Living in Florida - Its Not Easy But It Is Worth It

So, you're considering moving to the great state of Florida. Well, welcome, you're not alone. But, you're wondering, is it going to be worth it moving here? Well, it may not be easy, but it's totally worth it. If you're waiting for those bits of information of why, stick around.

Okay. So, let's talk about it. Let's talk about Florida. It's maybe not easy living here, which I can contest you, it's totally worth it. So, what is Florida popular for? The entire State of Florida is wonderful and it's usually because of the great, great weather. You know, we have pretty mild winters all throughout this area. Depending upon where you're moving from, it's really really nice. And even in the area that we're in, in Northwest Florida, it does get a little chilly, but chilly is a relative term. It will get down to maybe 40’s, sometimes in the 30’s but mostly 40’s and 50’s in our wintertime. And then as soon as spring hits, it's, you know, back up to that beautiful weather. Also, we have nice beaches all around. Now, I'm not going say that the ones over on the Atlantic are less better than the ones over here on the gulf. There's beautiful access to the beach all over the place, gorgeous gorgeous beach where we have here on the Gulf Coast. You have that white sand beach, usually flanked by just vast forest. It's just an amazing place to be here. Also, you have amusement parks. Don't forget about Orlando, or if you're anywhere in the state of Florida, you're only just a few hour drive away to go over to Disneyland and all those wonderful things that you can go, have a great time doing. And of course, why people come down here and pilgrimage down here, whatever you want to call it. It's a vacation life. Well, you're surrounded by people that just love being on vacation. Who does it? Right? So, you have you're around that great atmosphere and it's just really really nice to just live where you would normally vacation.

So, what are some challenges to you as full-time residents?

Alright? Well, let's start with number one. Well, I've got seven I'm going to go through for you.

1. TOURIST/CROWDS

Now, we love the tourist. If it wasn't for them, this economy wouldn't be where it is. Okay? But because of it, we got lots of crowds. Right? And the crowds are way worse now, if I can be honest with you because of the political environment, and COVID-19 restrictions in other state. Right? Wherever you are with that, that's the reality, people are going from their state, and more people are coming down Florida just to get a break from those restrictions. Because of that, the crowds are quite a bit more than they typically are. But the tourism are great. As I mentioned before, it's just really nice because who's going to be miserable on vacation? Probably no one. And if they are, they're salking in their hotel room looking over to the beautiful coast or the beaches or something. Alright? But usually, it just brings up the atmosphere. People have a lot more apt to just be friendly and that really adds to the Florida environment. At least here in Northwest Florida too, we do have that southern hospitality that you get mixed with the Floridianisms. Just make that up. But It's just a really good feel to come down here and live and have that around.

2. HOT WEATHER

Now, number two, it does get hot and sometimes cold here in Florida. And now, again, this is all relative. Right? Depending on where you're from, but it does get hot. And the hot is not like Arizona hot. So, if you're in Arizona now, you're going to be shaking your head like, yeah Tim, I know what you're talking about because it could be a hundred degrees out there, but it's dry. So yeah, it's hot, but it's just a different feeling. You come down here and it's 80, 90 degrees with a, it feels like a 100% humidity, is real. So, that is one of the challenges. Now, if you're just one of those guys or gals and you just step outside and get to that humidity and you're all dry, next thing you know, you're start sweating and it just doesn't turn on, that can be quite a challenge. You're from one of those cold weather environments. Personally, I'm from upstate New York originally. When it got super super cold, I'm talking about in the single digits sometimes with the negatives, we would just run to the heat from one heat to the other. Well, here in Florida, it's not that much different except in the summertime, we just jumped to the AC to AC to AC. So, it's just on the opposite side of the coin. Again, a challenge, but that's only for maybe a couple months out of the year. We're talking July, August, sometime September, where we're getting those terrible terrible hot days, after that, it's gorgeous. Okay.

3. COST OF LIVING

Cost of Living can be rather expensive, again, depending on where you're coming from. If you're coming from New York City or somewhere out in California and you look at our cost of living here, it's not going to be anything to you guys. Right? It's going to be much much less in comparison to those. But across the Continental United States, you know, if you're out there in Ohio or something like that, you come down here, cost of living is going to go up quite a bit. Now, we don't see it being like a 150% over the national average, but we do see it come up to maybe 102, 110. If you want more information on Cost of Living for the Northwest part of Florida, please do visit our channel, (shameless plug) and we do have plenty of information and breakdown of cost of living in the northwest part of Florida.

4. TRAVEL

Now, the good news is that, there's great parks around here to go too. The bad news is that, there's not a lot of direct routes to get there. In central Florida and even up here in Northwest Florida, you have water that gets all over places. And as the crow flies, meaning a straight line to where you go, it doesn't seem that far away. But when you want to go five miles, and you got to go the most fortuitous route possible all around the place, it gets a little frustrating. Right? And there's typically only a couple of different ways that you can go, a couple of different highways. So, if you were somewhere else, say, in the Midwest, you have great systems where you can go a road that finally gets to another one and whatever you have different ways around. Here it's not so much. So, if you have a lot of bodies of water around, you have to go around different things and everybody else does which causes more traffic and it just, it kind of sucks.

