Tell me where I should live

In My Humble Opinion
1

I live in CA, in the Bay Area. Cost of living is crazy high here and I’m thinking of relocating. I was born in this area and lived here all my life, so moving would be pretty difficult. Costs in CA and my area are crazy and I’m thinking more and more that I’ll never be able to do what I want to do if I stay here because everything I earn goes towards housing and other necessities, including maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

So where should I live? Here is some background:

What I like about where I live
[ul]
[li]Proximity to friends and family. I grew up here and my immediate and extended family are all within driving distance, generally about an hour at the max. All of my friends as well.[/li][li]Great weather. I think this area has the best climate of anywhere in the country.[/li][li]Close to lots of activities – Major cities of SF and surrounding areas, Lake Tahoe for winter and summer activites.[/li][/ul]

What I don’t like about where I live
[ul]
[li]High cost of living. This is the biggest reason I’d consider moving. It is not realistic to live on a single income in the bay area. If you want to live anywhere close to where you work, there are a number of things you need to sacrifice. A house bigger than 2000 sqft. Ability for one parent to stay at home. A lot bigger than 10,000 sqft. You can get places that are better in those regards, but then you are looking at commute time to work exceeding 1.5 hours each way.[/li][li]Traffic. My commute is 28 miles. It takes 65 minutes assuming no accidents along the way.[/li][li]Taxes. I pay an absurd amount of taxes. Federal income taxes wont change where ever I go, but the 8+% in State income taxes may, as well as the 10% sales tax, and crazy all other taxes. It’s not too much in the grand scheme of things, but I heard a news report of high gas prices in some other state, and it was 3.40/gallon. I am paying upwards of 4.30/gallon. The difference is local taxes.[/li][li]Restrictive atmosphere. There are so many nanny state types here it’s crazy. Rules against doing what I’d consider normal stuff. The attitude is not a permissive one. One example is gun laws. CA is whack and without getting into the details, the laws for gun owners here are crappy. Ideally, I’d like to be able to target shoot on my property. Another is what you can do on your own property. I’d like to raise chickens for food, but any kind of poultry is not allowed where I’m zoned.[/li][/ul]

What I want
[ul]
[li]A place with good public schools and a family friendly environment – places that have large populations of younger folks with kids would be nice. Low crime is a must.[/li][li]I don’t like being around or near other people when I’m at home. Ideally I’d have a few acres and never see my neighbors unless by choice. Ideal size would be 5 acres with a 3000 sqft house and all that entails.[/li][li]Low costs of living. I want to be able to have a place that I can afford on a single income. I need a place where I can find work. I’m an accountant and theoretically should be able to find private accounting work in most major cities.[/li][li]I want to live in a place where I have a reasonable commute. 40 minutes 1 way I think is fine. [/li][li]A place where there aren’t regular natural disasters that destroy everything you own (Florida is out). [/li][li]I know the biggest downside to moving would be giving up seeing friends and family as often as I do now, but ideally it’d be convenient enough to travel back to the bay area occasionally.[/li][li]A place where I can get a wide variety of good food. I’m in the bay area where there is everything you would ever want to eat, but I actually live quite a ways from the city (over 1 hour drive) and where I’m at, there’s really only a handful of very mediocre restaurants.[/li][li]One of the 40 shall issue states.[/li][li]High speed internet. I don’t think I could live in an area so rural that there was no internet other than satellite.[/li][/ul]

Right now the top choice is Austin, with close seconds being Portland and Seattle. Tell me where I should live and why…do these cities fit the bill?

2

The weather is, how to put it, quite a bit different in Austin than what you are used to. I too, grew up in central CA, and moved to Texas, and I found the weather challenging. Still do. It is beastly, oppressive crazy hot here in the summertime. We get frequent thunderstorms most years, though not this one for some reason. They often bring hail, and occasionally, tornadoes. Hurricanes are a problem on the Gulf Coast, though really are a PITA only about every 10 years or so. Just don’t live in the surge zone and you’ll be fine. Ike was a big annoyance, but just an annoyance. Different story if you lived in Galveston, of course.

Also, Austin is not what I would call inexpensive, or possessing an easy commute. Not anymore anyways. 40 minutes each way though, I think is doable. And anyplace not named NYC is going to be cheaper than the Bay Areas. To quote, I believe, Molly Ivins, Texas is a low-tax, low service state. The food, at least in Houston, is amazing. Pick a sub-type of food, and we probably have it here. Austin isn’t bad in that respect either, though I think the Vietnamese and Indian are better in Houston. I do have relations in a suburb of Dallas, who have sufficient land to own livestock and chickens. Land is, I think, a bit harder to find like that in Houston, but one can live in E. Austin and have a small farm. The egg farm I go to when I visit Austin, is maybe 15 minutes on 290 from downtown, assuming no traffic.

