Possibly Moving; Need Advice

[Travis L. Stevens]

Hi there fellow reefers! It's a long shot, but there is a chance that I could be coming this direction. I was wondering if anyone had any guidance on home price ranges, good places to live in and around Orlando, etc. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[lifesworksataol]

how much are you looking to spend and what kind of area do you like? in town or outta town. lots of people? like to drive or walk to stuff? you have to give us some more back up info - but for the most part i would say around 200,000 is cheap now and 250,00 might be the norm now if that

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

That's the problem, I'm not too sure what I would like in Fl. On the other hand, I can tell you what I currently like now. I would rather live in a sparse populace that's very cheap, I don't mind driving as long as I can justify the cost of gasoline. I already take 30 minutes and 26 miles to work one way every day. I wouldn't want to do that again, but if there is a $100,000 difference in cost 30 minutes away, I'll do it. I guess my largest problem is I already live in Oklahoma, and living is cheap. I worry that I won't make enough money in order to give my family a good place to live.

 

[lifesworksataol]

well deltona is a little cheaper and so is kissimmee - but both of them are going up everyday - they pay alot more down here then most other places - just have to look around and wait for the right deal - best bet is to rent a house or apartment for a year and search around - i love casselberry thats where i grew up and its like in the middle of everything in my opinion - but live in deltona for right now cause its a little cheaper - but man what a drive 45 mins without traffic and some times 2 hours in hard traffic

 

[Fuzzy]

Hi Travis,

This is actually a good time to move to Orlando - the housing market is in a bit of a slump after the last 2 years of runaway inflation.
My wife and I bought our new house about 6 months ago for $46K less than the previous owners paid the year before.....

Depending on what you want, there are brand new condo/townhomes in the $200K range.
An older house in a established area like Conway will be in the mid to high $200's for something around 1600 sq ft.

New homes in some of the out laying burbs are in the 300's and up.
The commute around here stinks - so that will be a factor. And all the new roads are toll roads.....

Fuzz

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Thanks for the info....YGPM

 

[cham]

30 minutes takes you 26 miles?

Its going to be tough doing that anywhere near Orlando. Most commutes are 30 to 40 mintues and thats withtin 10 to 15 miles of the city.

:lol:

Gotta love those Deltona guys, they all say 30 to 45 minutes.

Yea, at 3 am on a Sunday.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Ya, if I move down there, traffic is going to be hard to get used to.

 

[skinnyjoe1976]

over in my neck of the woods we are 30 mintues from everywhere and do not make a comment sytanek or likeworksatool. we are very central to all things. most people near me work at the space center. i see that you are a graphic artist. have you check the space center for anything they have? i rent and live in a 3 bed 2 bath 2 car on a golf course for 850 a month. rent in orlando would cost well over that. middle of the line houses cost 220,00 over here. also there are several local companys that do jobs for the space center. look under brevard job link and they should be able to guide you in the direction. we have 4 nice beaches in the area and 30 miles give or take to orlando, daytona, cocoa beach, etc. hope you decide to come this way

 

[sytanek]

btw I can get from Deltona to the airport in 45 mins.

You can get to Orlando from deltona and vice versa in a half hour - 40 mins as long as its not the am rush or pm rush. We made it to the orca meeting last saturday in 30 mins....

 

[sytanek]

I rent a 3 bedroom 2 bath 1200 sq foot house, 3 yrs old on a 1/4 acre lot for 925.

 

[jay24k]

Depends on where you go. If you find a community that is older, you can get a cheaper house and fix it up. We bought out house 5 years as a spec house and did many upgrades on it. Our house has more then doubled. The same for an investment house we did. We picked it up cheap, fixed it up and sold it for 50K more then we paid. Orlando has some houses like that as well. I would say most houses are goign to be between 160 and 250 in the decent range. And for 160, you are gonna have to be ok with an "ok" area or much smaller house.

I'd personally take a road trip here and drive around and see if a real estate agent can book a full day looking at houses in your range. I see you do custom graphics. Is that your main job?

 

[lusenut2]

Ok everyone has pretty much covered the price of what it cost to live here. Its pretty much the same as anywhere you live. If you live in town its more expensive, the farther out you go the cheaper it gets.

