Snowbird Thinking ? ? ? Here's Some Tips

Charles Hanes
January 14, 2012

A lot of my inquiries these days are from Snowbirds considering a winter home, and quite frankly, I can't blame them!  With old man winter pounding northerners these days while a short, three hour flight from Toronto it's sunny and eighty degrees, well - need I say more.

With eight flights a day to and from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale International Airport and the same from New York, Buffalo and pretty well every major city north of North Carolina, there really is no excuse for suffering through those blistery cost winter days!

So, the continual first question is always:  "should I buy a condo, a townhouse or a detached house" when I make the move to enjoy my winters"?

Here's the low down.  Your first consideration, if you have a pet, is "is the place pet friendly".  Pet friendly means do they allow pets by the way, and NOT can I allow my pet to use your garden as a bathroom!   I just had an incident where someone in our "pet friendly" community understood that to mean that he could allow his pet to meander through everyone's nicely manicured garden area and use it as it's bathroom.  When I tried to politely inform him that I did not appreciate him using my garden for this purpose, a confused look came across his face and his response was that "it's a pet friendly neighborhood".  So, for the record, a pet friendly neighborhood is one that allows you to have a pet.

This is important as many condos by the ocean have rigid policies that restrict pets to NO PETS!  The second consideration is condo fees as they can run quite high and if you can only use your snowbird palace for a maximum of six months that means that you're going to be paying these fees of anywhere from $300 -
$1,000 per month for each and every month of the year.  Condos do however give you good security and if you are looking for something right at the ocean then a condo is your better bet.

Detached houses offer a security challenge as leaving a stand alone house vacant for 6 months, to me, is something to be concerned about.  Many detached houses in south Florida also have HOA ("Home Owner Association") fees and many more have HOA Fees PLUS memberships and annual dues.

The winning combination, in my professional and personal opinion, is a townhouse as the security issue is addressed and HOA fees are considerably less in many instances.  The townhouse that I purchased, for example, has monthly fees of only $125!  So those six months that I'm in Canada don't hammer me with thousands of dollars in expenses on a vacant property.  You've got to approach a winter "Snowbird" residence like a cottage.

If is really a challenge to find the right mix of property, with monthly fees that are attractive, security that is solid yet the lifestyle is uncompromising.  I've found a few good communities in my research over the past 2 years and I'll be happy to send you detailed information.  Simply Register with me and you will have made your best first step in a challenging process.

I'm Charles Hanes