Marathon Fl Homes for sale by Fredy Carricaburu & Carmen Cordova Carricaburu-Direct line: (305)289-0077

The Florida Keys offer many of the same laid back characteristics as the Caribbean, without ever leaving the United States. Amazing sunsets and a free spirited attitude all contribute to the laid back atmosphere of the Keys.

There are many activities to do, like sport fishing, scuba diving and snorkeling, boating, sailing, kayaking and eco-tours. Each island destination has its own special features. These islands are also rich in culture and history with many galleries, restaurants, festivals, music and theater to visit and check out. Of course, just relaxing is always an option throughout the Keys as well.

The Keys span about 120 miles and are connected by bridges and causeways, running south west from Miami. This area has the only living-coral barrier reef in the United Stares and is approximately 5 miles off shore and runs the entire length of the Keys.

The first island in the Florida Keys is Key Largo. Being close to the Everglades National park, there is much wildlife to be seen here. It is a popular destination for kayakers and bird watchers. There are many amazing scuba diving or snorkeling sites in Key Largo as well, with many sunken wrecks in the area. The John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is located here and offers scuba and snorkeling tours, glass bottom boat tours and swimming in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. In 2002, the navy ship, the USS Spiegel Grove was sunk to provide a reef here and a sunken wreck for divers to explore.

The next island in the chain is Islamorada. It is comprised of six islands including Plantation Key, Windley Key, Upper Matecumbe Key, Lower Matecumbe Key and the offshore islands of Indian Key and Lignumvitae Key. This area is well known for its world class sport fishing. There are many fishing tournaments held here each season.

Marathon Key is in the middle of the Florida keys. It is famous for the Seven Mile Bridge, which links it to the Lower Florida Keys. You will find great shopping and many fine restaurants offering fresh seafood. At Crane Point Museum, there is one of the last untouched tropical hardwood hammocks in the Florida Keys.

Big Pine Key is known for its boating tours and for bird watching and fishing. The diving and snorkeling is great here too. It is a quiet region of small resorts, home-style restaurants, vacation homes and untouched natural areas.

The last of the Florida Keys is Key West. There are many festivals, shopping and restaurants. Boat tours provide a great way to view Key West from the water. The snorkeling and diving are renowned here to see a diverse array of marine life. Wrecks and reefs, both artificial and natural coral, are home to hundreds of species of tropical and game fish. Many visitors rent a bicycle or go on walking tours to explore the history and architecture of Old Town Key West.

So if you are into eco-tourism, scuba diving or snorkeling, shopping and dining, or just want to relax in a tropical paradise, the Florida Keys may be the destination for you.

Provided as a courtesy of

Fredy & Carmen Carricaburu

Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate Co.

11050 Overseas Highway

Marathon,FL 33050

Toll Free – (800) 366-5181

Direct Line – (305) 289-0077

Office Line – (305) 289-6523

Mobile Phone – (305) 481-8556

carmencordova@bellsouth.net

http://www.homesinthekeys.com

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Geographically, the Middle Keys stretch from the southern tip of Islamorada at the high-rise Channel 5 bridge – which has, in both directions, perhaps the most beautiful and stunning views in the Keys – to Marathon’s improbable, spectacular Seven Mile Bridge connecting Marathon to the Lower Keys. Most of us have seen this famous 7 mile bridge in movies (True Lies) or television commercials. It neatly divides the Atlantic Ocean on the East from the Gulf of Mexico to the West, a mere thread of concrete across the 75-100 square miles of azure and green seas and “flats” and islands that your eyes encompass simultaneously.

As a practical matter, the Middle Keys basically refer to the “large” incorporated town and bustling commercial center of Marathon and the nearby expensive housing areas of Hawks Key (Duck Key), Key Colony Beach, and Long Key. The other islands in the Marathon region are Boot Key, Knight Key, Hog Key, Vaca Key, Stirrup Key, Crawl and Little Crawl Key, East and West Sister’s Island, Deer Key and Fat Deer Key, Long Pine Key and Grassy Key. Marathon’s metro area sits between mile markers 48 and 55 and has a non-tourist residential population of more than 13,000 (it feels bigger than that), with a median age of 44.

Marathon is centrally located 80 miles south of mainland Florida and more or less just 50 from Key Largo and 48 from Key West. Marathon is served by bus lines to Key West and the Mainland, and by the sleek Marathon airport offering connections to Miami and Ft Lauderdale and from there to anywhere in the world.

The primary industries here are:

Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation and food services
Retail trade
Educational,health and social services
Construction
The Marathon area is definitely a destination point and has hundreds of small and medium size business to support it. It is fairly self-contained, too. It’s not necessary to go anywhere else, because everything you really need is right there, including shopping and services, police and fire, healthcare facilities including a modern full service hospital, all the usual municipal functions, and outdoor recreational activities like boating, fishing, and diving.

If you want to work in the Keys in the construction trades or certain kinds of services or consulting, Marathon can be a good location, because it is centrally located – jobs and commissions from Key Largo to Key West are pretty easily reached on a within-day commuting basis.

This sense of Marathon as a sort of “hub” for the whole middle section of the Keys, including the edges of the Upper Keys and Lower Keys, goes back a long ways. In the early 20th century Henry Flagler built a large work camp and supply base at Marathon while constructing his “railroad that went to sea”.

Recreation

The Marathon area is primarily an outdoor community; there’s no reason to relocate here, in my opinion, if you don’t love the water, either for play or for work, whether on weekdays or weekends, since you can’t get away from it even if you wanted to, and if you work you’re going to drive across a lot of it whether headed up or down the Keys.

