Unreal Estate Game: North and Central Florida

[Rain Man]

Unreal Estate Game: Tennessee
ssume that you idly buy a state lottery ticket while getting a doughnut at 7/11, and voila! You're a winner! You win your choice of one the five houses that will be shown.

I'll give you five houses in a state, and you vote on the house you would take.

Background rules:

Assume that your job situation won't need to change - you can find an identical job or work from home or whatever, so jobs don't matter.

Consider the house itself and the location and anything else that's important to you (schools, restaurants, lot size, etc.). Feel free to do a google map search to check out the neighborhood and the area.

You cannot sell the home. You can live in it as long as you like, but when you move out, it reverts back to the state as a prize for a future winner.

All houses will generally be in the $900,000 to $1 million price range.

All maintenance and utilities and taxes are cost-neutral compared to your current home.

If you wouldn't move into any of these homes, you can instead accept a cash prize of $50,000 (tax free).

Today's state is the north and central part of Florida. Here are your five houses:

Cocoa - http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/5190-N-Highway-1_Cocoa_FL_32927_M51990-58221

Fort Walton Beach - http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/321-Yacht-Club-Dr-NE_Ft-Walton-Bch_FL_32548_M54259-73330

Jacksonville - http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/5404-Clifton-Rd_Jacksonville_FL_32211_M63542-59214

Orlando - http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1021-Edgewater-Dr_Orlando_FL_32804_M61942-02511

St. Petersburg - http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1926-Arrowhead-Dr-NE_Saint-Petersburg_FL_33703_M63023-13456

[Rain Man]

My rankings. I'm not really impressed with the offerings here.

St. Petersburg. The front looks a little like the Golden Girls for some reason, but I like the house a lot overall. The kitchen is nice and the rooms are a good size with good colors. And why don't more houses move the laundry room to be near the bedroom? That makes so much sense. I wonder if you can drive your boat to restaurants. I just noticed, though, that it's almost directly under the flight path from that nearby Air Force base.

Orlando - Great exterior, though I wonder if you get a lot of gators crossing your yard. The interior is pretty meh and while it's near some restaurants, it's not a great selection.

Fort Walton Beach - The styles in this house don't really work. It seems like a place your nouveau riche grandmother would buy. I'm not a big fan. It's close to what seems like a low-end mall, so that's an advantage, I guess.

Jacksonville - Nice curb appeal and it has that waterfront that I always like. The interior is only okay, not really my style, but not an abomination. You can walk to a bunch of low-end chain restaurants, which is better than nothing but not ideal.

Cocoa - I just realized that they show no interior shots of this house, which means it's probably a mess. It was clearly being used as offices, but I wouldn't necessarily mind that. The pool is cool, along with the grounds. But a quick street search shows that it's on a street with some thrift shops and a bail bonds place. Can you have a ghetto oceanfront property? I wanted to like this place, but it's got too many red flags.

[ThaVirus]

I like the St Pete house and location the most but I'd have to go with the Orlando home since I already live here. I could essentially go on living my current life as is just in a much nicer home.

I would invest in a paint re-haul.

[TinyEvel]

This is the first one of your game here where I would just take 50 grand and stay where rI am. I like the idea of Florida by the pics of the land around some of these but WTF Florida people are cheesy af.

[Rain Man]

This is the first one of your game here where I would just take 50 grand and stay where rI am. I like the idea of Florida by the pics of the land around some of these but WTF Florida people are cheesy af.

South Florida was chock full of goodness, but yeah, north and central are not really speaking to me. Plus...gators.

[ThaVirus]

South Florida was chock full of goodness, but yeah, north and central are not really speaking to me. Plus...gators.

There are probably more gators in south Florida than central Florida.

[Bwana]

St. Petersburg

[Rain Man]

There are probably more gators in south Florida than central Florida.

That's what they want us to think.