever you do, hang on to the certification as if your life depended on it. Many of my neighbors got huge jumps in their insurance premiums this year despite having the same shutters they've always had, since the reinspector dinged them for not having certification stickers on the shutters, and they couldn't get a copy of the certification paperwork since the shutter company has been sold recently and the new owner won't do anything about shutters installed by the previous owner of the business.

@writersblock-
">Everyone will tell you that if you replace, you are REQUIRED to get impact windows and doors
Hmm, I live on a barrier island off the east coast and I have never heard anyone say that."

- If you're not in Florida, you may not have heard this. It may even be just south Florida. It seems to come up in discussion with Realtors, contractors, neighbors, etc, and thinking about it, just conversations with people who live here in St Pete or more south (Ft Myers, Cape Coral, Marco Island, Sanibel, Captiva, Keys, etc).
And it's not just limited to windows - people just don't check the code requirements themselves - they rely on what some contractor told them or how their neighbor had to do it - I saw this also with building our pool (setbacks and such, which changed dramatically the year we built ours) and seawalls and docks and lifts (the major improvements we did to our house) One particularly opinionated neighbor even asked if we had talked to our insurance company before we planted our Royal Palms.

">since they were impact, they had huge frames and tiny panes
Confused by this. It's true that the frame of an impact window goes further into the wall, but it should not make any difference at all in the amount of visible glass. There are places, like my upstairs sliders, where I couldn't use impact glass because there's not enough wall at the sides to anchor them properly, but if there were, the amount of actual window would be identical with regular glass."

- What you describe is exactly the problem. It was a grouping of (I recall) about 4 or 6 separate impact windows where one would normally put a large picture window (I don't know if it was less expensive to do this way or why they didn't put in one window - but even they now admit that this add-on was a mistake). And the window panes are slightly smaller and the frames slightly bigger on the impact windows you buy here (Maybe just Florida? Miami-Dade code we all have to follow now).
But if you can imagine the framing support requirements for each window, it put about, I don't know, 8-10" between the window frames (seems like more). The main horizontal support between the upper and lower windows is right at my eye height (I'm 5'7") and I can't see into the upper windows without hopping up, and have to squat a little to see out the lower windows. Remember this is the waterview side of the room. There are new tenants moving in right now, but maybe I can sneak over and get a picture from the outside sometime...

Your neighbors' insurance story is awful. I can't believe they need certification for shutters, but I assume it's the insurance company inspector and they can do whatever they want.
The city inspector didn't even look at the certification for our one impact window (for egress) because he was familiar enough with the PGT brand that he took one look and knew it was fine. For the front door, he just looked at the anchors around the door, and saw the shutters stacked in the garage, and signed off. I had pictures on my camera to show him with the shutters installed and he just waved me off.
My insurance company hasn't even asked, and we have almost all original single-pane Miami windows (with no shutters) and we don't want to replace them because you can't get them here anymore (unless we do it unpermitted). But we are concrete block, didn't insure the carpet, and the rest of the house is tile, and we have a newer tile roof. Those are bigger factors here for insurance.

Wow! It seems there is a lot to research carefully while house hunting in Florida. I tend to focus more on the details while DH is looking at the boat lift and fishing reports.

We have been talking about this move for many years now and it looks as if that time has finally arrived-just looking back at how quickly children grow and time flies!

On a day like today -5 wind chill I can say it will be nice to be in the sun!

Hello, c9pilot. I have lived in Fl (Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Sanibel, Hutchinson Island) pretty much my whole life. The barrier island I live on now is just north of Palm Beach. I am talking about Citizens when I mention insurance difficulties.

EDIT and for sure anyone moving to FL is extremely likely to be forced to Citizens for their windstorm coverage now.

For example:

Here is a link that might be useful: reinspection denials palm beach post article

This post was edited by writersblock on Tue, Jan 22, 13 at 17:38

To the OP, yes please do some serious research about homeowner's insurance before you purchase. Of course much depends on whether or not you are a cash buyer. If you are, you have the option to decide whether or not to 'self insure', and not accept the usurious and outrageous gouging that is going on now from insurers to customers in this state. If you have a mortgage you will be forced to pay (and pay and pay and pay and pay) for coverage.

