Central Florida Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: At least our local gov't is somewhat smart
I love it! The people voted to increase the homestead exemption to get a tax break and now the city wants to hike up taxes so that the homestead exemption is practically obsolete. Ha! I am so glad I voted against that amendment; $200 worth of savings just became a tax of $60 or if you're lucky, you will break even.
This was the obvious reaction to the amendment. The State just started laying off more employees and the moratorium on hiring continues. Government services are about to become even less efficient unless they do something.
They want to raise our property taxes so they can afford to pay for cops and firefighters.
The amendment 1 that passed in January cut property taxes but it also cut the money local gov'ts were getting to pay teachers, firefighters, cops, local programs, etc. It saved the local homeowner about $200/year. Not a big deal really when you break it down per month and totally not worth the sacrafice.
It did save the "save our homes" act which allows you to take your tax rate from one home you own to the next home you own. That part was good. It also raised homestead exemption, which is also good.
What it means for you as a new home buyer is that you will get a $50,000 credit off your home appraisal for property taxes purposes. It also means that in 5 years, if you buy a new house, you will be able to take your current property tax rate to your new bigger more expensive house.
Sorry to call you out for this- but, what an incredibly asinine and ignorant comment. First - since WHEN does close proximity to a good school (and Seminole is known for "good schools", as far as FL schools go) adversely affect property value? It's almost always a VERY good thing for property values.
Secondly, property tax is NOT all about schools. At all.
And lastly, you may never have children that enroll in public schools here. But, only a complete and utter idiot- would choose to not invest in a good school system for their area. Good school systems pay us back in much higher property values, much lower crime rates, and who in their right and able mind, doesn't want those qualities in their neighborhood?
We hope to move out of state before Gabe starts school- so I may very well never see any of the money we put towards our schools through enrollment of children. But, I'd gladly be paying three times as much in property tax (which would still be a deal, by the way) if it would improve our local education system.
Sigh b/c Seminole county districts kids by income. So our neighborhood even though it is in Lake Mary, is zoned to crappy Sanford schools (we checked it out last year when we were on the market). Also, yes putting in an middle or high school on a two lane road will hurt property values, they cannot extend the road due to the train tracks.
The traffic alone will be a nightmare, not to mention what the brats will do to our neighborhood. All of our crime issues in our development are from kids, they break the gates, they deface the pool area, they're generally a PITA. ?FYI, we are planning on moving the heck out of Florida the second the housing market is better, we HATE it here. ?We tried to move last year but the housing market sucked and we decided to wait it out. Trust me; we're counting down the time until we can move out of the land of strip malls and stucco. I cannot wait to have a house that actually has architecture instead of a freaking cookie cutter, HOA governed, nightmare.?
WOW Geek...you really redeemed yourself with that post. FAIL!
Why dont you get your tubes tied so you can gaurantee that you will never have children in the school system
hehe!
Just because YOU happen to hate it here and apparently HATE kids, does not mean you should put down FL when you are on a FL board and most of us are happy to live here. Where do you plan to move? Have you traveled the States much? Almost everywhere I have been, which by the way is about 30something states, is turning into the strip mall/stucco area you hate.?
Also, investing in a school system, which teaches the future of this country, is actually a GREAT idea since when you are old and unable to do the great young things you can do now, these will be the people running our country. Would you like it to be a bunch of idiots?!?
?Vent Over...
?Sorry ladies I am a FL girl born and raised and ignorance ticks me off!?
Seminole county does not district schools by income. Where did you get that information? FWIW, some of the Sanford schools received A ratings this year, while some of the Lake Mary schools received B ratings.
There is no evidence that proximity to a school will bring down your property value. If anything, it will make your home much easier to sell.
Geek, aren't you the one who has posted that you don't use birth control at all? Who knows, you might not be a dink forever. Just sayin.
01.03.09 {MARRIED BIO}
Make a pregnancy ticker
They do somewhat group by income but not on purpose and it's not as solid as it used to be. Half of Heathrow is in the "Sanford" school district. Like pp said, some of the Sanford schools received A's this year while some of the Lake Mary schools received B's. It sounds like you live near downtown Lake Mary and you're bitter that your kids wouldn't attend Lake Mary Elementary.
Oh, and private schools are drug havens. When I was in one of the top public schools in the country (google: Stanton College Preparatory, Jacksonville, Florida), our rival private school was known for wild parties where drugs and alcohol flowed freely and cops were told to "talk to Daddy".
Having a good school system makes it easier for you to sell your house when you're ready to get out of Florida (and as a 5th generation Floridian I invite you to take your leave of my fine state).
Oh, and just so you know, constitutionally the State cannot create a classes persons such as "parents" and "nonparents" for the purposes of school district taxes. Just as another pp mentioned, a good school district deters criminal behavior which is a benefit to the entire community.
P.S. I hope it passes as well. I also hope other counties and cities take the initiative and pass similar taxes. Yes, the counties and cities probably mismanaged money but the budget structure encourages them to use all of their funds every year or lose them. DH used to sell computers to a school district and they always bought massive amounts of equipment at the end of their budget year to empty out the coffers.
I also hope this bill passes. I'm sick of hearing about all my friends not being able to find a job because the one they want is gov't funding. I have a lot of teacher friends and they've all been laid-off or are on very thin ice because of the budget cut. So not worth $200 a year, especially when property taxes are broken up into you mortgage over 12 mos. So what's that? Like $17 per month. Give the state back their funding so they can end this stupid hiring freeze. Ugh, what a waste. Again, I really hope this thing passes!!
As far as paying taxes to support something you don't use such as schools. I never understood that logic. We all do that. Nobody uses/benefits from every branch of the government. What about people who don't have driver's license or own cars? Should they pay for the upkeep of the roads, etc? That whole argument is just silly because you just can't sit there and winnow out what you deserve to pay and don't deserve to pay based on what public/government services you use. We all have to chip in to everything.