One of the goals of this blog is to share our journey of moving to Florida to help others who might choose a large move. I have read many blogs and watched many VLOGs of other families moving to Florida, and this is my way to give back to the community and help others who might have a large move in their future.
Our options for moving to Florida are becoming very complicated due to the Pandemic. We planned to visit Florida in August 2020, but that was canceled due to COVID restrictions: we would have needed to quarantine for two weeks once we arrived in Florida, and then quarantine for another two weeks once we returned to New York.
We reschedule the trip for November. The quarantine in Florida has now been lifted, but when we return to New York we would still have to be quarantined for two weeks. That is two weeks when my wife can't go to work, earn a pay check, and have her benefits (we would have to pay for the Health Insurance out of our pocket). If we violate the quarantine we could be fined up to $10,000.
If we want to build a house and have it ready for our June/July move, we need to commit 8 months in advance... which is November. In other words, we have to fly to Florida in a couple of weeks and sign papers to have someone build us a house. I don't think we can fly to Florida. And I'm not going to pick a builder sight unseen.
Our real estate agent had told us we need to sign 8 months in advance because the normal 6 month window has slid to 8 months due to all the high demand. But now I am hearing from builders and from people who are having houses built that there is a shortage of building supplies. It can take 4 months to get a refrigerator, for example. Another person told me the stores are completely sold out of plywood. Another person who is building apartment complexes told me they have a work stoppage because they can't get materials. This makes be believe that even 8 months for a new build may be unrealistic.
Due to the shortage in building supplies, new home construction prices are rising (supply and demand). Almost overnight, houses rose $10K. Because of the challenges with new home construction, demand for existing houses is very high (it was high in Florida before, now it is crazy). Houses sit on the market for a few days and get a bidding war above the asking price. It is a great time to be selling a house... not a great time to be buying.
Due to the challenges COVID has placed on our move, I have assembled the following decision tree to try to make sense of it all.
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