let's talk central florida....

[Overpaid Slacker]

Oh, Brian. Central Florida is a wasteland. It's depressing, and I'd take sewell's observations to heart.

You just want to return to Disney.

JP

[RoninLB]

I'd figure the area like around Palm Beach would have high end customers. S of Palm is like S America imo. Look for an area where there are expensive sport boats. Live just on west side of 95 to be relatively close to ocean without the extreme rents and high housing costs.

High end boat mechanics know where their type of work is located. Expensive boats, expensive cars, and expensive toys is your type of scene imo.

[imcarthur]

What type of audio work do you do? 12V or home?

I know the home vendors in the SE US pretty well. I sell them. Let me know if you want the lowdown on any of them.

Ian

[trap]

My wife and I just moved from the Tampa Bay area to Iowa a couple of months ago. We lived down there for 13 years.

We had a number of reasons for moving. The summers were slowly becoming way too long. We lived on a canal about 100 yards from Tampa Bay - and, unfortunately, had mangroves nearby. The mosquitos and no-see-ums would rip my skin off - particularly in the early morning and evening. That got old. But it was great having a dock in our backyard.

Things have changed considerably over the years. When we moved down in the 90s, our area was still quiet and friendly. As people moved down in droves, that changed. Traffic became horrible and there seemed to be lines for everything - from the gas stations and convenience stores to restaurants. Part of the problem was that the state welcomed all the new people with open arms but didn't bump up the infrastructure. And the infrastructure wasn't great to begin with. With the added crowds, stressors increased and the friendliness that we loved soon began to fade. More and more, it was everyone for themselves. Also, as others have mentioned, property taxes and insurance are killers. And, depending on your lifestyle, the lack of income tax will sometimes be made up for in the various fees and other charges - or simply in the amount of time you have to spend waiting in lines at the county clerk or DMV, etc.

That said, it's great when you come across the occasional clerk, etc., that will greet you with a "How ya doing, darlin?" She'll be sincere, too. Sometimes it would seem there's not many of those real Floridians left, though.

I'd like to say that it was great driving the 911 and riding the motorcycle all year-round but that wasn't the case for me. There's nothing fun about being on a bike in traffic baking under the August sun. That is not only baking from above but also from the superheated pavement. I began to realize there are a few good months and a few bad months - just like there is up north.

Strangely enough, we've found that people up here seem to be happier and they seem to celebrate life more than what has become the case in Florida. People are certainly more friendly overall - and seem to be less stressed out.

The caveat to all this is that there are almost certainly still the good places left in Florida - we lived in one once but then it went away. But I'm sure there are others.

It was 19 degrees here this morning. I didn't mind - over time the Florida summer became something to dread more than I ever dreaded a northern winter. But then again, maybe I'll think differently in January. Probably not, though.

Good luck on your decision. Personally, I'd look for something right on the coast (but away from mangroves). You'll lose quite a bit of the heat in the summer via the sea breeze.

[bell]

sewell.....i plan on going down first before any actual "move", i'm figuring a month before we move everything down to make sure that's where we'll end up. having a shop you probably understand the real value of a good strong profitable worker, i also have management experience etc......so it should be no big deal.

slacker........i know how certain places are "wastelands", cleveland/akron is one of them imo, the biggest thing is change right now, we need a new location.....if we don't do it this year we will never do it, and we both need to get out of here.
it's going to be the same "grind" anywhere we go, central florida will give me the option to easily hit the beach for the weekend, race events or whatever, and michelle can have disney, disney was fun but not the determining factor on my side of it.

ron.......there's high end customers everywhere i've learned, even in the boons of wv. once i'm on-site i'll be able to track down who does the big $$$ work, via some high end leasing companys or florida distributers (whom i know a few) who sell to the big players.

imcarthur.......i do it all......marine, home, rv's, car, video/nav/integration/fabrication/security you name it......personally home audio bores me, i worked for a few years for a local company where our avg home audio sale was 40-50k, i just didn't find it fullfilling to keep doing it.
the amount of "celebrity" installs i've done is silly, but they just have bigger checkbooks and are usually a bigger pia.
my strongest asset is the ability to complete 20K systems with full custom fiberglass work in less than a week, on an avg 10k system with avg custom work i'll have out the door in 2 days.

trap.....i've found you can get many different responses just by the first word you say and how you say it.....there are a-holes everywhere, i just laugh at them cause it doesn't affect me

if i get down there and things turn to ****e then i'll just head somewhere else, which is why i'm going down first before we move all our stuff, there's always the chance i'll say "screw this" and head to charleston, but i doubt it.
even if we only stay for a year or two it's what we need and what we want to experience.

don't worry jp, you can crash at my house when you come down for the rolex24 or sebring

[bell]

i haven't checked insurance yet.......what do some of you pay for full coverage on you 911's or other cars?

