What $500k USD buys in Beverly Hills, FL

Brons2 said:
Dark. I'd have to buy about 50 gallons of paint to freshen that up at a minimum. The land and the barn are fantastic.

NE Nebraska. Burning hot summers, freezing cold winters. Blizzards. 100 miles to an airport with minimal service - Scottsbluff or Rapid City. On the flip side, Nebraska people are good folks, never known anyone that came from there that I knew personally that I didn't like.
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There is a job vacancy that I qualify for 15 miles from the house, and under 400 mile drive to the grandsons. Not a place I am wanting to live but have a duty to do the searching. Of note, I would not buy in NE with SD being so close and SD being more financially advantageous over NE.
 
GON said:
There is a job vacancy that I qualify for 15 miles from the house, and under 400 mile drive to the grandsons. Not a place I am wanting to live but have a duty to do the searching. Of note, I would not buy in NE with SD being so close and SD being more financially advantageous over NE.
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What makes SD more advantageous? I'm guessing no income tax? Nebraska seems to have one, from the brief web search I did. 6.84% for couples making over $66,360 in Nebraska, oof.
 
Brons2 said:
What makes SD more advantageous? I'm guessing no income tax? Nebraska seems to have one, from the brief web search I did. 6.84% for couples making over $66,360 in Nebraska, oof.
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South Dakota is the most financial sound state in the US. SD pensions are 100 percent fully funded, no state income taxes, I could go on and on. At the end of the day- SD is financially sound because its residents are salt of the earth Americans that have rock solid values and fiscal policies.

The Cato Institute's report reads, “Considering its consistently stellar across-the-board economic performance, it is little wonder that South Dakota remains one of the top-five freest states. South Dakota's fiscal policy is excellent. The state has one of the lowest tax burdens in the country.
 
JustinH said:
$2500 annual property taxes, and far enough from the coast that wind peril may not be too bad.
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It's Arkansas. Thunderstorms, tornadoes and straight line winds. Big hail. Ice storms.

These factors wouldn't stop me but I wouldn't assume that insurance would be less than in a costal area because of the severe weather. We have some of the same factors here in Central Texas but Arkansas is a little worse in all mentioned regards.

[edit] appears the insurance topic is talking about the FL house. My error. But at any rate I would not assume the AR property would have low homeowner's insurance per se.
 
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Brons2 said:
It's Arkansas. Thunderstorms, tornadoes and straight line winds. Big hail. Ice storms.

These factors wouldn't stop me but I wouldn't assume that insurance would be less than in a costal area because of the severe weather. We have some of the same factors here in Central Texas but Arkansas is a little worse in all mentioned regards.

[edit] appears the insurance topic is talking about the FL house. My error. But at any rate I would not assume the AR property would have low homeowner's insurance per se.
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I wonder how much state statues impact insurance rates? I have not read it, but Florida has a "Homeowner Claim Bill of Rights". I don't know if that statue impacts rates, but I speculate it may- and was likely written by lawyers.......
 
GON said:
South Dakota is the most financial sound state in the US. SD pensions are 100 percent fully funded, no state income taxes, I could go on and on. At the end of the day- SD is financially sound because its residents are salt of the earth Americans that have rock solid values and fiscal policies.

The Cato Institute's report reads, “Considering its consistently stellar across-the-board economic performance, it is little wonder that South Dakota remains one of the top-five freest states. South Dakota's fiscal policy is excellent. The state has one of the lowest tax burdens in the country.
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I'm interested in how you determined this because when I go to Cato's site "Freedom in the 50 states" https://www.freedominthe50states.org/assets, South Dakota ranks good in several areas, although at the very top in none, in the "Fiscal Freedom" category. I've been doing web searches to try to see where Cato evalulated the actuarial soundess of the SD public pension system. Not finding it, I'm sure I'm missing it though. Could be just duckduckgo also, I try not to use Google if I can avoid it, but, at times it really does work better.
 
Brons2 said:
I'm interested in how you determined this because when I go to Cato's site "Freedom in the 50 states" https://www.freedominthe50states.org/assets, South Dakota ranks good in several areas, although at the very top in none, in the "Fiscal Freedom" category. I've been doing web searches to try to see where Cato evalulated the actuarial soundess of the SD public pension system. Not finding it, I'm sure I'm missing it though. Could be just duckduckgo also, I try not to use Google if I can avoid it, but, at times it really does work better.
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Lots of data points I have pulled up over the past five years.

