Relocating to Orlando Florida

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edko

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Manatees natures water way speed bumps

I get 3 of those fuckers in my canal during the Winter/Spring. They all have prop scars. They are awesome though, since they clean my bulkhead nicely. Holy shit when they fart, though...reeks of death.
 

Siliconemelons

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Note to PETA people

I am not saying intentionally run over manatees, nor be careless when you see them or know they are in the area... but I thought it was ridiculous when Florida had such protections on them that if one popped up infront of you out of nowhere and you hit it - you were subject to insane amounts of fines and rehab fees.
 
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cyrusreij

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Are you getting the smoke up there? I was in Miami yesterday and I could smell it on the Turnpike. Lot of damn fires up on the mainland.

On the coast, near Titusville, there has been fires according to a coworker who lives out there. Nothing this far in, although it really wouldn't take much. Grass is browning, I am sure the trees are ready to get thunderstruck right about now.
 
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Vaclav

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On the coast, near Titusville, there has been fires according to a coworker who lives out there. Nothing this far in, although it really wouldn't take much. Grass is browning, I am sure the trees are ready to get thunderstruck right about now.

I've not seen any, but I don't normally go past PSJ that way that way, however. But Viera through lower Titusville and MI + blights I've not seen any indication myself. (And from home I can see conrails from the Cape while being almost exactly 3 miles from launchpad, so I'd wager I could see serious smoke around 4-5 miles)

Unless they're just minor brush fires rather than true blazes at least. Those probably you have to be basically on top of to see.

And on manatee protections, they've still not removed the signs with the fine warnings down here - I plan to not get a prop based boat if/when I get mine anyways - but that put me under the impression the laws were still active (at least in Brevard). Course we absolutely still have laws about feeding them lettuce and shit still to this day unless our Sheriff is a lying shithead. (Brevard LEOs are an interesting bunch though - "Wheel of Fugitives" or whatever got them national attention)
 
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edko

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Note to PETA people

I am not saying intentionally run over manatees, nor be careless when you see them or know they are in the area... but I thought it was ridiculous when Florida had such protections on them that if one popped up infront of you out of nowhere and you hit it - you were subject to insane amounts of fines and rehab fees.

Not enough FWC manpower to ever enforce that down here.
 

Siliconemelons

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Not enough FWC manpower to ever enforce that down here.

Yeah, I live near Tampa Bay and there are tons of intercostal over in CL, STPETE etc etc - and back in the 90's it was a BIG thing - I think the population has increased a lot since then - are they still endangered? I think they are threatened now, and still a protected animal. But people were self reporting and self policing their areas - and people where going nuts over reporting it over here because the fine was huge and PETA was en force - heck I think they wanted Tampa to close some of its port paths because of some once a decade warm water manatee migration or some shit.

Again, I am not saying kill the fuckers or run them over for fun - but, come on...
 
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Vaclav

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Yeah, I live near Tampa Bay and there are tons of intercostal over in CL, STPETE etc etc - and back in the 90's it was a BIG thing - I think the population has increased a lot since then - are they still endangered? I think they are threatened now, and still a protected animal. But people were self reporting and self policing their areas - and people where going nuts over reporting it over here because the fine was huge and PETA was en force - heck I think they wanted Tampa to close some of its port paths because of some once a decade warm water manatee migration or some shit.

Again, I am not saying kill the fuckers or run them over for fun - but, come on...

I thought I'd heard earlier this year they'd resurged to being completely off the endagered list now.

I know out on the Gulf Coast there were some springs shut down because literally they were FILLED with manatees like rush hour gridlock of manatees last year or so.
 

Warmuth

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I spend a lot of time on the water and there are manatees fucking everywhere. Whether they're endangered is for someone else to decide but from the keys up to central Florida it's rare that I go out and don't see one let alone paddle right over the top of one and get taken for a ride.
 
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edko

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I thought I'd heard earlier this year they'd resurged to being completely off the endagered list now.

I know out on the Gulf Coast there were some springs shut down because literally they were FILLED with manatees like rush hour gridlock of manatees last year or so.

They were moved from endangered to threatened.
 

Chanur

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I know a coworker that speaks very highly of the area. Besides the roads - apparently lots of cobblestone out there.

Great I was mainly worried about crime since I travel for work a lot and my girlfriend might be home alone.
 

Rais

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How is the Altamonte Springs area of Florida?

I work in Altamonte Springs and I have lived in Seminole County for the past 30 years. The humidity sucks ass and I4 traffic sucks right now due to the construction. The roads aren't that bad. Traffic sucks 6:30am-8:30am, 11:45am-1pm, and 5:00pm-6:15pm. I wouldn't even go on I4 during those times. I made a quick very accurate map of Seminole County and the area you should look for a place to live in. Apopka is building a new hospital so it is forcing property taxes and such up and is forcing the lower income/aka crime towards Altamonte Springs on the west side. Schools here are pretty solid and highly rated. If you have any questions just send a message my way. For buying houses, I would go with Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary and maybe Casselberry. If you want an apartment there are new ones going up in Casselberry that seem pretty nice and reasonable price. I pay 1100 for 1000sq/ft 2 bed/2 bath apartment right now. So it will be slightly higher depending on what you are looking for.

