St. Johns Florida Reality Check - The Honest Pros and Cons

So you're thinking about moving to Jacksonville Florida or maybe you'd like to move to St John's Florida well today we're going to discuss the good and the bad the yin and the Yang the pros and the cons of living in St John's Florida and you're going to want to stick around to the end because we're getting after it right now if this is your first time to this Channel and you want to know everything about living in the Jacksonville Florida area or like today St John's Florida subscribe below tap the bell for notifications so you can be the first to learn about the current market conditions here in Jacksonville my name is Jay wike and I'm a real estate agent and we get calls texts emails every day from people just like you they're looking to move to this area and we absolutely love it so whether you're moving in nine days or 90 days give us a call shoot us a text send us an email we're happy to help you make a smooth move to Jacksonville like I said let's get started with the pros and cons of St John's here we go so we're going to get started with the pros and cons of living in St John's Florida give you a little bit of background about myself I've lived in St John's Florida for the last six years totally love living here I didn't know that I would like it as much when I first moved here as I do now but I wouldn't really want to live any other place it is in the northern part of St John's County located here with my significant other and she located here so that her child could go to high school here and her child got a really great education here and she's gone on to University of Florida with a full scholarship yeah I mean it's a little bit of a drive to different places around the Jacksonville area but you totally get used to that it's totally worth it once you live here for a while before this living here I did live in Jacksonville in the inter-coastal west area which is just across the Intercoastal Waterway from the beaches and then before that I lived for 15 years at the beaches so I've lived around different places in this area quite a bit over a number of years I'm in my third house and ownership and it's been a great ride and I totally love it so we'll start out with the first con some folks aren't really happy about the growth of this area all I can say is that there is buildable land in this area it is going to continue to grow it is not overgrown I don't foresee it over growing because the County Planning Commission is not going to let that happen they're very conscious of the density of the area as far as housing goes and the amount of retail that they put in here but yeah some folks they want things to stay the way they are forever and that's just not the way life is based on my experience so far so things do change over time I think things have just gotten better and better in this area and I'm happy with what's going on as far as the growth goes we need more construction we need more available inventory of Housing and people are going to continue to move to this area because it's a great place to live of course the a-rated schools but with the popularity does come the growth okay so another con that some people might not like is that there is some road construction going on in this area in order to support the growth they are building and widening roads so you see a lot of the main thoroughfares in this area going from two lanes to four lanes occasionally they have to switch the lane Direction up to accommodate that move power lines that sort of thing but there is a little bit of road construction that's going to be going on probably over the next year or two but they have the taxes and the the infrastructure and the county supports the growth as I alluded to at the first topic that we brought on but there is there is some road construction going on but it's not really that bad they limit it mostly to certain hours of the day and it's definitely tolerable and we need it they need to widen some of the roads in here and there it is happening okay here's another con for some folks I work with buyers and they want to they want to live in this area but the median price point right now is 530 5 000 that's a median price point median cost per square foot is around 231 dollars per square foot and everyone does not have a budget that of course will accommodate that price point there are some nuke there are some Town Homes not really any new construction much going on with Townhomes they've pretty much stop building those for a while in this area yeah the single family homes there are resales available and then limited new construction in that price point most of what I'm seeing you're going to need to drop definitely in the 500s 600s and up to live in this area so it is a it is a higher price point that some folks want to pay but there's different areas that you can live in in St Augustine Jacksonville Mandarin area which is part of Jacksonville there's different options available okay here is another con some people do not like deed restricted communities there are a limited amount of housing areas that don't are not going to have a HOA but the majority in this area will have an HOA there's a reason for HOAs HOAs protect you from the worst people that live in the community and fortunately everybody doesn't comply with the homeowners association requirements and therefore those things have to be enforced there's also something called a CDD which is Community Development District I've talked about that before on my Yuli Vlog video if you want to check that out if you're interested in Uli which is in Nassau County but CDD stands for Community Development District it's a line item that most people will pay well everybody pays on their on their County real estate taxes it basically is apportioned through home ownership and most people are paying around two grand a year for that on top of their regular taxes it can go it can be higher than that depending on the amount of amenities that's within a community D but it covers the Builder works out a deal with the county for for a bond and it's paid over like 20 to 30 years but that gets passed on to the consumer through individual home ownership it gets a portioned out there is operations management fee that's part of that and then the rest of it goes to the county for support of police fire