I’m still investigating Portland as my next city of domiciling, but I’ve run into just enough red flags (relocation distance, weather, possibly very tight job market in my field) that I’m ramping up my look at Future Domicility-City #2, Denver.
The job market looks a little better for a graphics/publications/publishing/media guy than PDX, where it sounds like there are more graphics people waiting tables than there are actors doing so in LA.
So tell me about living in Denver and surrounding cities, especially house rentals/lower cost purchase for a guy, his adult daughter and two Great Danes.
Any Dopers who live there(abouts) and might be willing to have an extended exchange about the details?
I moved here about 2 and a half years ago and love it. I’m in a much different field from you, but the job market is/was in very good shape for me (accounting). I moved without a job and had something pretty quickly. Turned out I didn’t like it, so I quit after a few months and found something else also within a quick time frame (a few weeks, possibly would’ve been sooner but for a trip back home).
I’d also considered Portland, but the weather and distance from family were the main reasons I picked Denver. The sunshine is abundant, snow melts quickly, and cold weather doesn’t seem to stick forever like it does in the Midwest. I knew about the “300 days of sunshine” before moving, but it didn’t really register until I was getting annoyed when there were 2 cloudy days in a row. Yes, we’re spoiled here!
Housing isn’t cheap, at least if you want to live in a decent area. I rent and managed to find a nice deal, but I think $1200 and up would be expected for any 1 bedroom in a good suburb or nicer areas of the city itself. Traffic isn’t good (not as bad as Chicago, but much worse than Milwaukee). When I was here a few years before I moved, traffic on the freeways was heavy, but the main arteries didn’t seem so bad. Now it seems like both the freeways and arteries have heavy traffic during rush hour.
Okay, it looks like Denver it is. Just too many downchecks for Portland, as nice as it might be if I could make the effort work.
So, any Dopers in Denver? Wait… *Straight *Dopers? Okay… SDMB posters who live in Denver? Because there are moderately-priced houses, I can buy straight off and not have to try to find a rental with the dogs (and waste $20-30k the first year doing so, with all costs in).
What do you mean by moderately priced? I live in a typically middle-class neighborhood, maybe a little lower-middle. Ranch houses, all built in 1956, pretty much the same footprint with various options. Right now there are two houses for sale on my block. One claims to be a 3-bedroom, the other a 5-bedroom, both have 3 bathrooms and of course kitchens, living rooms, family rooms, patios. You can get them both for $1 million or either of them for half that. (Well, you know, that’s what they’re asking, anyway.)
Seriously, housing is crazy right now, but many of us think a dip is coming, because it always does. There are neighborhoods that are cheaper and more walkable. There are probably some deals. The plus side is that even the “bad” neighborhoods are not all that bad.
I’m not quite sure how to take that. I don’t know if you understood my answer in the other thread: I got NOWHERE in particular to go, or be. I am completely anchorless after my divorce is complete. Portland had/has many attractive elements, which is why it’s on my list, but Denver has no more inherent reason for me to choose it than Portland, or ABQ, or San Diego. The chips are piled up in Denver’s favor right now, but it’s just another starting place where I know no one, have no foothold, have no job lined up, etc.
There are decent-looking houses in Aurora and Green Valley Ranch - not the toniest neighborhoods, I know, and the latter has had its issues - well within my cash purchase range. I’d rather buy a “mostly” house and be stable and comfortable than screw around with rentals where the landlord is forever bitching about an untended pile of poop in the back yard and muddy footprints in the dog room. Since I don’t need to worry about schools or young-family issues, I have a little more flexibility.
Are you currently unemployed? Because if you are, I totally understand why you’re casting such a wide net. I’ve had to make a couple of big moves myself over the past 15 years, so I get it.
But if you do have a job, then no, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why a divorce would make it so that you MUST move far away from everyone and everything you know.
You don’t have to explain what’s going on if you don’t want to, though.