Another problem besides the oppressive heat is that the terrain is nowhere near as diverse as in CA. We do have beaches with water you can actually swim in, but if I wanted something different in CA, all I had to do was drive for two hours in any direction. Redwoods? Check. Wine Country? Check. Sierras? No problem. Here, you can drive for three hours in any direction and you’re still in Texas.

But it’s certainly a fun, inexpensive state, with plenty of opportunity.

3

How about the Denver/ Boulder area? There are areas further away where you can get more land and a cheaper home, but you are always going to trade off land for a longer commute.

4

Five acres and a 3000 square foot home within an hour of town probably wouldn’t be cheaper than a 2000 sq. ft. home in the Bay Area. Maybe if you go straight east to somewhere around Bennett, but that would be a major culture shock coming from the bay area.

5

I don’t know about inexpensive, but if I can get housing like what I’m thinking for $4-500k, I’ll be fine. A little bit higher than that is okay, but lessens my reasons for wanting to move. What are property taxes like? In CA, they are limited to a 2% growth in assessed value per year, unless the property changes hands.

Weather wise, I grew up mostly in the East Bay, so summers often get up to mid 90s, though I don’t think the humidity is nearly the same as in Austin. I did spend several years in the Sacramento region which often had week long stretches above 100 degrees.

How is the job market like in the Boulder area?

6

You can’t come to Calgary. We’re full. :slight_smile:

7

Omaha.

8

I was going to suggest Spokane or Austin, possibly Ft. Worth… I think you’re on the right track.

9

http://www.findyourspot.com

You’ll have to answer six pages of questions about your sports loyalties, your entertainment preferences, your political views, etc. And at the end you’ll have to “register” (for which I used a made-up name). But then it will give you a list of cities that the algorithm thinks might work for you.

FTR, my top three were DeLand, FL, Ft. Myers, FL, and some city in Texas whose name escapes me.

10

Portland pretty much meets your criteria, but jobs are still a problem here. Also, the constant rain during winter months may not suit you.

11

I actually considered Portland several years ago, before I had kids. Drove up there a few times and even made an offer that was accepted on an undeveloped property. It basically met all my criteria at the time. I was on the verge of starting a family and the idea of uprooting and being away from my support structure was too much and I had to back out. I’m in a different situation now and Portland is viable. My concern is the job market in that I think there are only a few major players…Nike and Intel?

I just did that findyourspot and of the 24 places it identified, All but 2 were in the south which I found interesting. 6 of them were in TX and within 100 miles of Austin. The 2 not in the south were in Arizona. Several were in Florida and other places I’d consider at regular hurricane risk which to me is a deal breaker.

12

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the Valley growing up, so I can say the weather in Sac isn’t that different than Austin in the Summer. Sac will cool off a bit more at night, usually. Not uncommon for the low in Austin to never dip below 75 from June until Sept, unless a T-storm temporarily lowers the temperature. Austin weather history chart here. That was rough to get used to. And in the Valley, you could always drive into the Sierras if it got too bad. Not here. It is a lot buggier in both Austin/Houston than I found in CA. A lot greener too.

The find your spot is a blast. Thanks HeyHomie, for linking it. Where were the 6 in Texas that it listed for you, Bone? Guessing that one was Georgetown, which isn’t a bad suburb of Austin.

From friends in Portland, I had thought they were fairly anti-development/Smart Growth, with the accompanying traffic snarls. One lived around Multnomah, the other in Tigard, and both used to cuss traffic with a passion. Seemed like a fun town though, and I liked Powell’s when I visited it a few years ago. The Willamette River wine region is a lot of fun too.

13

Honestly? All those places you’re gonna hafta sacrifice commute time in a big way to get multiple acres and a decent house for 2-500k.

Except for Pittsburgh.

Don’t laugh. The weather here isn’t that bad actually. There’s a reason it’s been rated “most livable city” by like 4 different entities (cite 1 cite 2 and cite 3 just by googling). You can live in a really nice suburb with land with southern suburbs like Upper St. Clair, to the Northeast Fox Chapel (and the tiny townships around it like O’Hara, Indiana, etc) and the Eastern suburbs like Franklin Park/Monroeville or Cranberry to the north. Hell, for 300k you can get a 4 bed 2 1/2 bath house in the Fox Chapel school district and get an acre or two. It’s arguably the richest district. Want a school district with a full IB program in high school and a partial one in the middle school? Upper St. Clair. Want another blue ribbon school district? Mt. Lebanon. Mt. Lebanon in particular has a lot of stay at home but highly educated parents. Fox Chapel and Upper St. Clair the women are more likely to work but not universally.

