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Where to live in USA (was Fl or Ca)?

SusieQQQ said:
I've seen condo fees of well over $1000/month in Manhattan!!![/QUOTE]

Yeah, but it's Manhattan and the price of the condo there is probably sky-high so even though that's a lot of moola, it shouldn't be a surprise for living in that city. Where I find it is a surprise, is some of the places where I am on the gulf coast of Florida. The condos are in the $260k range, yet the monthly fees are ~$600/month, and that doesn't include property tax. We came across the same issue in San Diego when we looked at condos there.

Another thing to note with condo developments is if there are units that are in foreclosure or abandoned, this can cause the monthly fees to rise for everyone else because the maintenance needs of the development stays the same but there's less owners paying into the condo fee pool.

SusieQQQ said:
Btw looked up a recent news article - although foreclosure rates in Florida have improved a lot it is still the #1 rate of foreclosures in the US and still more than three times the national average. That would go a fair way to explaining why properties are so cheap relatively.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/13/3991039/florida-still-no-1-in-foreclosure.html
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Yes, Florida got hit very hard in the housing crash. It's recovering but you can still pick up some deals. A few of our friends bought in 2011 and have nice houses that they paid less than $100k for. 3+ bedrooms, 2000+sqft., pool, etc. Gone up since then but still relatively cheap. Until the Mother of All Sinkholes swallows us all up :D
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Eucn said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/alaska-earthquake-california_n_3875015.html
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:D you sound like my father. He also doesn't understand why we would go live somewhere where there are earthquakes.
I asked him to get me the data for number of people dead from earthquakes in CA over the past century vs those dead along the east coast from blizzards in the north to hurricanes in the south, etc. Funnily he went a bit quiet after that.

But of course, absolutely, if you are scared of earthquakes you should avoid CA. One should realise, however, that most states come up with things to kill you (quakes, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes....)
 
SusieQQQ said:
:D you sound like my father. He also doesn't understand why we would go live somewhere where there are earthquakes.
I asked him to get me the data for number of people dead from earthquakes in CA over the past century vs those dead along the east coast from blizzards in the north to hurricanes in the south, etc. Funnily he went a bit quiet after that.

But of course, absolutely, if you are scared of earthquakes you should avoid CA. One should realise, however, that most states come up with things to kill you (quakes, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes....)
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.... And too much fried chicken. Yes I agree life is dangerous and it will eventually get us.
 
SusieQQQ said:
:D you sound like my father. He also doesn't understand why we would go live somewhere where there are earthquakes.
I asked him to get me the data for number of people dead from earthquakes in CA over the past century vs those dead along the east coast from blizzards in the north to hurricanes in the south, etc. Funnily he went a bit quiet after that.

But of course, absolutely, if you are scared of earthquakes you should avoid CA. One should realise, however, that most states come up with things to kill you (quakes, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes....)
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:):) ............ *nicely said, double thumbs up*

I had the same conversation with a friend when I informed them I was moving to California. While everyone I had told about the upcoming move congratulated me, all this friend had to say (with an incredulous look on their face) was "why are you leaving the relative safety of Alberta (Canada) for earthquake proned California?" :eek:

:D oh well some just don't get it I guess ............
 
SusieQQQ said:
This just came into my Facebook feed! I had to post it ;)

http://earthsky.org/earth/are-you-prepared-for-a-hurricane
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Yep, got the generator, hurricane lamps, emergency radio, flashlights, candles, matches, batteries, tarps, plywood, bottled water by the truckload, enough canned food to feed a village, enough insect repellent to poison that village, 3 filled gas bottles for the barbie, several gallons of gas, cash, hurricane shutters, and on and on and on .... good grief! And probably all for naught! o_O

Last year they predicted a bad year for hurricanes, freaked us out. Turns out it was the calmest year for storms since the 70s. This year, they're saying it won't be a bad year. Which means it'll be a bad year, going by the weather prediction track record so far. :confused:
 
Vichel said:
Water-view or not, be wary of condo fees. The more amenities the condo has: community pool, tennis courts, gym, pretty landscaping, etc., the higher the monthly fees. $400-$600 per month is not unusual. And higher than that isn't unheard of either. Same for HOA (Home Owner's Association) fees which are common in single-family home communities. Some are very reasonable, like ours: $175/yr, others can charge that or more per month. And condo fees can only go up. This applies to any state but I thought I'd bring it up as I've come across quite a few people who sold their condo and bought a single-family home because the monthly maintenance fees were more onerous than what they pay living in a house. Plus, living so close to other people, some who can be noisy or inconsiderate made for far too much stress.
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I own a couple of condos in Florida where the HOA fees have gone down. The reason for that is that when I bought them, the HOA was unable to collect fees from condos where the owners had defaulted on the mortgage and walked away. I was buying 1500 sq feet townhomes for $60/70k so I knew what I was taking on. Now, home prices have stabilized, the HOA is dealing with less delinquencies and so they have dropped the fees slightly.