We moved here six years ago, at pretty much a high - the family business in CA had put us on the edge of “wealthy,” kids were at a cusp in school changes, we were looking for a semi-retired life… and the northeast just sort of slowly ground us down with culture differences and a complete lack of employment in my field (either salary or independent). Marriage ran out of gas, kids are finishing high school, money and assets are pretty much intact… just time for us all to move on. My wife will stay to finish a late Ph.D., one kid is off to a Canadian arts school, other has one more more year of HS then off to either Juilliard or Berklee… rest of my family is scattered and adult. Don’t want to go back to my hometown (Sacramento); the handful of people I care about will be scattered from BC to CA to ON to the northeast, and beyond.
So for the second time in my life, I get to spin a globe, plonk down a finger and move there to see what the place looks like. This time it’s just me (plus an adult daughter), so maybe it will be more successful overall.
I don’t need much in the way of employment, but Denver has plenty of listings and collateral opportunities, maybe even enough to let me work independent/freelance again and keep the dogs fed and the lights on.
So it might sound like I’m wandering off a cliff by choosing places I know little about and have no pegs in the ground… but that’s all of Earth right now, babe. May as well go somewhere I ain’t never been.
Just be aware that the housing market in the front range has been HIGHLY competitive for the last…well, quite a while, actually. Even relative shitholes have bidding wars, and cash is king.
Aurora’s not all bad. I loved near Cherry Creek State Park for years and had no problems. One beige subdivision is just like another, whether you’re in Aurora, Broomfield, or points between.
Thanks. Yes, I’d be waving cash-in-hand, no mortgage. (I might take back a HELOC to fund improvements.) That makes things very easy, in my experience (would be the third house bought that way).
I can also take a house in any condition, relative to value. A fixer that leaves me $100k for improvements, fine. A shopworn place needing a facelift, fine. Ready to go at my max price, fine.
There have to be a lot of jobs tangent to all services needed by the boutique pot industry. CS, payroll, logistics, shipping, tracking, AR/AP, Marketing, etc.
Don’t be proud, be rich.
Make me jealous that I didn’t leave this state before it was destroyed by Chris Christie and The Republicans.
(band name?)
I think it is a mistake to rush into buying a house:
It’s not at all clear you want to live here a long time (since you haven’t lived there at all yet). You were wrong about Connecticut, right?
If you spend the several months searching for a house you will have better knowledge of the location and amenities you want and there is a greater chance of buying a bargain (someone needs money right away).
Have you thought about doing an early retirement? Here the emphasis would be a finding a cheap place to live and avoid the high priced urban areas. You could still do part-time contract work, perhaps online.
I don’t really have much choice. I have two Great Danes, and they are neither optional nor storable. Rentals with them are not coming up, despite searching and contacts, and it is likely I will end up with a very expensive, fragile situation - rent, deposits, insurance, damage bonding, and all for a generally sub-par living situation.
I know buying a house sounds like an insane step, but it’s a cash deal for me and I have 30+ years of years of experience. I may end up somewhere I don’t want to stay, but I will be in control of upgrading the house and reselling it at my convenience, with exceptional seller leverage. And it will give me a truly secure living situation from which to build up all else.
That was the plan on moving here. It failed in glowing nuclear mega-spades. So back to a (lower-end) career path for me, for a decade or so before I can pull the plug and see if Costa Rica lives up to its reputation. Or something.
I am fortunate in having the financial resources to have a few options. If my assets were what most people getting divorced at this age have, I’d probably just go to Denver to find the highest bridge to jump from.
Denver weather is great! It is usually sunny and warm, all year round. In the winter, you get snow storms, but the sun will shine the next day, and 2-3 days later, the snow is all melted. We get frequent afternoon rain in the spring and summer, but its just a brief interruption of the sun shine. The Summers are not crazy hot, usually only a handful of days above 100, usually 80-90 degree days.
Portland is much more mild and wet. It doesn’t get as warm in the summer, and its couldy and rainy a lot more often than Denver. It also doesn’t get as cold in the winter, but the sun doesn’t shine all that often.
I don’t know if you understood my answer in the other thread: I got NOWHERE in particular to go, or be. I am completely anchorless after my divorce is complete. Portland had/has many attractive elements, which is why it’s on my list, but Denver has no more inherent reason for me to choose it than Portland, or ABQ, or San Diego. The chips are piled up in Denver’s favor right now, but it’s just another starting place where I know no one, have no foothold, have no job lined up, etc.