What's up everyone? Relocated

[YeOldeStonecat]

After years of a lot of back 'n forth between CT and FL....about 2 months ago wife and I put our house for sale in CT and drove down to south west Florida to call it home!
Our second kid flew the coop last summer...she's 21 and in her own apartment, full time job, her own new car, doing well. So...it was finally time for us to move.

Been a whirlwind past few months.
Moved to Englewood FL...which is a little south of Venice, north of Ft Myers 'n Punta Gorda. We're technically in a little neighborhood called Placida, aka Grove City...a quiet little area that historically was an old fishing village. It's still a bit distressed from post hurricane Ian. Still very "old Florida". As is much of Englewood.

I opened a branch office down here, so our main office is still up in CT, with 5x staff up there now, hopefully a 6th soon. And I'm down here hitting the pavement doing my "networking" to build a client list down here (while still remotely tending to my clients up north, and doing higher end work for clients of our other engineers up north). Joined the Englewood BNI, just joined the Englewood Chamber, will be joining the Boca Grande Chamber soon. Gotta get out there, get my name out there, press palms with people...and gain clients.

We're just renting a home for now, waiting for rates to hopefully lower a bit, and..insurance in the state of FL is still in a turmoil post hurricane Ian..but it's starting to settle down. Hopefully in a year or two things will line up. Our current place is very "old school Florida"...we share a pond in the back yard with 3x other lots...2x of which are empty now...because hurricane Ian just leveled those homes. We have a tiki bar hut in our backyard right on the pond....with a deck. And there are 3x gators in the pond, one of which swims right up to us if we go out on the deck...it'll hang in the water about 3 feet from ya. Obviously someone had been feeding that gator...which is sad, because it approaches humans now in hopes of food. One day it will approach some elderly person or a little kid..who wont know how to handle that, possible injury or worse, and it will have to get dispatched.

Anyways...hadn't logged into the boards here for a while, I tried a while ago after the forum engine change and couldn't log in, but..tried this morning and it flew right in.
So...posting from my new office...still getting furniture for it, got signs outside of it now, in a cool little professional center clusters of offices called "Sea Foam Village".

[Philip]

Whoa, finally made the big move, congrats! I was wondering when this would happen, welcome down, enjoy no state income tax, heh.
I think it's the right move not to buy right away, you will have more time to look around, pinpoint areas, figure out prices, and you shouldn't be in a rush with the current interest rates in a slowing real-estate market.

All is good in my neck of the woods, took a huge vacation to Europe in June with the wife and grown up kids, now back catching up on work and stuff. My younger daughter just moved out couple of weeks ago, she's 19yo and studying at UNF, so still in town, but we're starting the empty nesters stage as well.

If you want more business clients you may have to expand your area to the bigger cities around you, but you're right in the middle between Sarasota and Ft. Myers it seems. Now that you are closer we will have to meet, it's been too long

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yup, it has been too long. We gotta catch up. This fall we'll be making trips up north to go to some of the springs...we love kayaking springs such as Rainbow River.
Or if you're down this way.... My office is right on Placida Rd, in a little professional center complex called Sea Foam Village.

Real estate market still VERY HOT back along shoreline CT. VERY low inventory, so it's a crazy sellers market. My wife listed our house as "coming soon" on a Monday, to generate interest across agents. She posted the listing on Fri, scheduled 2x open houses...Sat, and Sun, and stated offers accepted until close of business on Monday. Saturday...5x offers came in. Sunday..another 3 offers. Monday moring..another offer.
7 out of those 8 offers were above asking price.
5 of those offers included "escalation policies"...which means, if someone else offers above mine, I'll raise mine above theirs by $Xk...up to a certain point. We accepted the offer that was 20% above asking price, all cash offer, no inspection. Oh..and we got to "rent" and stay our house for the next 2x months for a dollar. Sold it in April, moved to FL in June.

I'll stretch out my range into Port Charlotte, Northport, and probably Punta Gorda area. As for how far north...certainly Venice, and into the little towns of Nokomis and Osprey. I don't think I'll include Sarasota...granted..some big money there. Although Sarasota..esp lower half of it, is under an hour drive for me now..."in season".....it'll be like a 3x hour drive...1x way, crazy traffic in season up there. Sarasota gets crazy packed from Dec to Mar.

[Philip]

Glad that you got a great deal on your house, excellent timing to sell imho. I suppose if you get enough business in your neck of the woods you don't have to drive to Sarasota, population has been expanding like crazy down there.
Will definitely catch up.

[twwabw]

Congrats on relocating! Been enjoying seeing pics and updates on FB.

[koldchillah]

Congrats on the move and welcome to Florida! I too have enjoyed the FB updates. I see you already met some of our native pets! I hope the storm wasn't too rough over there and you are able to drum up some business for the new office soon!

[MadDoctor]

Should I forward your subscriptions to your new home once you settle in?? (Congratulations).

[YeOldeStonecat]

You can just send money....your 401k, your black unmarked van, and unused inflatable sheep!