We are officially Floridians, kind of

[c214dick]

We received the paper work today from our closing on the house we bought in Florida. So I guess we can be considered Floridians even though we are still living in Illinois. We are busy packing, cleaning, painting and disposing so we can put it on the market.

I just went through and picked 4 houses that sold in our area that are comparable to ours. It's good news for buyers and still bad news for sellers. Depending on the prices some have appreciated since being sold and some have depreciated. Let's hope ours is one that will appreciate which means we can list it a little higher than the market dictates.

[sailer]

You are not a Fl Resident till you get a FL drivers lisc. A FL lisc on your car or truck . FL ins on the car or truck and a voters card from the fire station. Then you can go to the court house and become a FL resident. and then you will receive $25,000.00 of value reduced from the taxable value of your house, Read how to do it and then you will be FL residents, not before.. sailer

[c214dick]

Maybe we will just stay here "officially" and be snow birds. Of course if we did that I would have to keep two houses and Monte.........NOT

[CamillaMichael]

Technicalities aside, welcome to Florida and good luck on the sale of your "other" house!

[nosticks]

Welcome to Florida. Once you get here, there are a few driving rules for new Floridians over 60 to observe. First, you must get a Ford Crown Victoria or other large 4 door car. Make sure it has a large enough hat shelf to display your golf hats and stuffed animals. The Ford is popular because it is one of the few manufacturers that use an outside radio antenna which is of course where you tape the plastic yellow Daisy so the you can find you car at the mall. Always keep your old home state license plate on the front of your car to remind everyone where you learned to drive. You will be restricted to driving in the left lane (go lane) at least 30 MPH under the speed limit with your left turn signal on, I mean after all you will be making a left turn some time during the day. Travel only during rush hour as the breakfast and dinner prices are the best, oh and don't forget to tip 20%. Lastly, now this is important. Traffic lights, you go on the last half of the green, all of the yellow, and the first half of the red. All other times you stop. Right on red only after several residents blow their horns and shake their heads and point to the right.

I hope this helps to make an easy transition to being a Floridian.

[kdeiss]

We did the same a year ago sold our house in Pittsburgh in two weeks. We did all the things mentioned above to become a resident.Glad all of that is behind us.
Will summer in Pittsburgh in the Montana no way did we what to deal with two homes
Welcome to FL

[Emmel]

Got to add one more to Nosticks, a true Floridian will be the fourth car thru the red light!

[mail2us]

Sailer mentioned $25K homestead exemption, kinda. I believe it is now $50K, plus possibly other small exemptions you would be entitled to if you check with the Tax collector in the county you bought your FL home. Oh, besides being the 4th car thru the light as Emmel put it, you must eat dinner by 4PM!
Good luck on your new residence Dick and Louise.

[kdeiss]

quote:Originally posted by mail2us

Sailer mentioned $25K homestead exemption, kinda. I believe it is now $50K, plus possibly other small exemptions you would be entitled to if you check with the Tax collector in the county you bought your FL home. Oh, besides being the 4th car thru the light as Emmel put it, you must eat dinner by 4PM!
Good luck on your new residence Dick and Louise.

The Homestead exemtion is

$25,000 on School Taxes and $50,000 on the others
At lest that is what they are in Sarasota County

[CamillaMichael]

quote:Originally posted by mail2us

Sailer mentioned $25K homestead exemption, kinda. I believe it is now $50K, plus possibly other small exemptions you would be entitled to if you check with the Tax collector in the county you bought your FL home. Oh, besides being the 4th car thru the light as Emmel put it, you must eat dinner by 4PM!
Good luck on your new residence Dick and Louise.

Thought 4PM was the dinner hour?????

[c214dick]

What's really funny is that everything mentioned above, we experienced during our 3 month stay in Silver Springs. What we did find, that was not mentioned above, is there seems to be more accidents at the Walmart parking lot than on the streets.

