Hi Dawn,
Well here it goes....
My wife and I (early 40's) both have jobs that allow us to live where we want. I am a retired military pilot now flying commercial and she is in medical device sales. When I retired from the military last year, I realized this is the first time in 20 years we can actually choose to live wherever we want. We both love the area. At first we were just going to buy an investment property to use and rent throughout the year but recently we seriously started to consider just moving full time. Now I'd say we are almost definitely gonna take the leap within a year or two, max.
Cost of Living: I guess I don't really consider SoWal "high cost of living." Yes, compared to other parts of Florida it's more expensive, but not really compared to what I am used to. I grew up in northern NJ just outside NY City and lived in California for 10 years and those areas are crazy crazy expensive. Florida has no state income tax and real estate taxes are on par or even lower than most states at 1%. Yes, my house purchase price will be double what we paid here for our home in Louisiana (N'Awlins area), but we won't be paying state income tax or shelling out $12-15K a year for private school like we do here so our cost of living isn't really going up much or even at all in the grand scheme of things. Plus, we won't be spending thousands of $$ every year visiting 30A since we'll live there
Growing up my family and I vacationed in upstate NY to the lakes around the Adirondacks and Lake George. That's why when I saw the Draper Lake development I loved it. The Adirondack style lake houses 1/4 mile to the beach is incredible to me. Of course, like a lot of families I'm sure, its daunting to make the move to a "vacation area" full time with kids. But we figured, hey, if they are really unhappy in a few years we can always move elsewhere so I think we are gonna give it a shot. We'll definitely take a peek at the Watersound neighborhoods as well, but I am really drawn to the Draper style houses on the lake. We have also always wanted to build a house so buying a lot and building is very appealing.