if you're thinking about moving to sarasota i wanted to talk to you about some tips and
some things to think about so that when you're moving to sarasota it'll make the transition a
lot easier on you if you're new to my channel i'm katrin pfitzenreiter i'm a marketing professional
and real estate agent here in sarasota this channel is all about florida insights including
sarasota real estate information if you haven't subscribed so far subscribe to this channel and
let's get going first one is the weather we always talk about the weather a lot of people who move to
florida end up moving out of florida because they underestimated how warm the weather can
get here in the summertime we're talking about 95 degrees with high humidity now i'm filming this in
december and the weather is really nice it's about 65 to 70 degrees that's one of the reasons why a
lot of the snow birds will come here just around this time maybe after the holidays january into
april because it's just beautiful here now i'm not saying it's not beautiful in the summertime but it
does get really warm and so many people who move to florida will move back out of florida because
they underestimated how hot it can get here many of them will come here to visit in the winter
time because they're trying to escape the cold up north but they have no idea what it's really
like to live here year round so just make sure that you're ready and prepared for the weather
just kind of in line with the weather in the summer time it's really rainy so i remember when
i moved here i was picked up by the airport and typically it takes about an hour from the tampa
airport to sarasota it took us about two hours to get to sarasota because in the middle of our trip
it started raining buckets of water just poured on the car on the streets and it got so dense the
rain that is that we had to pull over for about 15 minutes and 20 minutes to allow it to just
pass by because it was too dangerous to you know drive on the highway good news is that when it
rains like this it usually doesn't last that long an hour to two hours if you're somebody
that doesn't enjoy the rain you're probably not going to enjoy living here in florida in the
summer time maybe just become a snowbird instead if that's something that you you know can afford
understand that we have hurricanes here now the good news is that we've never been hit directly
with a hurricane but we did have to prepare a few times i've been here for about 11 years now and
i went through irma hurricane irma in 2017 and we all thought it was going to hit us directly and we
boarded up the house brought all our stuff inside and we actually left town because we felt a little
bit uneasy about staying in sarasota because at one point they were talking about it hitting us
directly for those people who just don't have enough time to prepare to get out of town
or they don't have you know a safe shelter to be in back in 2017 a lot of these people would
go into a shelter for the community and that's typically when you know a lot of the schools
will transition over to a hurricane-proof type of shelter know about hurricanes and understand what
it means to get prepared and what the safety precautions typically look like you just want
to become familiar with that a lot of customers who actually think of sarasota as a small town
and maybe it's because they've never been here before they're coming from a bigger city like new
york city or san francisco sarasota is actually a city but it isn't very big you can get very
easily from one point of interest to another in maybe 15 to 20 minutes so you can go from
the beach to downtown sarasota probably within 20 minutes if the traffic is good unless you
live in downtown sarasota you do need a car you can't just walk everywhere downtown sarasota is
fast-growing there's a lot of high-rises mid-rises and smaller types of buildings and homes it does
have kind of that city feel which is great if you live down down there and you don't want to drive
but as soon as you're out of that neighborhood so downtown sarasota is just a neighborhood amongst
many neighborhoods we have here you're going to need a car or you're going to have to take a bus
or maybe an uber if you're planning to buy a house here in sarasota make sure that you apply for
homestead exemption homestead exemption allows you to decrease the taxable value of your home
up to fifty thousand dollars so from a tax standpoint it will help you save some money
you will go to the county appraisal website to apply for the homestead exemption so you
never wanna leave your kids in the car for longer than 15 minutes as a matter of fact it is illegal
to leave a kid in a car unsupervised in florida for longer than 15 minutes just know that don't
underestimate how warm the cars can get here even in the winter times the temperature
in the cabin can heat up so fast and a lot of wrongful deaths have actually occurred because
dogs and even kids have been left too long in the car the traffic pattern here in sarasota can vary
depending on the time of the year and the time of the day if i were to drive from palmer ranch
to downtown sarasota in the morning during rush hour so when people are actually going to work
it could take me about 20 minutes longer than if i were to make that same trip during the day when
everybody is essentially at work to study the traffic pattern also in the winter time there
is about 20 more people that live here because now you're counting in the snowbirds as well you just
want to have a good feel for what the traffic pattern is depending on the time of the month
the time of the day in order to help you get to places that you really need to get to on time be
aware that there's an alligator in pretty much every lake in florida some of my clients didn't
even realize that we have alligators or they just didn't believe it just know even if you don't see
them they're in there so don't take a bath in the lake even though the lake may look very pretty
alligators are in there and you don't want a chance being taken over by an alligator and with
that said also make sure that your kids and your dogs aren't anywhere close to the edge of a lake
alligators are very fast and they've been known to scoop up dogs and even kids unsupervised be aware
of lovebug season which is typically from april to may and then again from august to maybe september
october love bugs are these bugs that fly attached because they're mating and no they don't sting but
they can swarm your car especially when you're on the highway their remains on the car can be
really sticky really hard to get off but it's important to get it off right away because
their remains is acidic and so it can hurt the paint of your car you'll come to find out that
love bugs are just a nuisance really when it comes to keeping your car clean be aware of fire
anthills because once you step on them they're so fast to sting you and their stings really really
hurt i actually got stung when i first moved here because i had no idea what fire ant hills were
i just thought it was just a regular dirt hell stepped on it and as soon as you step on it
they'll come rushing out and they'll try to sting whatever stirred up the mount siesta key beach is
the most famous beach that we have a lot of tourists will come here just to be on siesta
key beach but realize that we have so many other beaches that are in close proximity to siesta key
beach from crescent beach to turtle beach the lido beaches and to the south the venice beaches try to
get to know all of them because each one of them has its own value proposition i'll go to north
lido beach just for the sunset to me it's the most beautiful sunset spot now i go to siesta key beach
typically on sundays for the drum circle you come to find out very fast what beach you should go to
for what you're looking for and it could be different depending on the day sarasota
is actually located on the west side of florida therefore is really close to a lot of these other
travel destinations that are just now away maybe two hours away my recommendation is to take a
road trip every now and then and get to know saint petersburg and tampa of course orlando if you have
kids you're probably naturally going to want to go there anyways to the south of sarasota is naples
very close by is venice venice has some amazing beaches including casperson beach and venice beach
to the north is longboat key and anna maria island there's so much to do as well from a beach
standpoint and just cute restaurants to go to and bars so get familiar with the area and start
exploring once we moved here some of the best sunsets can be seen from sarasota we're lucky that
we're on the west side so we have the privilege of seeing the sunsets and because sarasota is such a
visually stunning place to begin with the sunsets here are just amazing go watch this video here for
some suggestions of where to go to to watch the sunsets but i'm sure that if you buy the water
somewhere you're going to see a beautiful sunset as long as you have good weather if any additional
questions in regards to what it's like living here or maybe you have real estate questions
just call me anytime i really love talking to all of you i hope this video is educational for
you i had a little bit of time so i figured i'll do it for my car today the great one take care