Owning a lot in the South

[Stump Jumper 58]

Looking for suggestions of a place to purchase in Florida, Georgia or South Carolina. Wanting somewhere where we can put down roots for the winter season.

[JandC]

When someone talks about picking between Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina for winter months the first thing that comes to mind is spending the winter in 80's, 60's, or 50's during the day and 60's, 50's, and 40's during the night.

Seriously, the only experience I have is in SW Florida. Most of the RV lots down here only rent and few are owner owned. The ones we are familiar with where you can actually purchase the lot start at around $90,000 and up with maintenance fees.

Are you a full timer or part timer?

[Stump Jumper 58]

Still part time but leaning more to full timing.

[1retired06]

Some parks have a 5/7 yearly lease plan. For the season, Nov thru April, you pay a seasonal rate less than monthly, and for the other seven months you pay a nominal storage fee. The site is strictly yours, you can put up a shed etc, store your rig on site. leave a boat or golf cart if you want. Most parks who offer this generally split the park into a seasonal section and a traditional short term or weekend section. If you use during the storage months, you pay a nominal fee, often half the daily rate charged for full hookups. Again generally you can quit at any time as there are often waiting lists for available sites.

[speedster100]

You can rent a lot for 5 months (occupied) (can leave it there all year) around the Tampa area for around $2500 - 3500/year. Electric is extra on top of that and at night you will need to have the heat on during 2 - 3 months..

If you move further South in Florida it gets warmer but prices start to climb...

We haul our 5er down there as we are Canadian and we don't want the hassle of insurance & upkeep on a park model as well as the worry if a hurricane comes ashore etc...

[jlb27537]

We full-timed for about 10 years, part-timed for about 10, in that time we wintered in Arizona and Texas. We considered Florida but found the costs were much higher than either of the other two. A lot higher.

We settled on a place in the RGV. Today a cool front, the locals call it a COLD front came thru, dropping the morning temps down to 69 with 34% humidity. Folks in sweat shirts this morning......

Remember, the closer to the water, the more bugs and when the wind is blowing, the cooler/colder it will be, if coming from off shore. Georgia, S Carolina are not far enough south for me.

Poke around here for more info on the RGV.
http://wintertexaninfo.com/index.html

[jlb27537]

Originally Posted by 1retired06

Some parks have a 5/7 yearly lease plan. For the season, Nov thru April, you pay a seasonal rate less than monthly, and for the other seven months you pay a nominal storage fee. The site is strictly yours, you can put up a shed etc, store your rig on site. leave a boat or golf cart if you want. Most parks who offer this generally split the park into a seasonal section and a traditional short term or weekend section. If you use during the storage months, you pay a nominal fee, often half the daily rate charged for full hookups. Again generally you can quit at any time as there are often waiting lists for available sites.

We have a friend that does this, has a shed and golf cart there, has family there, so works for them.

[richfaa]

We have wintered in Central Florida for the last 10 years.We now are in a HOA RV community were you purchase your property as in any HOA. It is Deercreek RV and Golf resort near Disney World . The closer to either coast you choose to live the more expensive it will be . Prior to that we rented a lot for the winter at a RV park nearby.

The winters are mild in that area (we are from Northern Ohio) not very many chilly days. Day temps in the 70's 80's night in the 50's.We have had some 40,s at night over the years but a "cold spell' will last one or two days.

There are lots for sale in the Deer creek complex as well as for lease You can go to the website and look around.We also wintered in Arizona for a couple of years and the prices are comparable IF you shop around.

[coachgrowl]

I own a house in northern calif. Pay 200/month for storage of the rv not allowed to park in driveway. Seems to me it is better to lease than to buy. Particularly with hurricanes and other natural disasters. My mother used to say you don't own things they own you just my 3 cents.

[Loneoak]

Originally Posted by speedster100

You can rent a lot for 5 months (occupied) (can leave it there all year) around the Tampa area for around $2500 - 3500/year. Electric is extra on top of that and at night you will need to have the heat on during 2 - 3 months..

If you move further South in Florida it gets warmer but prices start to climb...

We haul our 5er down there as we are Canadian and we don't want the hassle of insurance & upkeep on a park model as well as the worry if a hurricane comes ashore etc...

I agree. We rent a lot in the Tampa area for 3 - 4 months. If we paid for the year it would be $2800 but we could put a shed on it. By the month it is $525 which includes $60 worth of electricity.

We can live without a shed, we just store certain items that we want too leave there with neighbors.

Also, if you buy in a park and the park goes belly up, you are somewhat screwed. On top of that, if you want to move, you are stuck. We have been in our park for 9 years, 7 years in one site and so far 2 years in our current site. We had reasons to move, and it made it easier that we were month to month.