5. TRAFFIC

Speaking of, number five, Traffic. Oh, traffic. I got to tell you a story. So, traffic gets crazy, not only here in Northwest Florida, but definitely down in Fort Lauderdale, Miami is probably the first area. So, when I went out to purchase a car down in Miami and I was going to drive it back here to the Destin area. And, I remember getting in the car and moments, moments, maybe five to ten minutes after that, I get on the highway, I'll start going north, and bam, somebody hits me within less less than 20 minutes from me signing to say that it was mine and completely wreck my car. The traffic's a little crazy. It could be rear-ended me just out of nowhere. Right? So, yeah, traffic can be crazy. It's definitely definitely worse when it gets down towards the Miami and Central Florida area. Crazy. As you get up more to the northern part of Florida, it's not as bad. People do drive way fast because they probably should, but that seems to be the norm people get to sensitize to it. But the traffic again can get lots of congestion because of our tourism and just everybody trying to go some places. And because that travel is trying to get around places, it kind of gets a bottlenecks and certain places. They are improving over time, but, you know, it's going to take some time.

6. HURRICANES

Number six on the list is Hurricanes, tropical storms. Yeah, you get to live in this beautiful place but, yep, mother nature will come through. So, starting in July ish August, we start to get our hurricane season for three to four months. That being said, you're going to be walking out and it will be beautiful sunshine and then ten minutes later it could be pouring rain. Maybe about three minutes, and the sunshine is here. It's just our weather here. Okay? A lot of them, when they come through, most of these structures that you're seeing here have been through many hurricanes before. And, the building code to make sure that these condos, these homes are going to go. Like, there are mitigation things that they have to do for roofs and sort of building specs to make sure that they're good to go. Now, we're also going to make sure that you're not in the surge area or in a flood zone. If that's the case, then, alright. But just know that every hurricane isn't all the same. Usually, a CAT-1 through CAT-3 people will stick around do a little hurricane party. Get your favorite libation and snacks and just, you know, get some candles and hangout. Right? Anything above that, people are evacuating. Anyway, so just be smart when it comes to that. You'll be another crazy floridian like the rest of us. 

7. YOU NEED A CAR TO LIVE IN MOST PLACES

Number seven is, you basically need a car to go anywhere to live here in those places. Okay? So the big cities, maybe not so much, but definitely here in Northwest Florida, to get anywhere into function, you do need a vehicle yourself. The public transit system just isn't that great. So, most likely will need a car, and yes, you're going to have to deal with the traffic depending upon where you're at. So, that may be a downturn for you.

So, what makes it worth it? Right? What makes it work?

1. REDUCED TAXES

Well, first thing first, you get reduced taxes. That's right. There's no income tax that you had to worry about here in a state of Florida. That's a big big nicety that we do have. That is made up. Due to all the tourism that comes in and the sales tax that they do pay, which is pretty awesome. So, if you do have reduced taxes here, of course, I'd have to say make sure that talk to your accountants, CPA, what have you. Make sure that that makes most sense for your situation. Got to say. 

2. AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Alright, number two is, the affordable housing. Well, depending. Again, where if you're coming from a less affluent place and coming down here, I mean, the housing could be a little bit expensive. That's either to rent or to purchase, I know the closer that you're going to get to the high tourism areas, the more money it's going to cost. And of course, closer to a body of water, same thing.

3. GREAT JOB MARKET

Also, number three, there's a great job market here, it really is. Especially if you're in sales. Or, if you're in the customer service industry, all of this because it attracts so much restaurants, there's just so much here for you to take advantage of. So, the job market's really good because we do have lots and lots of commerce that happen here in Florida. 

4. ACCESS TO BEACHES

Now, of course, number four, you get access to beaches, pretty much anywhere. There's always access, public accesses to different beaches. Now, there's going to be a good mix of private beaches and public access beaches, depending upon what you're looking for. Even in Northwest Florida, there's certain counties that will rope off certain parts of the beach, and there's others that is just a free-fall. Right? Some of which are part of Air Force bases. So, if you don't want to get somebody coming after you from the base of the military vehicle, you know, I probably avoid those places as well.

5. NEVER A SHORTAGE ON FUN THINGS TO DO

Alright. Number five is, there's never a shortage on fun things to do. As we mentioned before, there's amusement parks when it's warm out, which is most of of time. There's great boating, there's fishing, golf if you're a golfer like me and you're terrible at it, but you do enjoy the game. It's a great place to be because you can golf year round. It is absolutely awesome. Never a shortage of things to do.

6. DIVERSE AND RELAXED CULTURE

And last but not least, number six is, it's a very diverse and relaxed culture. Now, I can say this across most of Florida, but I can really relate to it too here in Northwest Florida. At least here in Northwest Florida around the Destin area, there's four or five military installations. A lot of us once we realize how awesome this place is, end up staying. And, because of that, we have a whole diverse amount of people from California and New York, from all different races, from everything, from all different parts of the world end up being here, and it's just really nice and really relaxed, very respectful culture that you get to be part of. So, all those other things that are kind of like, I don't know if I want to be down here. This kind of really makes up for it at the end of the day. I really love my neighbors, I love my community. If you're like that, I'd love you to be part of that community.

Well, that's all I have for living in Florida. It's not easy, but totally worth it. If you've got any questions about anything I mentioned here, feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com