Which Florida property or not?

[NSboatman]

Check out 97 Nottingham lane, Inglis, FL in google. Deepwater dock, right on the Withlacoochie river. Awesome, rural area. fit a cat in there no prob, safe as houses - rarely ever get any storm surge up there. Lots of houses for sale along that river.

I bought my boat from the guy that is trying to sell this place. he lives in HI. boat stayed there on that dock for 10 years with nary an issue. Very pretty, quiet neighborhood.

Great house too. watch out for the water moccs sunning themselves on the dock ladder though.

good luck!

[lorenzo b]

Not.
Florida is where old white people go to die, best to avoid the place.
Come on down to Central America and live on your boat.
We don't have rules down here.

[Privleoplag]

Wow, I tell you what.. I'm so impressed with almost all of the responses! I really thank you for taking the time for some great insight and suggestions. I have pondered this now for days (and days).. I think.. or I know, I'm probably not really cut out for the Florida life. My wife, maybe so, myself, surely not. I think if she is set on seeing the family and friends living in Florida some winter, it'll be with the boat parked at a liveaboard marina, with the option to skidaddle when we can't take it anymore.

I know, it's just me, but that's me. We bought the boat to liveaboard during the winters but now so many family and friends are buying land based that my wife gets some idea that we should also. Says it could be a good investment whether we use it much or not. I don't need investments, and I think I just keep tucking it away for the boating kitty. I think my wife is going to make us go look at property though.. and I appreciate having the negatives to bring up in the conversation. I hate driving in the cities.. miss the roads where we're the only ones.

Kettle, Boatguy, Tacoma, cheoha, and maybe I missed some, but thanks especially for your good info and posts. Might need a bit more info in the future.
Thanks, seriously, thank you everyone for your time.

[Capt.Alex]

Check out Matlacha Island, near pine island/Sanibel area. Many sailboats there!

[TacomaSailor]

Privleoplag

I agree with your sentiments exactly!

We had "owned" (well - us and the bank!) our own single family American Dream Home (actually four different ones) from 1976 until 2001.

We sold our beautiful custom built, hill top view... etc home of 19 years in July 2001 and continued our cruising (we had actually left in Aug 2000 but it took a while to finally sell the house a couple times).

We have tired to buy a new place many times since returning from cruising but continue to rent - a nice place but it is still rent.

It has been very liberating not owning a home while cruising 1/2 time on our boat - such freedom - we can do anything we want. When my wife retires for the 2nd time in July this year all we have to do is give the landlord 30 days notice and we are free to take our boat anywhere we want.

And - I don't think home ownership is such a great deal as most people think. My previous life involved a bit of financial analysis and comparison of various types of purchase/lease/rent options for very expensive capital equipment.

The home we purchased in spring 1982 and sold in summer 2001 more than doubled in price (way more!) during that time. But - when you factor in
tax
insurance
maintenance
lost investment opportunity on the down payment
mortgage interest write off
home off write off
selling costs

our return on the original investment and the payments was about 2.5%/year for 19 years. During that same time our financial investments averaged over 10% annual return. We would have been way further ahead by renting for 19 years and investing the significant down payment we made.

And we would not have had 10 months of heart ache trying to sell the house while we sailed from Puget Sound to Mexico.

That home is now for sale for just slightly more than we sold it for 12 years ago and the current owners put about 40% of the value of the house into "improvements" so they are way behind after 12 years of taxes and insurance.

During the summer of 2010 we sailed our boat from Puget Sound to San Diego so that we would have a nice winter place and a boat to sail in the California sunshine. We still keep a place in Tacoma to be near my wife's family and for her to work some but having the boat in the warm sunshine year round is great.

[SearenitySail]

Originally Posted by Privleoplag

We're a bit bigger boat than either of those but not by much. Would you care to share a location of that canal and would you happen to know of any signs in the yards?

Haven't been down to Florida since February, but there were a number of signs around the neighborhood.

Google "waterfront wonderland" and you will get to a site that specializes in SW Florida properties. They can help you narrow down by your criteria.

[hellosailor]

priv, Florida was a rural swamp full of ranches and farms and redneck trash until someone figured out that you could do some dredging, build "Planned Communities", and sell them for four or five times what they would really be worth, to Yankees who didn't know what swampland sold for.

So now you've got a more mixed population but it is often full of those Planned Communities, especially where someone dredged those drainage canals to build them. Canals will mean a developer was there, which will mean encumberments.

If you can find an older area that was settled by real people in real houses...and it isn't frightfully expensive...You know, better luck that way.

It probably still is a good time to buy, land or homes, in Florida since the market seems to have started back up again, but is nowhere near what it was. But that might mean putting a Hobie on the dock with an airlift, and keeping the big boat in a marina with handy ocean access.

I don't think it matterss what state you go to, finding ocean access with dockage for THAT much boat? It will have a hefty property bill attached to it. Open water, high bridges, location location location. "Ka-ching!"

[Kita]

Hi everyone, I live on the west coast of Fl or I should say very close to tarpon springs sponge docks but not on the gulf,but a few min inland on a lake & there are other things to consider like Flood Inc or wind Inc, what I am saying is you WILL pay to park your boat at your dock on the coast or at a marina dock one way or another, inland you can buy much more for so much less you can save enough to dock the boat.. I know nice houses on deep water canals can be got in Palm coast for 350, but you got neighbors. HOA . I have two lake houses that can be got for 425 & one is rented for 900 mo & have no neighbors on a dead end, I am looking to sell out to fund buying a cat to go sailing. Just a thought,buy my place & save enough to dock your boat 20 min away & let the rental pay for it... Can you tell I want to go sailing??