And Marathon thrives on its central Keys, watery environment. Marathon has excelent swimming beaches (not common in the Keys), and good diving and snorkeling, from novice to experts, at all water depths. Some divers think that some of the best parts of the coral reef along the Keys are right here. The Sombrero Key Lighthouse area is an example.

Fishing can be either oceanside or Backcountry (gulfside), with your own boat, on party boats, or with a personal guide. There’s plenty of flats fishing, as in the rest of the Keys, but oceanside offshore fishing (excelent) prevails, since there’s not quite the same extensive range of backcountry options as elsewhere in the Keys, given there’s fewer islands and the area isn’t quite as wild as having Everglades National Park for your backdoor neighbor (like Key Largo).

Boating in general is a little different here. Most boating is fairly open water or along the Overseas Highway and Keys chain; there aren’t as many protected areas (think multiple islands for kayaking or canoeing) as there are in either the Upper Keys or the Lower Keys or Key West. And waters seem to have more of a chop more of the time here, too. On both sides the water gets deeper faster.

But if you want to be on a canal with a big boat tied up at your back door, this is a good part of the Keys to be in: lots of deep canals, and easy Ocean access. (Most of the deep canals and good big boating access is on the south, or Oceanside, part of the islands.) It’s also one of the few spots in the Keys where you can easily get a big boat or a sailboat back and forth from Bay to Ocean.

In addition to these water-based sporting activities, there’s 9-hole Par 3 golf at Key Colony Beach, plenty of tennis, some nightlife particularly at the resort hotels, and a variety of restaurants where you can eat outside under the sun or indoors in air-conditioned comfort. There’s also Islamorada and Big Pine just short drives away for variety.

Provided as a courtesy of

Fredy & Carmen Carricaburu

Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate Co.

11050 Overseas Highway

Marathon,FL 33050

Toll Free – (800) 366-5181

Direct Line – (305) 289-0077

Office Line – (305) 289-6523

Mobile Phone – (305) 481-8556

carmencordova@bellsouth.net

http://www.homesinthekeys.com

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There appears to be a consensus that an urban life style is stressful, expensive and perhaps unhealthy. Cities like New York or Chicago may provide certain economic opportunities, but the question is, at what cost? Most sense that the pace of life in these cities is too challenging and if other living opportunities arise, many are opting for a different (more relaxing) life style. For instance the populations of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and most other larger urban centers has declined over the period from 1950 through 2000, despite the fact that general population within the U.S. has increased.

How Healthy is City Life?

There may be many reasons for this decline, but chief among them are stress, cost, noise and air pollution. All of these factors have taken a toll on not only the total population count, but the overall well being of the city dweller, as well. A recent book, entitled Unhealthy Places by Kevin Fitzpatrick and Mark LaGory zeroes in on the ecology, sociology and general unhealthiness of urban life. Certainly, virtually anyone with a daily newspaper or seeing the evening news can see the number of deaths attributed to crime or traffic.

While these statistics may actually indicate a decrease, the general perception however, is that living or working in large city is either dangerous or unhealthy. Economic factors also play a role in the population decline. Many city dwellers in years past have fled the large urban centers for the “safety” and relative security of the suburbs. However, urban sprawl has also assailed the safe harbor of the suburbanite and many in suburban areas bordering the city are seeing their taxes and crime spiking upward.

The Effects of a Rise in Stress

This is particularly true of the suburbs surrounding cities like New York or Boston with state income and real estate taxes continuing to rise. With a continuing increase in stress factors, it has been pointed out that many other bad lifestyle choices contribute to a decline in overall health. According to Science Daily.com, “When people are under chronic stress, they tend to smoke, drink, use drugs and overeat to help cope with stress. These behaviors trigger a biological cascade that helps prevent depression, but they also contribute to a host of physical problems that eventually contribute to early death.”

A Change in Location Venue Will Help

How best to address these problems? Many are solving the problem by simply moving away from it entirely, mostly to the southern states. Whether they can find useful work or simply retire is certainly a factor. However, with population growth within the southern states continuously rising, various industries will undoubtedly provide employment for many.  This movement away from urban centers to the south has been occurring over the last several years. As indicated below from 1990 through 2000, the populations of the southern states rose substantially compared with New York and Massachusetts:

• • Florida  increase: 3,044,452 a change of +23.5%
• • Georgia               increase: 1,708,237 a change of +26.4%
• • North Carolina    increase: 1,420,676 a change of +21.4%
• • South Carolina    increase: 525,309                a change of +15.1%
• • New York           increase: 986,002                 a change of   +5.5%
• • Massachusetts     increase: 332,672                a change of    +5.5%

Notice that the two northern states listed have the highest overall state taxes. With declines in tax revenues which are tied to the weak economy, these states have imposed even more taxes! So many more northern state dwellers are fleeing southward. Most who have moved southward feel that the move overall was worth it for both health and economic reasons.

Florida’s is a great place to consider.

Many from the north are attracted to Florida for several obvious reasons: no state income taxes, relatively low real estate taxes and the fact that there are real bargains to be found  in real estate. These features makes Florida an ever more attractive place to live and work.

If one is searching for vacation and/or home value, the Florida Keys offer an excellent place to live, work or retire. The Florida Keys, possess a special charm rooted in a history with a perpetual vacation mind set featuring excellent fishing, diving and boating. The Keys is an excellent choice and there are properties to be found whatever your taste and budget is.

Provided as a courtesy of

Fredy & Carmen Carricaburu

Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate Co.

11050 Overseas Highway

Marathon,FL 33050

Toll Free – (800) 366-5181

Direct Line – (305) 289-0077

Office Line – (305) 289-6523

Mobile Phone – (305) 481-8556

carmencordova@bellsouth.net

http://www.homesinthekeys.com

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