There are indoor shooting ranges and indoor/outdoor sportsmans clubs for “is this real?” low prices of $75/year membership which includes patios and pavilions and playgrounds etc. Your carry permit process consists of going downtown and filling out some info for 10 minutes and getting a card in the mail within the month.

The arts? They’re fantastic - and again, affordable. It’s easy to get tickets to plays for under $25. Want Broadway stuff? You’ll have to wait a bit, but it makes it here, for about $50/ticket.

In those suburbs I listed and in the East End of the city (easily get a nice home in a safe area for 250k) where lots of people with white collar jobs send their kids to private or parochial schools (can you believe 10k/year?) you’ll find educated, intelligent and progressive people who are not mouthbreathing and sports-obsessed as the outside world believes. As far as jobs go, there are a ton of banks here like BNY Mellon and PNC, I know Huntington and First Commonwealth are hiring but I’m not sure what kind of accounting you’re in to. The commute won’t be more than 40 minutes either; there’s plenty of transit to downtown from the suburbs (especially Mt. Lebanon) and Fox Chapel has such an absurdly fast commute that it’s easy to see why it’s the most expensive suburb.

14

Based on your want list it sounds like you want to be in Texas. Go visit and check it out! I will warn you though that the heat is beyond description. Go in July or August to see if you can stand it and be sure to drink water straight from the tap to see if the taste makes you want to gag. If you pass both of those tests and are not afraid of bugs Texas is the state for you!

15

[quote=“Bone, post:1, topic:581441”]

[li]A place where there aren’t regular natural disasters that destroy everything you own (Florida is out). [/li][/QUOTE]

Pittsburgh also lacks any semblance of natural disasters. There was a tornado that touched down and the local news had fodder for a whole week. There was damage done 30 miles out of Pittsburgh but nothing close to the city or the suburbs.

16

errrm…Ice storms. My ex-wife’s family all lives in the Pittsburgh area, They’ve been without power for days at a time, ice takes down trees which take down power lines, not just in one place, but all around. Of course it doesn’t happen all that frequently, but it’s a major disaster when it does. They’re in a rural area north of the city, in town and the 'burbs it might be better.

I will agree though, Pittsburgh is a fairly nice place most of the time. Good-sized city, but plenty of open countryside readily available. Pretty laid-back atmosphere and that amazing Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine!

17

I don’t want to discourage you, but if the Bay Area transplants I know are any indication, you won’t be happy anywhere else, unless you’re conservative and not particularly image -conscious. I don’t mean this as a slight, it’s just that where you live is a whole different planet from the rest of the US, except for a few places on the West Coast.

18

I agree, rural areas and lower-middle class suburbs have a helluva time with ice. But the wealthier suburbs (toward the bottom of his home prices) have all sorts of stuff to deal with it; they’re out spraying various kinds of salt depending on the temperature and plowing readily multiple times over major roads so snow doesn’t turn to ice. I wouldn’t go jogging on the sidewalks but driving is plenty safe.

Of course, with all the home savings he can afford 4wd and/or AWD to make things a little easier in the snow :).

19

In TX:

Frederickburg
Wimberley
Kerrville
Conroe
Marble Falls

And I think Hendrickson? But now I can’t find that one.

Of those, it looks like only San Marcos, Wimberley, and Marble Falls would be commutable. Geographically I think all would be similar, so then it would be about finding housing in any area around the region, rather than a specific city.

Maybe I need to refine my answers on the test a little bit, I went through it pretty quick.

I never even considered the north east, mostly because I thought that it got crippling snow pretty frequently.

Is CA abnormal in that you can’t smoke anywhere in public? It would be a bit of a culture shock to go places that are filled with people smoking.

20

Sounds to me like you want to live in the outer metro area of a medium-sized Southern city.

I’m thinking of places like Louisville or Lexington, KY or Greensboro, NC. (I’ve lived in the latter two.) I’m pretty sure you could find the sort of place you’re looking for within a 40-minute commute for that kind of money, most likely in one of the adjacent counties.

It’s a long way from the Bay Area, but anything that’s really going to work for you is probably a flight away anyway. You may not have a wide variety of ethnic restaurant options near your house, but you definitely would in town, and you might be surprised.

Traffic might still be a bitch. Lexington is notoriously bad–I had a friend who moved there from San Francisco who said it was worse. (I suspect she was exaggerating a little.) I personally hate driving in Louisville. (I didn’t think Greensboro was bad at all.)