utilities construction a water roadways schools all that stuff so that's part of the CDD but that's part of the breaks of living in a community that does have it and most of these new communities in this area do have a CDD last con is going to be there is some limited traffic and it's almost all related to the school zones most of the schools are in residential areas and this area is very thick with residential areas us so therefore bringing their kids to school or with school buses or kids riding their bicycles which a lot of kids do ride their bicycles because they're sidewalks throughout this area there's a lot of crossing guards and I'm talking Community officers through the Sheriff's Department these folks have been trained in a lot of cases during this in these school zones there's sheriff's cars nearby a lot of the crosswalks have those flashing signals where the traffic stops so people can cross but yeah during drive time hours to school and during school release there will be some traffic but that's just everybody that has kids and most all of us have kids or have had kids that live in this area you can definitely appreciate why they have to slow things down for the schools okay here's the biggest Pro one of the biggest Pros which is the air rated schools most the schools in this area are like a plus rated there's a very low student to teacher ratio they do have these academies which are k through eight and then they have the high schools Creekside High School and Bartram trail are the main high schools in this area at this point in time students that go to those schools they pick them specifically for the focus like almost like a major in college and you can transfer between these schools based on that what you want to focus on like major in in high school it's just a fantastic a-rated Community for schools what can I say I mean I have people that are that's the most important thing to them is getting their kids in these great schools and the schools are first and then the housing is secondary but believe me the housing is not taking third place the housing here is fantastic as well so great housing Great Schools okay so here here's another Pro which is going to be the availability of new construction in this area there's several new construction communities that are actively being built right now one of them that I've already been in and shown you guys video will be out shortly the Vlog is a middleborn fantastic Community there's a 55 plus Community called Stillwater that's very nearby there's another 55 plus Community nearby that's called Water song it's Anatomy Community you have Oxford Estates which is with David Weekley middleborn which is also a David Weekley ICI is in middleborn you have Riverwalk fantastic River very close to the river but not necessarily right on the river but very close no issues with flooding or any of that kind of thing you need to worry about there Mill Creek community there's Bartram Ranch those are both Toll Brothers communities just a fan fantastic amount of new construction in this area and of course if you want to resale home they're also available if you want a place they're definitely out here and the inventory is is growing a little bit as of late with what's been going on with the mortgage rates it's definitely still it's balancing out between a buyers and a seller's market the buyers are starting to get a little bit more leverage so we can definitely help you with that to get you a great deal and feel free to reach out of course always available for you for that okay let's talk about location St John's is in the northern Northwest section of St John's County it's very close to Duval County it is not in Duval County it's it's just a great location you still have all the benefits of living in St John's County but you have a a very low commute time into Jacksonville and Jacksonville areas like Mandarin you're still only 20 to 30 minutes from the downtown historic area of Saint Augustine the upper echelon upper region of Saint Augustine from St John's is really only 10 minutes away you can drive to the beaches within 20 minutes to the east you can get to the riverfront within 10 minutes and if you want to go across the river you can be in Green Cove Springs climbing Island Orange Park and then you can go on to Gainesville if you want from there but yeah this is a great location and a lot of people move here because of it if you want to live here definitely you're going to do a little bit of driving if you're commuting from Jacksonville but it's very it's very minor we have great roadways high-speed roadways no no stopping stop standstill traffic to worry about in this area and yeah location is awesome okay so this is the another big Pro and it's going to be the last one that I'm coming up with at this point which is going to be a sense of safety you can always check spotcrime.com if you want to check crime statistics but you're going to see for yourself there's not much there to speak of as far as crime goes it's a very you you have a sense of safety in this area as far as the community goes people have a lot of pride in living in this area a lot of people relocate here but you have people from all walks of life a good mixed demographics people are friendly you you go through neighborhoods people are don't be surprised if people nod their heads say hello wave hello people walking their dogs during all of the major holidays people are very festive the neighborhoods do a lot of Christmas lights and Christmas events within within all of these communities that I spoke of there's a lot of community-based events that are going on as well and they're always doing things for the kids constantly doing things for the kids and events so just a great great place to live I'm very happy and living in St John's love the sense of community and safety so I hope you got a lot out of this discussion of the pros and cons of living in St John's Florida you can always reach out to me contact information is in the description below we can even schedule a zoom call as well if you have any comments feel free to leave those below as well always welcome to see those and whether you're moving in nine days or 90 days give us a call shoot us a text send us an email we're happy to help you make a smooth move to Jacksonville or like today St John's and until then hope to show you around town