Large metros like Tampa are full of crime and traffic. If you want a "nice" walk to the beach, or you don't want your car broken into, you are much better off in a less dense area like Sarasota, Fort Myers, etc. But if you want to hit a few bars/clubs, get a little drunk, and have a short cab ride home, you'll want to be closer to a metro area. Otherwise you may have a 50 minute drive home after hitting a bar with some friends.
Florida is famous for attracting just a few kinds of people, so if you aren't in a part of the state full of your kind of people, you may bump up against culture clash. Research neighborhoods in each area to see which one you might fit in with. But also remember that the "Florida Man" isn't just a meme, it's one of your neighbors.
I grew up in Florida, and I really hate it. I don't understand why anyone but a retiree would move there. There's nothing to do other than sit in your sterile air conditioned house, go to the beach, go to a bar, or get high. And the people are terrible. I still go back for vacation though. It's like a bad ex I keep texting just to remember why I left. Oh, right... you're dead inside.
> I don't understand why anyone but a retiree would move there.
Taxes and cost of living.
Maybe I am misreading, but the only downsides in your comment are crime and hurricanes.
As someone who moved from Florida to the Northeast, the biggest drawback to Florida is the outdoors. It's warm, humid, there's showers half the time, bugs everywhere, there are no seasons or elevation. So what you're left with is water sports [minus surfing].
It also lacks culture. Not so much music, but any other form of art that isn't centered around Wynwood only exists as much as the elderly will invest in it. Compare to Baltimore, a tiny northeast city with a crap economy, which has probably more arts diversity than all of Florida combined [outside of Miami]. Why? Everybody sits in their house or goes to the bar. Why be an artist when you can do heroin on the beach?
And the people really are garbage. I was one of those garbage people. I changed so much after moving away. I don't even know why. I just know when I left, everywhere I went, people seemed nicer.
If you just want to live alone and still be able to go to the beach, there are an infinite number of cities on either coast where you can do that without all those downsides. I dunno. Maybe there are reasons people move to Florida other than the weather. I personally cannot fathom it.
Even if you're socially withdrawn (hell, I am) you can get so much more out of life even on your own in a place where there's nature, culture, diversity, nice people. Where you don't have to drive four hours to get to another large metro area. And that's just one area of the U.S.
It's a big world out there. Moving to Florida is like throwing the world away. You only get one life, don't waste it.
In most of Florida, Sarasota included, if you go with a traditional home, you'll want newer construction in a community. The HOA takes care of all the outside stuff like landscaping, so it's pretty much condo living except without shared walls. All the houses look similar.
The HOAs usually maintain some kind of "activity center" where you'll have a gym, pool, common area, tennis courts, etc. Again, it's pretty much like living in an SF condo, except instead of all that stuff being downstairs, it's down the street, and much larger.
If you prefer to live in an actual condo, there's plenty of those too with a walk-able downtown area, but I like not having shared walls. Also downtown is in a flood zone, so you might need to evacuate if we get a bad enough hurricane. I wouldn't be too concerned about flooding if I was buying several stories up though.
As for internet, frontier offers decent symmetric fiber (previously fios). I'm on gigabit with them and it's been fine. It's in most of the area.
Also, as a rule of thumb, you want to buy when a new community is just getting started or just finishing up. You'll get a better deal if you're one of the last houses before they shut down the sales office, or if you're one of the first to buy. Construction takes 8-12 months usually, but it's perfectly fine to have the house built while you're remote. I lived nearby with family while mine was being built, and me walking the construction site periodically wasn't particularly useful.
Hope that helps! Happy to answer any other questions you might have.