Originally Posted by
Kawrider
This should be nominated for the biggest lie anyone has ever told on the internet. Haha. I’ve never seen such a negative post. As a 12 year south Florida resident, I love it. Great people, great weather, no state tax, and unless you want to live in a Mansion, property tax isn’t that high at all (they reduced taxes when the housing market crashed in my county.... Palm Beach County). Kids getting a good education is more a function of parenting than the actual school. Don’t believe the hype of school ratings. Jupiter is a very nice area, as well as Wellington or Royal Palm Beach. Check out DelRay beach as well. No area or location is perfect. Yes there is a lot of traffic. Driving is dangerous everywhere by the way. I love the endless summer, the beach, outdoor life. It’s just awesome.
The areas you mentioned in northern palm beach county are definitely better from a people perspective than further south.
No state tax is great but we do have other bases that offer that.
I would agree that property taxes aren’t bad. DFW has worse property taxes and let’s not even talk about ACY. Assessed value for taxes is usually well under the homes actual value in Florida and if it’s your primary residence your taxes cannot increase more than 3%/yr. This is to prevent old people from losing their homes because of taxes when values increase quickly like the early 2000’s or now.
I would agree that parenting is the largest factor on a child’s education but the school ratings are very important. Right now it has to do with test scores in that school vs other schools in the state but greatschools.org is adding things to their criteria. Either way, the score speaks to both the teachers at those schools as well as the types of kids and families at the school. A school with high ratings typically has kids that come from good families that take an interest in their children’s education like you said. When your kids are surrounded by other kids that are accelling it helps them accel. It also means there are less behavioral issues which correlates to safety. Constant ghetto fighting is not what I would want my kids around everyday.
Delray is awesome if you don’t have kids and live very close to Atlantic ave. Really great for bachelors or married professionals. I would say there or downtown FLL would be top choices for people that are kid free. The schools though are a non-starter. Delray more than a couple miles from the AVE is pretty ghetto.