By the way, a condo (townhome or apartments) has higher fees because if the roof on a shared building needs replacing the HOA pays for that so they build up a fund over the expected life of the roof to cover that expected expense (plus insurance for unexpected events like hurricanes taking the roof off). Single family homes would meet those costs themselves. I realize you know that Vichel, I just want to point that out in case anyone else is confused.
 
A forums search shows any kind of discussion on Florida vs California tends to degenerate into the subjective stuff like this one :)
This site might be of interest, just showing some basic differences in profiles between the two states. (The big surprise for me is that apparently the commute times are pretty much the same. I thought CA would be much worse.) Of course you need something subjective because deciding where you fit in best is subjective, but I thought this might be of interest anyway. Note that it is not completely updated (the unemployment data look a few years old) so be careful about reading too much into numbers per se, but the general trends (eg older population in Florida, higher cost of housing in CA) will probably be about right still.
http://places.findthebest.com/compare/2-9/California-vs-Florida
 
Interesting infos behind that link, thanks Susie. I agree with not reading too much into this data. The age brackets comparison for example surprises me a bit...they are highlighting the fact that retirees (>65 yo) are over represented in FL, yet 17.5% vs. 11.5% does not sound like a retiree invasion to me. In fact, 11.5% of 37.3 Mio people is about 4 Million, while 17.5% of 18.9 Mio is about 3.3 Million. So effectively, there are about 25% more retirees in CA than FL. Imagine they were now all be living in the expensive coastal areas, then there's not much difference to FL I would say. All in all I think all age brackets look more or less similar to me. Anyway, I would have thought there to be way more older people represented in FL than seems to be the case.
 
On a demographic profile basis a 6% difference is actually pretty significant! Especially if there is a smaller proportion of younger people coming through as well which there is (7% more under 30s in CA vs FL) i.e. the population is not only older now but will age at a faster rate too.

Also it's not correct to just look at numbers. That's like saying more old people in the US than Ireland. Meanjngless.
 
OnTheGo said:
Interesting infos behind that link, thanks Susie. I agree with not reading too much into this data. The age brackets comparison for example surprises me a bit...they are highlighting the fact that retirees (>65 yo) are over represented in FL, yet 17.5% vs. 11.5% does not sound like a retiree invasion to me. In fact, 11.5% of 37.3 Mio people is about 4 Million, while 17.5% of 18.9 Mio is about 3.3 Million. So effectively, there are about 25% more retirees in CA than FL. Imagine they were now all be living in the expensive coastal areas, then there's not much difference to FL I would say. All in all I think all age brackets look more or less similar to me. Anyway, I would have thought there to be way more older people represented in FL than seems to be the case.
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Sorry OTG, but that is easily the daftest thing you ever said (no offence meant). ON that basis you could prove there are more retirees in CA than in an old peoples home. However, a young person would still be out of place in an old peoples home...

I was in a vineyard yesterday near my house. As well as the tasting rooms, bar and restaurants, they have a free picnic area where you can eat your own food and drink (although they encourage you to buy their wine obviously! It was really beautifyl. Anyway, my point is I was most certainly one of the older people there. Lots of young people enjoying the wines and restaurant, young families and so on. Really nice. Not a sign of the 4 million wrinklies - which is odd because old people like wine...
 
Thanks everyone for your inputs here. I too have kind of been doing a pro con for Flo and Cali. So Alot of information here that is good to help sway me to the right direction...but in terms of taxes it seems Cali residents are taxed way much higher than Flo and pretty much most other states.Its too much to try think where to settle, whether a family person or single person.
 
Britsimon said:
Sorry OTG, but that is easily the daftest thing you ever said (no offence meant). ON that basis you could prove there are more retirees in CA than in an old peoples home. However, a young person would still be out of place in an old peoples home...

