Best place to live and boat on a lake?

[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.

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

I lived in Maryland before and it is just as hot and humid there in the summer. If you are close to the water here it is not really that bad. You always get a nice sea breeze and you learn to like the rain in the afternoon. It cools things off. The lightning can be exciting and we do have that hurricane thing but I would rather have a 120 MPH hurricane than a 200 MPH tornado

All of that is better than frostbite, shoveling snow and those miserable days when it can't make up its mind so you have sleet and freezing rain with black ice on the roads. In the last 3 months I lived in Maryland I wrecked my car in a frozen parking lot, my power was out for 2 days in a snow storm and the pipes froze and broke open in my garage.
Give me hot and humid please. Gators ain't bad eating either.
When they see that "dinner" look in YOUR eyes, they take off.

[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.

I lived in Maryland before and it is just as hot and humid there in the summer. If you are close to the water here it is not really that bad. You always get a nice sea breeze and you learn to like the rain in the afternoon. It cools things off. The lightning can be exciting and we do have that hurricane thing but I would rather have a 120 MPH hurricane than a 200 MPH tornado

All of that is better than frostbite, shoveling snow and those miserable days when it can't make up its mind so you have sleet and freezing rain with black ice on the roads. In the last 3 months I lived in Maryland I wrecked my car in a frozen parking lot, my power was out for 2 days in a snow storm and the pipes froze and broke open in my garage.
Give me hot and humid please. Gators ain't bad eating either.
When they see that "dinner" look in YOUR eyes, they take off.

Ice is the worst; its scares me more than driving in snow. I did a 360 in my SUV one morning without even trying.

I'm not sure how to find the info, but I'd be willing to bet a tank of gas that the humidity in Naples Florida is significantly higher in May, June, July, August and September than it is in Baltimore !!

It gets to 95+ degrees a few days each summer here near Roanoke VA, but the humidity is no where near the "take your breath away" feeling I get when I get off the plane at Tampa International in July and walk outside. I guess I'm no longer used to the heat and humidity despite living near Tampa for 20 years.

[Drago]

Check out the larger lakes around Austin Texas for year round water fun. Travis is really low now but that might be a factor for most lakes - remember how low Lanier (Georgia) got a few years back.

[GregF]

This is anecdotal but right at this minute Weather Bug says it is 81f with 60% RH in DC and I am seeing 83f and 62% on my weather station. In the dog days of summer it is over 100 in DC. We virtually never see that here.

[Bamaman]

There are many places to live and boat, however it's hard to beat the Middle South for low cost of living, low housing prices and a low taxes.

For boating, it's hard to beat the Tennessee River system. It is a series of stairstep lakes from Paducah, KY to Knoxville, TN, and is the premier inland cruising lakes in the U.S. Large cities on The River are Muscle Shoals, AL, Huntsville/Guntersville, AL, Chattanooga, TN and Knoxville, TN. The houses on all of these lakes are incredible values, and they have seawalls, boat docks and fixed boathouses right at your front door. Property taxes are especially low, and there are not state income taxes in Tennessee.

Other great places in the Mid South with high quality lifestyles, automotive jobs and no alligators:
Lake Murray west of Columbia, SC
Lake Wylie NW of Charlotte, NC
Lake Catherine @ Hot Springs, AR
Norfolk Lake @ Heber Springs, AR
Lake Ouachita SW of Hot Springs, AR
Smith Lake NW of Birmingham
Logan Martin Lake SE of Birmingham
Lake Lanier NE of Atlanta
Alatoona Lake NW of Atlanta
Lake Hartwell, SC--Greenville area
Percy Priest Lake--Nashville, TN
Old Hickory Lake--Hendersonville, TN

All of these lakes have great amenities, and are very beautiful. They've all got great golf courses right on the wate, too.

[dockholiday]

Thinking the SE should be considered. Pretty much can swim from March to the first of Oct. Probably only two months not suitable for boating, usually Dec and Jan.
Most of the larger lake are corp's lake or state power lake. Ours is a power lake and we can install seawalls and permanent docks. Our lake normally only fluctuates a foot to 18" max. My brother in law had a place on Lanier (a corp lake) and heck you could hardly see the water for the trees. Try to remove one an you go to jail. Actually I don't think they will even let you rip rap your bank. So if you are in a high traffic area you could be loosing property every day. Generally the building lines are much further back on the corp lakes. Mine is 65' from my sea wall.
Guess depth of the lake would come into play next. Usually the topography has a lot to do with that. For instance mountain lakes generally will have more depth than say something in South Ga where the land is flatter.There are some real buys almost everywhere. Ours went up like a rocket an is now crashing like a plane. Probably couldn't go wrong with a foreclosure even now, if you have a 10 year or more horizon.
That is if we don't have a bad year in 2012.
doc

[yellowk9]

There are many places to live and boat, however it's hard to beat the Middle South for low cost of living, low housing prices and a low taxes.

For boating, it's hard to beat the Tennessee River system. It is a series of stairstep lakes from Paducah, KY to Knoxville, TN, and is the premier inland cruising lakes in the U.S. Large cities on The River are Muscle Shoals, AL, Huntsville/Guntersville, AL, Chattanooga, TN and Knoxville, TN. The houses on all of these lakes are incredible values, and they have seawalls, boat docks and fixed boathouses right at your front door. Property taxes are especially low, and there are not state income taxes in Tennessee.

