Moving to Florida ?

[Level42]

Just on the news on Dutch national TV:

The terrible situation in the home market in Florida.

You can get a beautiful (very big to our standards) home for €112,000 including swimming pool.

If I sell my house now, I can buy two of those and still have enough money to move over there.

Anyone got a job for a fire-alarm engineer over there ?

[patrickl]

Selling your house (in the Netherlands) is quite impossible at the moment though.

People who bought a house in 2008 and who then tried to sell their old house are having no luck selling their old house. Everybody I know, who wants to move, puts their current house up for sale first and then waits for it to be sold before they start looking for a house to buy. Of course if everyone is waiting for their house to be sold first ... nothing gets sold.

This is a recipe for disaster. When people start losing their jobs, house prices will start plummeting overhere too.

[Level42]

Well actually my neighbors two doors further just sold their house within 2 months time. It's not THAT bad. Yet.

[Spaz Monkey]

Wait untill you try to insure that home in Florida.  The cost of homeowners insurance has driven some companies out of the state.  $150,000 rebuild cost for 1990's home in Miami-Dade county runs between $2,500 a year and $7,000 a year with a $3,000 huricane deductible.

[Blanka]

Either build it Dutch Style Level 42, which means a "tunnelkist" construction with brick facade. No hurricane insurance needed for that. It will only lose some rooftiles.
Or go to Detroit. There you can buy a house for 100$:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/the-move-to-detroit.php

[ChadTower]

I used to live in FL... there is a reason Fark gave Florida its own category.

[Hoopz]

Either build it Dutch Style Level 42, which means a "tunnelkist" construction with brick facade. No hurricane insurance needed for that. It will only lose some rooftiles.
Or go to Detroit. There you can buy a house for 100$:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/the-move-to-detroit.php

It's pretty much mandatory that if you have a mortgage and live in an area that gets hurricanes, that you pay for hurricane insurance. 

Excluding certain cities, most of the housing prices in the Midwest US haven't fallen.  Granted, they haven't gone up lately but they've held their value.  Our house has been on the market for about 45 days or so and we've already had one offer and another party ready to make an offer.   But, you couldn't pay me to live in Detroit....

[Ginsu Victim]

Come to Oklahoma. I just bought a pretty nice 1200 ft² home for $42,500. Tornadoes aren't near as big as hurricanes, they just hurt more if you get stung. (I'm from Houston, so I've been through both)

[pinballwizard79]

Depending where at in FL the insurance company will DEMAND you put in hurricane windows if they are to cover you.

Those are not cheap by the way, not at all, I mean they are suck ass expensive.

Also many insurance companies went under & couldn't pay out so certain counties have actually sort of in a round about way put a form of insurance into the property taxes they inflated....its not upfront though, its almost like a "bailout" fund they collect for the next failure of insurance.

weird huh?

[Ginsu Victim]

Man, some european moving to Oklahoma and dealing with all the country bumpkins.  That would be something to see.

That was part of the joke. My post wasn't meant to be serious, plus I knew you'd show up and give your opinion sooner or later.

[Ginsu Victim]

EVERYWHERE has backward-ass hicks. Not like Oklahoma has the market cornered on that.

Hell, we're talking Florida. Ever been around Florida white trash?

[pinballwizard79]

Florida sucks less than Oklahoma.

[shmokes]

Miami's a pretty cool place.  Absolutely perfect weather.  I could definitely live here.  I mean, I do live here, but I could see myself making it a semi-permanent home someday.  Public transit is terrible, and traffic is pretty awful (not to mention probably the worst drivers in the country).  But it's a beautiful place with a lot to recommend. 

[Ginsu Victim]

Miami's a pretty cool place.

Their tourism board should thank Burn Notice for the wonderful job it's doing.

[shmokes]

Dexter is based/filmed in Miami as well.  I've never seen or even heard of any shoots here, but I frequently recognize locations so they must be doing at least some of the filming here.

[orion]

My sister lives in Tallahassee  and attends FSU (for a few more days anyway). One thing about Florida that you have to ask yourself..... do really think you would want to live under a State government that would erect (pun intended) a capital building that looks like this???!!!!

[Level42]

Well, gotta give it to them, they've got balls there !