Best place to live and boat on a lake?

[1roadking]

Guys, I am considering moving somewhere that I can boat almost year round in fresh water and not be eaten by gators or bit by snakes. I am in the car business and feel that I can get a job at almost any toyota dealership, so location is not that big of a deal. I need good schools and a big house for under $500,000 on the water. Loto is looking pretty good so far. Any other ideas? I am very open, but I do want to be on a big lake with services.

[jrolin1]

I am biased. But I love Lake Murray in SC. With over 500 miles of shoreline it is big enough with restaurants and gathering places. Plus no snow and a long boating season. Lexington district 1 has great schools. Both LOTO and Lake Murray are around 50,000 plus acres so they are big enough. You can also be on the coast at the beach (Charleston) in less than 2 hours from Lake Murray.

[1roadking]

IS IT SAFE TO SWIM IN LAKE MURRAY? I WANT NO WINTER PER SAY AND CLOSE TO YEAR ROUND BOATING AND SWIMMING. SWIMMING IS A BIG DEAL TO US.

[spurhunter]

Your not going to find much in the way of year round swimming WITHOUT gators unless you go saltwater.
I grew up in Florida, we have pics from the beach on Christmas day...but I hated not having some kind of seasons.

We moved to TN in 95, I will never move from here. We swim from May 5th to Late Sept. We boat year round. Take a vacation to the Chattanooga area and you will see the natural wonders we have around here. If I had a choice to live on the water, I would look at Watts Bar Lake, right in between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Larger lake, more house for the money there.

[lakerunner696]

If you sold Ford's I would say lake Tenkiller but can't help with Toyyouta

[GregF]

Florida is still going to be about the only place you can get year around boating unless you are really OK with cold weather. The problem will be trying to find a decent lake front house for $500k but I bet that is true everywhere. Gators are not really that big a problem on the private lakes here since people kill them pretty fast.

BTW salt water is no big deal for gators. When I lived in Sanibel there was a 12 footer on the beach all the time. He was also down at the dairy queen eating things people fed him. It was all real cute until he ate a real estate agent. That was when they started killing gators instead of just moving them down the island a couple miles to the Ding Dong refuge.

[Buccaneer]

SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE, VIRGINA

* No gators .. lol
* Beautiful lake with views of the Blue Ridge Mountains
* 500+ miles of shoreline
* 40 miles long
* Over 20,000 acres
* World class bass fishing
* 4 distinct seasons

I've lived near New York City, Boston, Tampa, and Chicago, and can honestly say I like the weather here more than any of those places.

[STEVEBRENDA]

I see you mentioned LOTO. Table Rock is about 40 miles from Springfiled, MO. Nixa and Ozark are even closer, but I do not know if they have a Toyota dealer.

I am a woos, I do not swim before Memorial Day or much after Labor Day. Table Rock does not freeze.

$500,000 would buy alot of house on either lake. Table Rock is a corp owned lake so there are properties that adjoin corp property, but not much actually touching the water. Usually the corp owns less than a 100 yard for their buffer. Schools are usaully well funded as there are more retired folks and part timers at the lake in proportion to the number of students.

[GregF]

Like I said, if you are OK with cold weather. I like wearing shorts and boat shoes all year long. Even Tampa St Pete get a little too cold for me

We have seasons, Tourist season, hunting season, lobster season and snook season.

[Buccaneer]

Like I said, if you are OK with cold weather. I like wearing shorts and boat shoes all year long. Even Tampa St Pete get a little too cold for me

We have seasons, Tourist season, hunting season, lobster season and snook season.

Don't forget the "hotter than hell with high humidity and rain every day" season.

[spurhunter]

Hence why I moved from the pit of hell. LOL

[bassn386]

Roadking, several issues with LOTO. It does freeze (not all of it and not all winter) and we can get some New England style winters here. This past February we had 20+ inches of snow in one fell swoop. Some docks sank because of the weight of the snow on their roofs. No gators, unless you count one that was reported last year (about 2 feet long). Even it were true, the extreme cold would most likely have killed it.
The closest Toyota dealerships to here are Springfield, MO (about 95 miles), Sedalia, MO (about 70 miles), and Jefferson City (about 60 miles). There are a couple of Ford dealerships as well as GM dealers in the area, within about a 20- 25 mile radius of Osage Beach, the social and shopping center of the Lake area.
For a half-mil you could get a 4-5 BR/3-4 bath lake front house with a minimum of 100 feet of lake front. If you do decide to come here and look and you want lake front property, always ask (and measure) the water depth at the front and back of the dock. AmerenUE (the owners of the lake) do a winter drawdown, which could be as much as 5-6 feet. Full pool at the lake is 660 feet above sea level and it got down to 653.9. Some docks were on dry ground and some lifts couldn't be lowered. If there isn't at least 6 feet of water under the dock from May to November, you might want to look at other property.
Right now it's a buyer's market down here.
Good luck!

[jrolin1]

IS IT SAFE TO SWIM IN LAKE MURRAY? I WANT NO WINTER PER SAY AND CLOSE TO YEAR ROUND BOATING AND SWIMMING. SWIMMING IS A BIG DEAL TO US.

Very Safe! No Gators or water moccasins. It is a deep water lake with few obstructions. My girls (ages 7 and 9) swim in it almost every day. I boat year round. It is too cold to swim without a wetsuit from December-February. March is iffy but my girls went swimming. We had snow for two days this year. First time in a long time that it was on the ground overnight. I will post some pics shortly.

[jrolin1]

Here are a few pics from this past weekend. The last pic is from a good day in January.




This pic is in January.

[spurhunter]

Here is a cool link that tells the average temps for a bunch of cities. http://www.cityrating.com/averagetemperature.asp