Other great places in the Mid South with high quality lifestyles, automotive jobs and no alligators:
Lake Murray west of Columbia, SC
Lake Wylie NW of Charlotte, NC
Lake Catherine @ Hot Springs, AR
Norfolk Lake @ Heber Springs, AR
Lake Ouachita SW of Hot Springs, AR
Smith Lake NW of Birmingham
Logan Martin Lake SE of Birmingham
Lake Lanier NE of Atlanta
Alatoona Lake NW of Atlanta
Lake Hartwell, SC--Greenville area
Percy Priest Lake--Nashville, TN
Old Hickory Lake--Hendersonville, TN

All of these lakes have great amenities, and are very beautiful. They've all got great golf courses right on the wate, too.

Just a clarification. Greers Ferry, not Norfork, is in Heber Springs, Arkansas. Lake Norfork is near the Missouri border, as are Bull Shoals and Beaver Lakes.

[ROLAND]

Roadking... you need to head to the south.... around here we have several great lakes to use, caddo lake, lake bistineau or toledo bend. Lots of beautiful homes on the texas side of toledo bend... not to mention long boating season in Louisiana / texas. Somebody here mention table rock, and I might mention taneycomo, both up near springfield / branson missouri. Beautiful DEEP lakes, but that's still the midwest and winters can be harsh.... boating season there not nearly as long as it is in the south. Toyota huh? whadayathink about the Avalons... in what capacity do you work for Toyota. I ask because when I was shopping for a new Avalon in 07, this young salesman ( kid really ) came up and asked to show me around... I asked him where did they keep all thier Avalons? his reply..... "who makes that ". what a dumbass. I went and got another salesman...

[smltooner]

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.

Buccaneer is right, SW Virginia is hard to beat.
Here are a couple of links with some good info on Smith Mtn Lake, VA.

http://smith-mountain-lake.com/

http://www.visitsmithmountainlake.com/

[pontchartraintoon]

Hey Roadking, take a look at St Tammany Parish down here in Louisiana. Mandelville, Madisonville, and Slidell all have great lake front properties and Toyota dealers. Also some of the best school systems around. We live in Eden Isles in Slidell, LA. Google map it. It's a huge canal community with access right into Lake Pontchatrain. Several restaurants to go by boat, and lots of area to cruise even if it is windy.

[woolznaz]

As for boating year around, we love Arizona. We are just north of Phoenix and are located in between Bartlett Lake and Lake Pleasant. Bartlett is small and quiet. Pleasant is larger (still not huge at only 10,000 acres). Staying up in the far northern suburbs of Phoenix you will find a surprisingly cooler climate than you expect. It's May 25th and we have not needed an air conditioner yet, but we can still boat year around. For $500,000 you can buy a home that was $1,000,000 plus in 2005 and 2006.

Here's the problem.... you cannot really live on the lakes here. The lakes are surrounded by federal and/or state land. They are natural and beautiful, but I really like lakes that allow development on and around them. That's why I love LOTO so much. I don't think I could leave AZ permanently, but we love to take a few trips to LOTO every year if we can. To me, there is no lake like LOTO.

[jafo9]

I'll throw in my 2 cents here for the "other" Smith lake. Besides the very popular Tennessee River cities in north alabama, the 3 lakes I'm familiar with here in mid alabama are Lewis Smith Lake, Logan Martin lake and Lake Martin. Lake Martin is very expensive and imho difficult to get to from a major city. Logan Martin is not as clean as i would like and I would have a hard time "living" in the water like we do in the summer time. Lewis Smith lake is flanked by 2 interstates. we live on the west side of the lake and the toyota dealership in jasper is roughly 20 minutes from our house. it is consistently listed as one of the cleanest lakes in the nation. it is controlled by a power company so the water fluctuates, but they aren't nearly as draconian as the georgia folks. they have to "approve" your dock, but i can cut down as many trees as i like and wrap my shoreline at my discretion.

[STEVEBRENDA]

Before you make the big plunge to live on a lake, ask what your family wants out of life. Yeah, the boating all sounds great (well, actually it is). But by our lake house, there was a family that had younger children. They were finding it too difficult to commute to Springfield (45 minutes) in order for their kids to play soccer. They ended up moving away from the lake so their kids could participate in activities that are not conviently avaible at the lake. You may like the $150K lake 2nd home (within 1 1/2 hr drive) and the $350K in town home better.

[Ron Burgundy]

Before you make the big plunge to live on a lake, ask what your family wants out of life. Yeah, the boating all sounds great (well, actually it is). But by our lake house, there was a family that had younger children. They were finding it too difficult to commute to Springfield (45 minutes) in order for their kids to play soccer. They ended up moving away from the lake so their kids could participate in activities that are not conviently avaible at the lake. You may like the $150K lake 2nd home (within 1 1/2 hr drive) and the $350K in town home better.

That's a good point. We could have purchased a home on the water, but the school system was not very good. We ended up 8 miles inland and just drive over to our in-laws to jump in the boat. It 'feels' like our second home on the water.

[badmoonrising]

I'm pretty fond of Maryland, our winters USUALLY aren't that bad, except for '09 it was absolutely brutal. The Bohemia River and most of the Upper bay rivers freeze over but it's usually pretty thin. Swimming season is mid-late April up to the first week of October. It can get pretty humid here in the summer, but no where near Florida. We almost always have a breeze off the water. Inland (Baltimore City), the humidity is equal to Florida. Urban centers generally are.

Nothing in the bay to kill you. Even though we have bull sharks, no attacks on humans have been reported. Ever.

No way you're getting waterfront on the Chesapeake for $500k though, unless it's just a lot. Homes on 1/2 acre waterfront average 1 million with a half acre lot. That was during the upturn so they may be significantly lower now.

And then we have Canal Days every June