I live in Miami and dropped homeowner's insurance this year. My carrier, USAA, attempted through a reinspection to raise my premiums by 300%. What is happening here is that insurers are raising premiums sky high based on deciding the homes are not in compliance with new standards they are establishing. In many cases, including mine, the homes were previously within code and indeed often had gone through storms with no damage but are simply now designated as being too risky based on the insurer changing the rules. It's absolutely ludicrous and infuriating.

In addition, often the deductible is enormous as well. When I did the math, it made no sense to pay almost $10,000 in premiums knowing that I would also have to cover another $30,000 deductible before I saw a penny of coverage. And that is an *annual* cost. For a run of bad storm cycles I might be shelling out forty grand annually! At that point I said no thanks and dropped it. I had my trees professionally trimmed and will have a full set of impact windows installed in 2 weeks.

Ahem, sorry to digress but homeowner's insurance is a MAJOR MAJOR factor in housing expenses in Florida. Definitely a topic worth researching and understanding if you are buying residential property.

@runninginplace-
Would you post a few specifics about what standards you are now "out of compliance" with?
I have USAA too (got in just before they stopped writing policies in FL - now they only write new policies for active duty with orders here). The only thing I remember doing a year or two ago is filling out a couple of pages about the type of construction and roof and flooring and windows and such.
Our premiums are about $4700 to cover under $300K for the dwelling plus standard other coverage and liability and such. This does not include flood, which I can't seem to locate right now, but might be around $1500? Not being on the barrier island, we are in a "B" evacuation zone although I think the flood zoning is the same for both. And I believe Tampa Bay hasn't been hit by a direct hurricane (knock on wood) for about 80 years.

C9, not sure if this is of general interest but in response to your query: I have a tile roof, replaced in 2006 by a licensed roofer who followed all Miami-Dade codes at the time. Code and USAA standards were that the hurricane clips on (I think) every third beam were sufficient. This cycle, the standard was changed to require clips on every beam instead of every third.

After the mandatory inspection which revealed this 'deficit' in my roof, and after receiving a quote which raised the premium from $3200 to $8900, I contacted my roofer who explained that to retrofit my roof with the now required beams it would cost a MINIMUM of $10,000-$20,000 and necessitate removing at least a third of the 6 year old (with an estimated lifespan of 30) roof.

My house was constructed in 1950 and has sustained not a penny's worth of storm damage since at least our purchase in 1989. This includes hurricanes Andrew in 1992-and I live None of which made any difference to the insurer. So I said so long to USAA after 25 years.

Bitter? Me? Does it show that much?!

Am I the only one who thinks this hurricane hysteria is overblown, at least for SW FL? In Fort Myers we have had one direct hit hurricane in the last 30 years -- Charlie. Our condo had torn screens on the lanai. My DH freaked and spent $10,000 on electric hurricane shutters -- worse thing we ever did! We have spent over $1,000 on repairs when we have had renters come in and say that they won't go up. We are on the 7th fl so they charge much more to service.

>Ahem, sorry to digress but homeowner's insurance is a MAJOR MAJOR factor in housing expenses in Florida. Definitely a topic worth researching and understanding if you are buying residential proper

Yes, this is sadly true. Also, if you are looking at any kind of property where there is a condo association/HOA that carries the master policy, be aware that most of these are very under insured these days. If you are looking at that sort of situation (where you only carry contents insurance and the association insures the structure of your home) you might want to price assessment insurance, since assessments can be formidable when there's major structural damage.

However, the "we haven't had a storm here in x years" school of thought doesn't take into account the way the law of probabilities operates. If you are in a storm zone you are always equally likely to have a storm, whether you had one last year or a century ago. Where I live was generally considered to be pretty much out of the usual path of storms and we hadn't had one in 50 years, then we had two within three weeks of each other, and another a year later. A storm zone is a storm zone, as far as the numbers go.