Help Building Out Community in South Florida?

intrestedmom ↓

Fri, Aug 02 2024, 2:53 pm

Hello all,

I'm new to this forum (so please be nice and apologies if this is the wrong thread).

My family and I currently live in the outskirts of Hollywood (five min drive to kosher grocery stores restaurants and shuls, but about a mile and a half from Young Israel, etc. so too far to walk in the summer heat) , and the building in which our shul was located recently raised their lease significantly and we were forced to move.

My husband found a charitable individual who created a shul for the community, but it's a bit farther out than our last location, and he's therefore been desperately trying to bring people into the community to help grow the shul. For reference, it's next to the Dolce Hotel.

We have no ulterior motive here other than making sure the shul survives - the community we have is small, but everyone is welcoming and nobody judges based on the car you drive, the house you have, etc. (which is unfortunately becoming increasingly more rare in south Florida).

Do any of you have advice as to how I could help him? For what it's worth, the homes in the surrounding area are much cheaper so it would be a great place for middle-income families (for reference, average home in Emerald Hills (a five-ten min drive) is $1.1M, but houses have sold here in the past few months for ~$450K and home rentals in the $3K range.

amother

Dahlia ↓

Mon, Aug 05 2024, 8:27 pm

intrestedmom wrote:

Hey, I'm all ears. I thought we were priced out of South Florida. I'd love to hear more details about your specific location. The housing prices sound a little too good to be true. Is it a predominantly non-white neighborhood?
Edited to add: I just looked up the neighborhood. It seems that the houses are either townhouses or tiny starter size houses. Wouldn't work for us.

↑ intrestedmom ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 9:53 am

amother Dahlia wrote:

Hey! Sorry for the delayed reply.

My husband has been showing me homes every month for the past like year haha. To be clear, some of the homes are semi-attached, but if you look at recently sold you’ll find 4 bed 2 bath that’s around 1700-1800sqft for $450-485K. And this was a a month or two ago, not a few years ago. Sure these aren’t mansions, but they’re affordable starter homes which I think is a rarity in Florida.

There are two “true” townhomes now available for 350 and 395, but there’s a larger home for rent for 3250 now that’s two blocks from the shul. Rentals pop up quite frequently - there was a blue house that was renting for $3K but I think just got scooped up.

If you look towards griffin there are also full standalone homes for around 500K or so.

We’re just hoping more frum Jews to take advantage so we can build the community - the shul is right next to the Dolce Hotel so if you’re not comfortable spending a Shabbos at one of the families in the area you can just stay there (they have kosher meals, manual keys, everything).

Happy to answer any q’s!

↑ intrestedmom ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 9:54 am

justforfun87 wrote:

There is a Facebook group called Move to an out of town Jewish community or something like that. Definitely post there!

Unfortunately I don’t have Facebook Sad

Thanks for the rec tho!! I’d really appreciate any tips you or anyone else on this chain could provide that could help me and my husband get the word out!

↑ intrestedmom ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 10:20 am

Last thing, just because I want to be helpful! Here are some links to places that are for sale, just sold recently and two for rent (note the 2800 is a large multi family home- so 2 connected).

To be clear, I’m not a realtor or anything so obviously check these for yourself etc. also if I can’t include links, apologies! Feel free to remove

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Fort.....81651

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Fort.....25967

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Fort.....81685

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Fort.....79639

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Fort.....79610

↑ intrestedmom ↓

Wed, Aug 07 2024, 8:19 am

marineparkmom wrote:

Where do children in the neighborhood go to school? What is your neighborhood officially called?

There are a bunch of places and it depends on what you prioritize/if you’re modern or yeshivish. To be clear we’re in the heart of the Jewish community, we’re just too far to walk to other shuls on shabbos. So there’s a fully-kosher grocery a five min drive away, a bunch of shuls 5-10 min drive, tons of restaurants within ten minutes, etc.