[imcarthur]

Bell

I can’t help you with 12V but I have a buddy who is a 12V rep in FL & he knows everybody. Let me know & I can give you his name etc – he used to be with Fosgate, so you might know him. He would certainly know of any ‘holes’ in the area.

For home hifi, Absolute Sound has ruled that roost for a long time. Sound Advice (Tweeter) has 3 locales in Orlando & of course, they do 12V as well. And the usual assortment of custom guys that come & go.

A couple of points:

The CE business sucks hugely in FL right now. Real estate is tumbling & even the $ people are holding their breath & keeping their wallet's closed. Not a good time to make money in general but your skill set might overcome that.

I really, really hate Orlando. Other than deep Miami, I dislike it more than anywhere in the state. Just my opinion . . .

Ian

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by imcarthur

Bell


I really, really hate Orlando. Other than deep Miami, I dislike it more than anywhere in the state. Just my opinion . . .

Ian

As a local, I feel the same way. one of the reason's some of the area people are talking about have gone down is the yankee transplants, all the area talked about are full of them. I've been all over and I'm always happy to come home
P.S.
The football players blast the crap out of their stereos too loud as it is, unless you can teach them taste in real music, please don't build them any systems

[bell]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

The football players blast the crap out of their stereos too loud as it is, unless you can teach them taste in real music, please don't build them any systems

i just build the gun, i don't sell them the ammo.........

imcarthur........i'll get ahold of you when the time comes, tell your buddy i'm the guy that ran the armored truck in 97-98 for boss audio.....if he was in the game in the late 90's he probably met it/me at spring break nats one of the few years we were there, i played in the top class of the "db-drag" game when it first took off with all the heavy hitters

[Normy]

Hi-

Well, I lived in Orlando from 1997 until 2005, and I have to say that the place went down hill while I was there.

When I was in college in Daytona Beach, we used to drive over to Orlando to party downtown and at UCF parties. It was a great place, pretty quiet, and I noted the fact that it was a "bedroom" community. That simply means that it was a place where people lived, not a place where there was a lot of industrial activity. In 1996 I finally landed a job that paid enough for me to buy a house, and since my brother was living in ORL at the time, I started looking for a place there. I found a house in Gulfstream Shores, a subdivision near the airport off of Hoffner, and moved in.

The downtown of Orlando is a great undiscovered secret!! Orange avenue is the place to hang out nearly every night of the week. There is always something going on, and you can find almost any sort of music you want. When friends came to visit, I took them down there and we always had a great time. I'm serious- in the eight years I was in Orlando, I don't think I went out to International drive/ Disney more than twice. That whole southwest side of town is for British tourists [I'm not kidding; the local grocery stores have a "British foods" section] or employees of the various parks and attractions.

The local car culture is GREAT too! Not so much from a Porsche standpoint, but again, take your car downtown on a Friday or Saturday night and look for a crowd of people standing around various parked cars. They literally have a dozen of these impromptu car shows on weekend evenings at various places down there. It doesn't matter if most of the cars are Honda's...bring your Porsche and you'll wind up with a crowd of people checking it out.

NOW. Why did I move?

1. Orange county, Florida's planning board is basically "owned" by land developers. They buy a cheap piece of land in the country, put in cheap roads, and then build about 400 cheap carboard-box homes on it. Then they sell them cheap, and go on to the next parcel of land. And the schools consist of a 1960's building with about 300 tornado-attractors [mobile classrooms] around them to ease the overcrowding, and the water system is overwhelmed...and the roads are a disaster. The sprawl in Orlando is ridiculous! When I moved there in 1997, I could drive the 6 miles to downtown in rush hour typically in about 15-20 minutes. These days it is likely to take closer to an hour! And the whole town is like that. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the population has increased about 50% in the past 10 years, but the roads are about the same.

2. The quality of the people that live in Orlando has gone down hill drastically. Recent survey, though somewhat suspect, called Orlando the 11th most dangerous place in the country. When I moved there in 1997, I always felt safe nearly anywhere downtown at night. I never worried about my car at all. These days? Well, I still think the downtown area is pretty safe

[Realtors aren't allowed to tell you this, but I can: there is an area called "Paramour" that is just west of downtown, just south of Colonial drive/HWY 50, and just east of the Orange Blossom trail that is so bad that I wouldn't drive through it at night. And generally didn't drive through it during the day! It is filled with trashy, drugged out black people, and crime is rampant.]