Stay away from the purple boxes with red Xs. The numbers in the circles represent the order I would choose to buy a house from.

seminole.png
 
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Vaclav

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From what I've seen that seem a pretty solid list - assuming you go for the no-commute route.

I still can't not plug Brevard and taking a commute though. Beautiful region, plus all the perks from being the home of the space program. It would take an insane opportunity to get me to leave Brevard at this point.
 
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Chanur

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I am going to be renting for a year or two. I want to make sure we are going to be there a while before I commit to buying. I will be working near UCF and don't want to pay a fortune in tolls.
 

Vaclav

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I am going to be renting for a year or two. I want to make sure we are going to be there a while before I commit to buying. I will be working near UCF and don't want to pay a fortune in tolls.

Tolls in FL are weird - there's a TON of toll locations but they're all pretty teeny dings compared to other states (there will be one per 1-2 exits but like $1.25 a piece instead of one every 20 miles that's $10 like I was used to up north) - and assuming you get the SunPass I think the SunPass rate is something like 70% the normal rate? I'll admit I don't head out to Orlando too often, and usually the Winter Park region when I do - but I've put $50 onto my SunPass to date, and used $22 of it.

There's also a ton of reasonably quick side roads to skip tolls - if you're lazy and just take the major highways you'll hit a bunch - but there's other 50+ mph roads with no tolls as well depending what direction you're coming from. As you become more familiar as a resident you can dodge a TON of tolls compared to tourists.

Also something to keep in mind with the tolls - while you might end up paying "an assload of tolls" depending on where you're coming from and the roads you prefer - I'm pretty sure no matter how much you get dinged for tolls, the lack of a state income tax will be a larger savings than the loss from tolls - unless you're coming from somewhere else with 0%/super low state income tax. Moving from MD to here nearly covers my rent from the difference in tax burden.
 
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Chanur

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Tolls in FL are weird - there's a TON of toll locations but they're all pretty teeny dings compared to other states (there will be one per 1-2 exits but like $1.25 a piece instead of one every 20 miles that's $10 like I was used to up north) - and assuming you get the SunPass I think the SunPass rate is something like 70% the normal rate? I'll admit I don't head out to Orlando too often, and usually the Winter Park region when I do - but I've put $50 onto my SunPass to date, and used $22 of it.

There's also a ton of reasonably quick side roads to skip tolls - if you're lazy and just take the major highways you'll hit a bunch - but there's other 50+ mph roads with no tolls as well depending what direction you're coming from. As you become more familiar as a resident you can dodge a TON of tolls compared to tourists.

Also something to keep in mind with the tolls - while you might end up paying "an assload of tolls" depending on where you're coming from and the roads you prefer - I'm pretty sure no matter how much you get dinged for tolls, the lack of a state income tax will be a larger savings than the loss from tolls - unless you're coming from somewhere else with 0%/super low state income tax. Moving from MD to here nearly covers my rent from the difference in tax burden.

I currently already have no state income tax because Washington and Texas are awesome. Also prior to living in Houston I never paid a toll for a road in my life. West Coast never did that shit, except for a couple bridges. That being said I have coworkers that are driving to the office about 3 days a week and paying a hundred a month in tolls. Its not an insignificant amount depending on where you live. Also the traffic on side streets near the tolls are pretty horrendous from what I am told.
 

Vaclav

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I currently already have no state income tax because Washington and Texas are awesome. That being said I have coworkers that are driving to the office about 3 days a week and paying a hundred a month in tolls. Its not an insignificant amount depending on where you live. Also the traffic on side streets near the tolls are pretty horrendous from what I am told.

Hasn't been when I've bothered coming from SE - but I usually come from East and eat the tolls and take A1A/528 (one of the toll heavy roads for the Orange county stretch) - rather than changing roads a bunch of times. So I'd imagine it would vary with what direction you're coming from. I live to the East and I'd probably agree with your coworkers for this direction, but my experience has been different from the SE. Not that I'd suggest living to the SE of course. There's nice parts of Palm Bay/Melbourne - but there's also some really sketchy parts.
 
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Rais

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Well if you move to Seminole county, the only place you need to maybe take the toll road aka the Greenway is from Lake Mary. You can just get on 434/red bug lake road/ 436 to the UCF area. Just graduated from UCF and living in Winter Springs. The typical drive time to UCF area was 20-30 mins. It's more red lights than traffic.

Also if you do the toll roads you can get a sunpass and it cuts down each toll you pay. I don't remember 9ff hand how much though. Overall it isn't too bad of a drive to UCF from anywhere in Seminole county. Oviedo is even closer and has a nice home market right now. Tons of houses to rent there also.
 
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