I was in a vineyard yesterday near my house. As well as the tasting rooms, bar and restaurants, they have a free picnic area where you can eat your own food and drink (although they encourage you to buy their wine obviously! It was really beautifyl. Anyway, my point is I was most certainly one of the older people there. Lots of young people enjoying the wines and restaurant, young families and so on. Really nice. Not a sign of the 4 million wrinklies - which is odd because old people like wine...
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LOL - I don't feel offended. However, is it not indeed correct that going by those demographics, there ARE in fact more old people living in California than in Florida...in pure numbers?
I am NOT saying it would be noticeable, as in FL more of them would be living in 'retirement clusters' but all I was saying is that I would have imagined a way higher percentage of 65+ yo residents in FL compared to CA. I am also not saying you'd find another version of Sarasota with 64 golf courts and a 4pm dinner coupon rush of wrinklies anywhere in CA, but hey....theoretically that would very well be possible, just going by the 4 Mio vs. 3.3 Mio in that age group. Imagine they'd start building another version of AZ's Sun City in the hills east of San Francisco Bay... o_O haha
 
Sorry but plain numbers is a pretty meaningless way of looking at it like this. Britsimon's example of why was spot on.

Also Florida not only has a higher % of old people than CA, it has the highest in the entire US. It also has the 8th-lowest share of under 21s. As I said before, this means it is not only old now but will age faster than most other states too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Florida
 
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Another thing I'd like to know....can anyone elaborate on the SF weather? I know the city itself and some surrounding areas have a fair share of fog for most of the year (?) and I have heard you need to dress in layers, as even in summer it can be a good mix of temperatures in the one day. Is it true that the southern bay areas are much sunnier and warmer in general?

Also, I was wondering where the 'rough' areas around SF are....are they more the urban areas on the east bay side? Not too long ago I heard about Oakland to have lots of crime issues, especially since they cut down on police budgets...but that's difficult or impossible to judge from pure internet research...and no, I have not looked at any city-data info on that yet :)
 
OnTheGo said:
LOL - I don't feel offended. However, is it not indeed correct that going by those demographics, there ARE in fact more old people living in California than in Florida...in pure numbers?
I am NOT saying it would be noticeable, as in FL more of them would be living in 'retirement clusters' but all I was saying is that I would have imagined a way higher percentage of 65+ yo residents in FL compared to CA. I am also not saying you'd find another version of Sarasota with 64 golf courts and a 4pm dinner coupon rush of wrinklies anywhere in CA, but hey....theoretically that would very well be possible, just going by the 4 Mio vs. 3.3 Mio in that age group. Imagine they'd start building another version of AZ's Sun City in the hills east of San Francisco Bay... o_O haha
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Yeah, there are more retirees here - no arguments there. The thing is with retirees. If they don't need to commute to expensive city locations they can (and often do) move to cheaper areas to make their retirement funds go further. So yeah, there most certainly are higher wrinkly density areas in CA, but the general feeling in much of California is of a younger more "happening" place than most of Florida.
 
I guess crime depends what you're used to. I read somewhere you can tell the bad areas in SF because the houses have burglar bars on the windows. Where I come from, that's a minimum for everyone anywhere .... I mean my US relative complained about all the homeless in the city itself, I guess for the US it is a lot, where I come from again we are used to much more homeless...

Re weather, yes there is a lot on this if you look at forum like city-data (which will also talk about crime stats I guess). Seems the city and the areas right on the bay are very prone to fog and cooler weather. In the east bay area it gets much warmer and not much fog to none at all if you go a bit further east. Some very noticeable temperature differences too! Not sure about south bay as never really looked at that area.
 
pose said:
Thanks everyone for your inputs here. I too have kind of been doing a pro con for Flo and Cali. So Alot of information here that is good to help sway me to the right direction...but in terms of taxes it seems Cali residents are taxed way much higher than Flo and pretty much most other states.Its too much to try think where to settle, whether a family person or single person.
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About the tax thing. First of all, when companies hire people in different areas they adjust the salaries to cope with local taxes, cost of living and so on. So, for a new immigrant it would certainly be harder to start off in California compared to Florida, but 1 year down the road, the scenario is equalized (but at different salary levels).

Secondly, taxes pay for stuff. If you pay less taxes one way, you either get less services OR you pay another way. There is no free lunch.

There are areas where the dollar goes farther and there are many areas where people are generally keeping more of their money in their pocket. Texas has several such areas - Houston, Sallas, and Austen often feature in these surveys. One such survey below. However, we all make decisions on where they can afford, where they fit in, and so on. I personally like Texas, but feel I would be less likely to blend in there...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkot...ties-where-a-paycheck-stretches-the-farthest/
 
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