But I sometimes wonder about the car now. In the past 10 years, a lot of people from New York and the caribbean have moved to Orlando- in particular, people from Puerto Rico. While these folks are generally very nice and make good neighbors, at the same time most of them work in the service industry in jobs that are paid in $ per hour, and of course when you have many of them around, you naturally wind up with a few who would rather steal your car than wash it. More than a few in fact. I never had a problem, but my brother had his '92 GTI 16 valve stolen from the parking lot in front of the apartment we were living in just before I bought my house. It just seems like there are a WHOLE LOT MORE gang-bang wanna-be hip-hop types in Orlando now. In the end, I watched the conditions in Orlando slowly go down hill while I lived there. I can't recommend the place any more.

3. Orlando is A LOT hotter than the coastal areas in the summer, and you get some hellacious, Texas-style air mass thunderstorms in the summer. Tornados are fairly common, along with damaging hail.

In the end, I moved to Wilton Manors, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, where nearly everything has been renovated in the past 10 years, and the crime is pretty much under control. The prices of housing down here approach TWICE what they are asking for similar homes in Orlando, but that has a good side: it keeps the number of people who might cause trouble down to a minimum.

Best of luck, and you'll enjoy washing your Porsche in shorts....in January. And telling your friends back home about it!

N!

[Normy]

OH...by the way- stay away from DAVENPORT.

Davenport is this area of huge 5 and 6 bedroom homes southwest of town. Ever wonder why there are so many of these homes with lots of tiny bedrooms? Because the whole place was built with RENTALS in mind!

I'm not kidding- the whole area was built to be rented out to seasonal people, and as a result the resale value of the homes out there is TERRIBLE! Now the people who rent there [probably 90% British] are nice folks...but again- you'll get clobbered when you go to resell the place later on. Stick to the tried and true Lake Mary area, or the new luxury subdivisions just north and east of MCO, the international airport.

[Jims5543]

Dont miss out on looking in Tavares, Howie in the Hills, Apopka, Longwood, and Leesburg. Personally, my favorite part of the Orlando area, away from the tourists, and the topography is hilly (for Florida) and the roads are nicer.

(hint: Martin Sports Car Club runs their monthly Autocrosses in Tavares its a very active club with great members I drive 4 hours up to go to a couple of their events each year)

http://www.martinsportscarclub.com/

[john70t]

The times when I've driven through there were impressive: small rundown(cheap) houses on lots of plush land-Florida used to be the cow capitol of the US. Good personal property protection(re:OJ) and redneck enough to leave a couple of truck on cinder blocks in the front yard.

One thing to consider is the state is guarenteeing home insurance poilicies, so when the next hurricaine destroys the billion$ coast, it will show up in everyones taxes. RE supposedly has been diving everywhere but St.Petes and Miami, so investments should be planned.

[bell]

just an update, michelle and i will be in central florida the week of may 19-23, if any pelicans want to meet up and share some local knowledge that'd be great
we're going to give florida a shot, just need to find the area we want to live in.....we'll be renting so we'll be checking out a bunch of places, and also some on-site employment research.
so far we're still on track for a july-aug move......

[JeremyD]

For high end custom car stuff - talk to alan morin at the dupont registry [amorin@dupontregistry.com]

They do all the custom stereo work in the Tampa Bay Area - (and alot of the state) they also have a group called Boulevard Customs that's very well known.

I've lived all over (including Ohio)- each place has it's pluses and minuses. Godo luck in your search. For hills in Florida just head up to Brooksville or Ocala - you'll be pleasently suprised.

[bell]

well we're less than 2 weeks away from our "scope it out" trip........
we pull into town sunday the 18th, and are leaving sat the 24th, we found a nice condo which is where we're staying about 10 minutes from disney......
so who's up for some coffee, lunch, or whatever?
we're going to hit epcot for 1 day (don't know which day yet) other than that we'll be checking out some houses (we are going to rent until we are settled) and some neighborhoods and such.....
even though davenport was frowned on for purchasing a home it looks like a good "central" location between orlando/tampa/daytona.....some of the rental properties are pretty nice and have what we need without breaking the bank, so we'll be spending some time there scoping it out, it all looks good on paper but i won't make the decision until i see the areas firsthand