[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by dotti105

Both my husband and I grew up on Clearwater Beach.

It was beautiful living there "back in the day". My mom still lives in the same water front house, my sister's family lives next door. Beautiful views of the Marina, fun to watch the boats come and go.

As a kid the population of Clearwater beach was about 8,000. Today it is over 100,000. Concrete and high rises everywhere, that is except for the T-shirt shops etc. I hate going back.

We swore that we would never move back to Fla.

Unless you LIVE on the water, it is just like Ga or Kansas for that matter. If you do not have a water view, there are only disadvantages to living near the coast.

The traffic during the season is terrible! You can't get to or from the grocery store, in less than an hour. Seriously! If you are water front you have lots of crowding and lots of commercial. Part of the package!

We visited TV and now we can't wait to get into our Fla home. TV is unique and with the abundant recreation, everyone a transplant, it is very friendly and it is beautiful.
If we had a time machine and could go back to "old " Clearwater, it might be a different story, but even the beauty of being waterfront does not make up for the disadvantages of crowds, commercial and storms.

We evacuated every year, often several times.

We will enjoy visiting the beautiful coasts, but No I would not want to live on the coast. The Villages is the only thing that made us change our minds about moving back to Fla. (And I'm still not sure about the late summer humidity.....)

I "hear you" re the hurricanes. We were researching coastal areas with friends today and Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte area seem to have had a property price decline since Hurricane Charlie hit........a lot of Punta Gorda had to be rebuilt?????

A great area for boating. Great canal homes, many with birdcaged pools in the backyard and then a dock and boat lift right in your own backyard with access out to the Gulf.........but if it's hard to get hurricane insurance??????? What does a homeowner do? No wonder the prices are low.

Ditto for some east coast beach areas that had severe damage during another recent hurricane.........pretty low prices at present.

The towns we were researching all had low population, similar to what we live in. We left "the city" at age 20 and don't care to return in our old age.

Punta Gorda is on Gulf coast below Sarasota and above Sanibel Island.
A couple that I would buy nautical maps from ....relocated from Lake Champlain region of Vermont down to Punta Gorda. I think it's ranked number 15 out of 50 as far as yachting......or boating.
Punta Gorda has a population of 16,000 souls.....just like our town here.
They lost 8% of their pop. after Hurricane Charlie. I can only imagine how traumatized one would be.........to have to evacuate, to have their homes damaged, etc.

Thanks for sharing.................

[Lbmb24101]

We chose central Fl bc it s where TV is
And we chose TV due to the accessibility of golf cart transportation.
That was the main thing for us
Golf, tennis, clubs, pools, chain restaurants, nice homes etc, all of that could be found anywhere else.

[Tracy1581]

I love visiting the beach but don't think I could live there. Many more activities to do here in the villages.

[Bonnevie]

live 3 miles from the beach and never go there. am moving to TV for the activities and lifestyle. I will be saving $1100 a year on property insurance. I pay over $1600 a year with all possible discounts. Always have the threat of Citizens raising rates or forcing me to underfunded start up insurer hanging over my head. I look forward to taking vacations to the beach where I can stay in a beach front resort when I want to be on the beach the same way I take ski vacations when I want to see snow. But day to day living, I want the least drama as possible.

[redwitch]

When I was forced to move from California, my new home had to have several criteria. Florida fit most of them. Strangely, earthquakes don't scare me. Never have. The idea of hurricane winds terrifies me, so coastal Florida was out of the question. When I visited a friend here while looking for my new home, things fit. I liked that the people looked happy and busy. I liked that I hadn't aged out of the job market (of course, I didn't realize that salaries were at starvation levels). I liked that TV had very little litter. I liked the convenience of stores. So, it was partly Florida laws, the location of TV and TV itself.

[asianthree]

i love the beach other half loves TV, so TV it is

[Duvalboomer]

Because they decided to build TV in central Florida

[Bruiser1]

I have to agree Sanibel Island is one of the greatest places to visit. Shhhhh lets keep it quiet . Oops too late. Naples also is very nice but pricey.

I moved here to live a life of retirement that I couldn't imagine before I visited THE Villages.
20 people move here every day.