[adelmoll]

Welcome to Florida.. Did you buy your house in the Silver Springs area? We own a lot in Silver Springs and changed our residence officially to Florida this year. Our reason was strictly for medical reasons. There were pro's and con's with our change from South Dakota.. The "con" were mainly the increase in our auto/RV insurances. They are double what they were in South Dakota and we are using the same insurance company. We have a small car that we leave in Florida when we are traveling and the first time you get a license there is a one time charge of about $350 extra for the title work. This was not added for the RV or the truck because they were over a certain weight.. I guess they get that up front when you by them in Florida. The pro's so far have been the homestead on property, plenty of medical facilities, nice discounts on Florida attractions, close to both beaches and Camping in the State Parks for half price with full hook ups and 50 amp service. We have reservations for a week in the Keys in October for less then we paid for one night when we stayed there last year.

We have taken the early bird special one step further by using the coupon books you can find everywhere that are buy one/get one free. We go for lunch and bring the leftovers home for our dinner the following night.

Good luck on the sale of your house and congratulations on your new purchase.

Helen

[c214dick]

We bought our house in Belleview about 10 miles south of Silver Springs. Thanks for the info on insurance and title changes, however our homeowners was reasonable.

[nosticks]

Ok, now that the driving rules are clearly understood, we have to move on to apparel. First take everything you have from up north and donate it to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or some other charity that has outlets in the colder parts of the country.

For men, your new “uniform” will consist of a pair of sandals, which for at least your first three years can not be purchased without the obligatory argyle knee socks and mismatched knee length Bermuda shorts, preferably plaid, which must be worn at least five inches above what use to be your waist. You can fit right in by choosing “Cuban Shirts” , the ones typically white in color with the ventilated back and two stripes of frill down the front. Next in proper attire is a “Pork Pie Hat”, that is one that vaguely resembles a fedora, but is made of straw and has a colorful hat band.

For the ladies, just get a muumuu, trash the stockings and girdles and bras, it’s going to be hot and the less complaining the better. Besides, at the all you can eat specials you can pack in your money’s worth and no one will notice you coping the Sweet and Low from the table.

One last thing, and this comes very close to mandatory, no self respecting new Floridian would be caught without the square black Plexiglas sun goggles that cover your glasses, you know the ones that would protect you from a total eclipse of the sun. These must be worn outdoors anytime between the sunrise and sunset.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

[kdeiss]

quote:Originally posted by c214dick

We bought our house in Belleview about 10 miles south of Silver Springs. Thanks for the info on insurance and title changes, however our homeowners was reasonable.

Note on Car Insurance two of our neighbors who were insured with a national company insurance doubled. We told them to try our local agent and the price was the same as they had in New York and ours close to the same price that we had in Pa
in our case it is Auto Owners Insurance out of Lansing Mich. I understand from a friend in the business an Excellent Company hope this helps

[c214dick]

All recommendations help. As you Floridians know, homeowner policies by the major players took a big hit and cannot directly offer coverage. We have used State Farm for a number of years for all coverage. Recently we changed our RV coverage to Progressive for a lot more coverage at a cheaper rate.

While getting quotes for our Fl policy we did stop at State Farm who quoted us using Citizens, the State owned/run company. They were 3 times higher than the company we chose. When we finally move we will again check out a number of insurance companies before jumping on the State Farm wagon again.

[sailer]

You will find State Farm is dropping a ton of houses in FL as they want out. We got droped in Feb and went with a FL co that was a lot less than State Farm . You can PM me if you want the name of the Ins co. sailer

[richfaa]

Don't forget U turns..Florida is the U turn State and in makes no difference which lane you U turn from. Also apparently the Florida drivers license manual states that "you shall always be no less than 3 inches from the bumper of the vehicle in front of you."

"One last thing, and this comes very close to mandatory, no self respecting new Floridian would be caught without the square black Plexiglas sun goggles that cover your glasses, you know the ones that would protect you from a total eclipse of the sun. These must be worn outdoors anytime between the sunrise and sunset."

I do have one of those.......

[CasaDelSol]

Keeping the left turn signal on is called "the eventual left"

[adelmoll]

Great place for plants and trees is the Market of Marion. Watch the kind of palm trees you buy though. Dwarf Date Palms freeze out every year..We finally replaced all our trees to be cold hardy down to 10 degrees. Marion County freezes several times a year in the winter so don't believe it when people tell you that this is an exceptionally cold one..

We agree with all the others about the driving. Oh, and I can give you the name of some great dermatologists. It takes about three months just to get an appointment. Skin cancer is the rage down here.

Helen