Osprey, + Sarasota. Awesome except summer weather
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10/4/2022
My wife and I moved to Osprey from San Clemente California, one of the nicest beach front towns there, and similar in size to Sarasota.
I find most things in Osprey to be five star, but I could only provide a four star rating, because of the obviously less than ideal summer weather vs San Clemente which is pretty great weather all year round.
We moved for the obvious reason: “you can work until you die in California, or retire nicely in a low tax state!“
Other than the weather, my only other real complaint is that where we live in Osprey, we cannot walk anywhere. That’s because our small complex is next to the 41, with no good way to cross, or to walk north to the one traffic light nearest us.
One of the big pluses I’m living in Osprey, is that we are truly water close, overlooking black burn harbors south Creek, we have a spectacular view, with better sunsets, than the coastline view we had in California. Real estate here is still less thnhalf the price of out there, and even the real estate tax rate is lower than in California where the homes cost 2X plus. By the way real estate an Osprey is especially expensive compared to Sarasota, because there are so many homes on the water relative to the 7000 total population. We have excellent restaurants in the area and also right down the road in Venice. And the selection of restaurants in Sarasota is downright awesome.
They say traffic is getting a lot worse here, especially in the season, when everybody, plus tourists are down here, but California traffic is still far worse.
Cultural Lee, this area is great. Sarasota in particular has a number of excellent museums and many events. Consider, how many towns of less than 60,000 people have a symphony, an opera, a ballet, and more?
It should be noted, that the average age in Osprey itself is a good bit older than the surrounding towns including Sarasota and Venice. Perhaps that’s because it is an especially nice place to retire to, including a few senior residence communities.
Of course everything else about Florida is also very affordable compared to California, and overall this area is pretty much right at the national average, or a San Clemente was over double.
If not for the weather in the summer, we try to leave for about half of that, this is definitely a five-star place. My issue with not being able to walk anywhere, is largely due to the choice of places we bought in. On the other hand my wife and I love walking around our 80 acre complex which is on the water, has a boat dock for mini boats, and even has its own lagoon. We love it here.
Art | Osprey, FL