MoveMap Safety Feature Highlight: Prisons in Orlando Fl

As you may have noticed by now, moversatlas.com helps you to explore your community by including special features such as schools and community amenities on the MoveMap. One of these special features is the safety feature which can help prisons in orlando flyou to locate any police stations, fire stations or correctional facilities in or around your area. Perhaps when you first begin to think about moving to a new city, you research things like schools in the area or recreational activities for the family. You may look at the median household income and explore the possible job market but maybe you forget to look at things like prisons and correctional facilities which can affect the crime rates of a given area. That’s where the MoveMap comes in handy. Click on the Safety button and then check the box next to correctional facilities and watch the purple boxes appear on your map.

Using the map, you’ll notice that some cities such as Oviedo and Winter Park have no prisons of any kind while cities like Orlando have several.  Although that is quite unfortunate for Orlando, it can be very helpful  to use the map in order to identify exactly what kind of facilities are located in your area and how near or far they may be from your neighborhood or local schools or churches. Looking at Florida you’ll notice it has four male-run and two female-run reception centers where inmates are thoroughly evaluated before being sent off to one of the 48 major institutions. Those institutions do not include work camps, juvenile detention centers and work release centers. The work release centers in Orlando for example are a community program that encourages inmates to reintegrate into society by working for their local community and getting paid during the last few months of their sentence. There are of course certain strict requirements leading to eligibility for these types of programs but they are one way of getting inmates to stand on their own, save up some money and try to once again become a part of society.

I hope this article helped bring your attention to some of the specific uses of the site and how the MoveMap can help you in ways you may not have thought of before. Let me also mention that the safety feature can be used to find the nearest hospitals, fire stations, and police stations which can be very beneficial when you move to a new area in case of an emergency!

Fire Stations in Orlando Florida

The city of Orlando has 24 fire and rescue stations within its borders.  By looking at our MoveMap, you can see that the stations are distributed fairly evenly across Orlando, though there are more total facilities in the denser downtown areas Orlando Fire Stationsthan in suburbs.  Most fire stations are public and therefore run by the government, but a few are private.  The private stations are exclusively rescue stations, which respond to emergencies by transporting people to hospitals.

Fire stations are an essential part of any community; without them, emergencies simply wouldn’t be dealt with.  However, living near a fire station in Florida can have both pros and cons.  Notably, and not surprisingly, fire stations are loud and operate 24 hours a day.  This means that living near one can present some nuisances in the form of noise.  While most fire truck operators try to be respectful of residents, they will blare the horn if they need to, regardless of the time of day.  This is the case in downtown Orlando where most drivers will traverse the streets silently for as long as they can; however, if they’re in a hurry and they come to a stop sign or a traffic jam, they will turn on the siren.  Noise can be a nuisance for some people, but most get used to it.  As a resident of downtown Orlando, I can tell you that at first I noticed the sirens quite a bit, but now they rarely register with me and certainly don’t wake me up at night.

Even though noise can be annoying, there’s a benefit to having so many fire stations in Orlando.  Typically, response time to an incident is a function of distance from a fire station.  In reality, a great number of factors influence the response time on any given day, but distance is a big one – if you’re close to a fire station, you can generally expect a faster response than someone who lives far away.  And if you live close enough, you might even be able to get a reduced insurance rate; check with your provider.  Since most fire stations in Orlando also serve as rescue stations, elderly persons and those with chronic medical conditions should be aware of station locations, since in many cases living nearby one also means living near an emergency medical center.  You can determine which fire stations also serve as rescue centers by clicking on a point in our MoveMap.

On the down side, you should be aware that fire stations that also serve as rescue stations are a lot more active.  In other words, since they respond to more incidents, they create more noise, often at random times of day.  So if noise is a major concern for you, you might want to consider living a few blocks further away.

We hope that this blog post has helped you get a sense of how fire stations are distributed throughout Orlando as well as the functions that they serve.  The relatively even geographic distribution of stations means that most Orlando residents enjoy decent incident response times.  Living near a station can present both costs and benefits, so we encourage you to check out our MoveMap to see where the nearest fire station to you is, and what it does.  Good luck with your home search!

3 Good Reasons Why You Should Wait To Buy A Home

Most would agree, why would you rent if you could buy?! With interest rates as low as they are it should be a no brainer right?  Let’s just find a place and lock it in for the next 30 years… seems like a long time? That’s because it renting vs buying a homeis.  The following are reasons why you should NOT buy unless you know you are ready. You may not be thinking purchasing is all it’s cracked up to be after you read the top 3 reasons to rent.

1. Location, Location, Location – It may seem like you have found a good area that is safe and close to everything you enjoy on the weekends but what about your career?  Are you confident you are set up in a place that you will continue working for many years?  Since you like the area so much have you looked into the property tax rates and other local fees like insurance rates to own a home in the area?  What about your dream job or school you have considered for the past few years?  I will tell you that if you rent none of the previous items would be an issue, things like tax rates or your ability to be mobile would not be an issue.  I would suggest to really consider your future plans before you look to buy because getting out of a 30 year mortgage or selling a place you just bought is a huge hassle.

2. Affordability – If you are renting for $1200 a month you can afford a $1200 a month mortgage right?  Not exactly, there are a lot of costs that renting a place includes that you may not be aware of.   Just a small list of why being a homeowner may not be what you want right now; HOA fees, property taxes, mortgage fees, home insurance, yard maintenance and home maintenance.  These items may not seem terrible but when you add all of them up you could add another 50% to the mortgage costs.  Even if you feel like you could budget for it keep in mind some of these items are not announced and the leaky roof that could cost thousands of dollars as a home owner would cost you ZERO as a renter and the $1200 monthly payment stays that way.

4. Sensibility – If you decide the above reasons do not directly impact you or your decision to rent or buy, the last reason is sensibility.  Sensibility is more than just the numbers adding up it comes down to truly being able to make the purchase and be comfortable with your quality of life and standard of living.  Keep in mind you want at least 20% saved up for a down payment and ideally all the rest of your debt paid off, if you are in this boat then buying a home maybe your next step.  Sensibility also reflects the peace you have each month and the feeling that you aren’t stretched to pay your bills, save for retirement and to give when others are in need.

Not to make buying seem like a bad thing but if you are not ready than the purchase will end up being a curse more than a blessing.  Buying a home can also be one of the greatest investments you make in your life but if you make it at the wrong time it can be the biggest disaster.  I highly recommend purchasing a home but keep in mind it is still OKAY to rent for a period of transition, saving or relocating.  In the meantime do your research and continue to use tools like www.MoversAtlas.com when you look to rent or buy a new home.