Ok now it says your a Custom Graphics. Is this on vehicles or websites, motorcycles? Do you have a job already if you move here, are you looking or a job. All that matter to where you live. Im more interested in what you do Graphics on. lol

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I'd personally take a road trip here and drive around and see if a real estate agent can book a full day looking at houses in your range. I see you do custom graphics. Is that your main job?

&

Ok now it says your a Custom Graphics. Is this on vehicles or websites, motorcycles? Do you have a job already if you move here, are you looking or a job. All that matter to where you live. Im more interested in what you do Graphics on. lol

I make signs and banners for Anheuser-Busch. There was a job opening for a full time aquarist at SeaWorld, but you have to be SCUBA certified in order to even apply for the job. Since I'm not, and they won't wait until I am, I'm hosed. I won't be up there for a while Maybe I'll get to come down there on a vacation or something and get to see everyone though.

 

[chrisstie]

If you wanted to be by seaworld the 192 stretch and kissimmmee and i drive and sandlake areas are pretty close. Those areas may be a little cheaper because they aren't as pristine as some of the less touristy more community based areas you can find in Orlando.

If you are worried about not affording places I'd stay away from Winter Park- amazingly awesome place to hang out but very big nice houses and generally pretty $$ as far as I can tell.

There are a few communities meant to be like the close-knit old fashion town with little shops restaurants schools etc inside the community like Baldwin Park or Avalon Park. They aren't overly expensive with the housing market the way it is if you're looking in the 200-300 range. We are in a townhome in AP that I think goes in that range.

There are a lot of tech companies in Orlando now that are going in by UCF which is East Orlando where if you don't stay with busch you could check into and there are also some toward downtown.

The east side of Orlando I'm familiar with is a little funny because you can start out in a college town and head towards downtown orlando. On the way about halfway inbetween there's a little bit of farmland and smaller less expensive houses (I also think older houses too, they had lots of tarps on them from the hurricanes we had a few years ago)


I really think the best you could do is come down and just drive around a lot.

If you go east there's more uh, when I say farmland its very small like.. a house with a big yard and chickens - more of that out toward Titusville and Daytona. smaller towns like Christmas and Bithlo are out that way.. that's really roughing in


If you go west past Orlando you'll run into Clermont which is where my folks have retired. Place looks like it doesn't belong in Florida. It's a little bit hilly, growing fast but has a little bit of older town charm in its tiny downtown area, kind of between O town and Tampa (if you ended up working with that section of Busch.

There's my morning ramblings for you Travis.

Don't forget to put pics of your tank and mushrooms to make these fine orca folks drool ;p Not sure how often they pop into the other forums I see you in hehe

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

:lmao: Well, thanks for the compliments, Chrisstie, but my tank is nothing major to oggle at. Plus, it turns out that I won't be able to get the job no matter what. I'll just have to get SCUBA certified some time soon and just wait for another position to open up at one of the SeaWorlds somewhere.

Thanks for the information though. It's greatly appreciated. It's funny that everyone has their interesting opinions on these "small" towns. Of course, I grew up in small towns and in small houses in the country, so this is nothing new to me. Granted, the terrain is quite different there than it is here in Oklahoma. Heck the biggest town I've lived in is Tulsa (estimated 2006 population: 382,872), which is of one fifth of Orlando's population (unknown estimation: 1,644,561)

Edit: And Stillwater's amazing population is only about 40,000

 

[Fuzzy]

If the only thing holding you back is getting certified that's an easy fix.
Just about every dive shop in town and most of the Y's offer PADI Certification courses.
It's been years - but if memory serves it was 2 classroom sessions and 2 sessions in the pool.

Good luck!

Fuzz

 

[lusenut2]

Oh man another person that will have a really cool job to tell people about. lol Thats a little inside joke to a few folks.

Anyways man I hope you that certification, that would be a cool job to have. I have a friend that is a trainer over at Sea World. Another option would be get a different job at Sea World and then they will pay for you to get certified. I know thats what he did.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Well, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place there. SCUBA certifications locally can take a couple weeks to complete, and the job posting comes down tomorrow. I'll just have to get my certification and just wait for the posting to come up again. It would be more feesible for me to stay where I'm at locally and occupationally and save some money instead of moving to an area that costs almost double to live in on no money at all. Maybe I'll see everyone around in a few years.

 

[cschweitzer]

You work at AB? You should switch to SAB. Miller lite is just so much better. Besides, my friend's family owns Schenck distributors(just about the only thing they don't distribute is AB).