Here is one:

South Dakota and Wisconsin were the only two states where pension plan savings exceeded the value of what they owed. Although South Dakota had a slight surplus, its unfunded liability as a share of personal income rounds to 0%.

www.pewtrusts.org

States’ Unfunded Pension Liabilities Persist as Major Long-Term Challenge

For most states, unfunded pension liabilities are the largest of three major long-term costs weighing on their future finances, ahead of unfunded retiree health care benefits for public employees and outstanding debt.
www.pewtrusts.org www.pewtrusts.org
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I have been researching a possible future move to Florida.

Seeing several red flags:

For my own personal situation, I am considering disqualifying Florida as a future place to retire.
It just seems a risky place with several "gotchas" where you can lose large amounts of money in an unexpected way.

[1] House insurance in Florida is seeing astronomical increases every year due to fraud from lawsuits and fraud by dishonest contractors
There is a law in Florida that allows contractors to get the home owner to sign a bunch for forms so the contractor can get paid directly by the house insurance company. When you have a hurricane or flood, the homeowner doesn't hesitate to sign these contractor provided forms and then the contractor can go an make the situation worse by breaking a pipe in the basement and further flooding the house. Then the contractor can deal directly with the house insurance company and get a payment for a large sum of money (Ex: $100,000) to fix the mess, and then take the money and not do the work at all, leaving the home owner hosed.

[2] New laws in Florida are forcing all the buildings that have condo units inside to have large amounts of money set aside for future structural building issues. If your building doesn't have any money set aside, then the condo board is going to be forced by law to drastically increase every unit's monthly maintenance 2x or 3x. (Ex: Monthly maintenance could go from $800 a month to $2400 a month). Many buyers of condo's may not be aware of this, and will face buyers remorse.

[3] HOA (Home owners assoication dues is a way for cities to escape the cost of new roads, street lights, etc and make the home owners pay for that. But in Florida, it's being used as as a way to quickly ballon unpaid dues into a large fee that can then be used to forclose and "take the house" away from someone.

[4] Cost of living in Florida is going way up across the board.

[5] Even though some housing prices are going down, it's because people can't afford the exponentially increasing property taxes, house insurance, condo maintenance, and they are trying to escape and run for the hills. Not sure I would want to rescue them at my own peril by buying a condo in Florida.
 
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Brons2 said:
The amount of Mormons in Utah is a non starter for me personally. I don't have a problem with Mormons if they are balanced with other faith practices as they are here but I don't want to live somewhere where they make up the overwhelming majority.
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It depends what you consider "over whelming". It's currently 66% and that percentage is falling due to in bound migration.
 
Bill7 said:
I have been researching a possible future move to Florida.

[3] HOA (Home owners assoication dues is a way for cities to escape the cost of new roads, street lights, etc and make the home owners pay for that. But in Florida, it's being used as as a way to quickly ballon unpaid dues into a large fee that can then be used to forclose and "take the house" away from someone.
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This exists lots of places. Here in Texas we have taken steps to curb the power of the HOAs in the recent legislative session. Not sure yet how effective that will be.

The larger problem for me is the MUD, or Municipal Utility District, which my house is in one. In Texas they are considered a political subdivision of the state. They basically package up the development cost of the neighborhood and then pass it on to the homeowners as a tax that never really gets retired. It comes as part of your property taxes. For my neighborhood it is about as high as the school taxes, on my $490K property, about $4500 a year for each. I would much rather just pay the neighborhood development costs as part of the house purchase price as a one time deal but it's not an option. Instead I am taxed into perpetuity.

There is a non-MUD neighborhood next to mine but the houses are $1M+. We looked at one that was $1.05M not too long ago with the attendant lower tax rate of not having the MUD. We might have been able to swing it but it definitely would have made us house poor. There would have been the additional difficulty of selling the house we already own to get our equity out. We passed.

[edit] spelling correction
 
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GON said:
$4,218 appears monster large for homeowners insurance. I wonder if there is a significant reduction in price for homeowners insurance for properties well away from the coast?
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There is no place in Florida that is "well away from the coast" relative to the size of a CAT 3+ hurricane.
 
GON said:
Lots of data points I have pulled up over the past five years.

Here is one:

South Dakota and Wisconsin were the only two states where pension plan savings exceeded the value of what they owed. Although South Dakota had a slight surplus, its unfunded liability as a share of personal income rounds to 0%.
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I imagine this will improve for Texas as the pension plan has been converted to more of a 401(k) for the state employees. The teachers reirement fund is a big issue, not sure where they went with that, but I'm sure changes are coming.
 
There's a whole bunch of nothin' out there, but if you like horse farms, fern farms. and Manatees, you'll be good.
 
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