Thanks; this is already very insightful. However, as indicated above we have chosen Denver.
It looks like you aren’t going to get a lot of consensus on this one so I might as well throw in my vote. I have been to all of them several times with the exception of Santa Ana.
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Fort Worth - reasonable cost of living puts this one at #1 for me plus much of my family is from there. It isn’t some backwater. The whole metroplex is one of the largest in the country and has everything you could possibly want. The economy is booming as well which is different than the rest of the U.S.
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Denver - Denver itself is pretty bland especially compared to the more mountainous areas of Colorado but it is still close enough to the cool places to enjoy them.
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Atlanta - Its huge and reasonably affordable. There isn’t anything in particular wrong with it except for traffic.
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Santa Ana - The cost of living is a deal killer for me. It doesn’t matter how good the weather is if you can’t afford to do anything.
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Philadelphia - This one would always be last on any list I make for cities unless the list also includes Newark. There isn’t much good about Philly and there is a ton wrong with it. It is like someone took the shittiest parts of Boston and turned them into an even bigger city. I don’t even like visiting there and would never consider living there.
ETA: I see you picked Denver. That sounds good to me.
Good choice on picking Denver. Fantastic, fantastic city. The winters are going to be tough. Good luck on the move and everything!
Denver winters are not like winters in, say, the upper midwest where it gets cold in November and doesn’t get warm again until April. The average highs in December and January are in the mid 40’s, and that average is made out of an equal number of days where the high is 65°F and those where it’s 25°. I’ve played many rounds of golf in January. Also, 25° in blue sky (300 days a year) is a hell of a lot warmer than 25° under a low gray sky.
Oftentimes after snow if I know it is going to be sunny, I’ll just shovel two strips down my driveway and let the sun warm the cement and melt the adjacent snow. It can be all gone by the end of the day.
One tip in buying a house - try to avoid a north facing driveway. Snow melted during the day can turn to ice at night and it’s almost impossible to get rid of it if it is in the shade.
Yes, but will the plans be as good?
Copays etc. can vary pretty widely, and company health insurance can range from fantastic to horrible. There’s also the whole pension issue; as a federal employee, the OP is a member of a dwindling class of people who have a defined-benefit plan for retirement.
One thing to consider is the distance from home to the office, and how you’d get to work. Is mass transit an option for part of it? If so, that might make it easier to live further “out”. I don’t know a lot about transit in any of the cities mentioned, though I have a vague impression that both Philadelpha and Atlanta have decent transit systems.
Weather-wise, Philly is going to be closest to Cincinnatti, I imagine. If you wound up there, living in NJ and commuting into the city is an option as well but there you run into state taxation issues and I don’t know how affordable that part of NJ is.
Taxes: I seem to recall that Texas has no state income tax. If that’s correct, that’s a big cost savings. PA has income tax (as does NJ). I don’t know about the others. Also look at what property taxes are like - no sense saving on income tax and making it up in property tax.
As far as all-one-level: That’d be ideal, but would getting a chairlift installed be an acceptable second choice? We’re looking at the possibility of the in-laws moving in with us and if we do so, that would be essential. They aren’t cheap, but if it’s something you’d, consider look for a place with a long straight staircase vs. something with one or more landings. Apparently they’re cheaper than ones that have to accommodate for landings.
Ah - shoulda read the whole thread - please ignore the comments that are no longer relevant. The bit about the house (and stair lift) might still be relevant.
Good luck with Denver. I’ve been there a few times on business and just love the mountains. I’m slightly jealous :).
I do have to laugh though. We had client contacts out in Denver who just got moved en masse to another city (Indianapolis, I think) a couple years back. This seems to be a common thing in Federal agencies. A friend’s job (here in the DC area) was similarly going away; she had some choices (move to Indy right away, stick it out and try for another job).
Sadly, you have been grossly misinformed about Atlanta’s transit system (MARTA)! You’d fare much better on foot or perhaps with an ox cart (they’re slower than horses, but eat less…so they offer better fuel economy). 
Actually, walking is only a viable option if you live and work in Downtown, Midtown or Buckhead. The MARTA (Metro Atlatna Rapid Transit Authority) system of rail/subway and buses has never been adequately funded and it is used primarily by folks who live in the lowest income areas of the inner city.
Atlanta is the poster child for ‘urban sprawl’ and, using current construction methods and transit technology, estimates to build a complete, efficient transit system range from $30-$50 billion! The state of Georgia total expenditures is around $40 billion.
Besides, we love our cars here in Atlanta and it’s so much cheaper to build more roads- we’ll pave anything (wetlands, wildwife reservations, ancient American Indian historical sites and burial grounds…eventually the entire top half of the state will be completely covered in asphalt)! But we don’t get around to building or expanding the roads until a decade or more after they reach maximium capacity. Nothing is more fun than driving on a 3 or 4-lane road that suddenly narrows to just one lane that was designed to carry 15-20% of the traffic it currently carries!
From 2004-2008, I lived in Midtown and worked 18 miles from home. To be at the office by 8:30am, I had to leave by 7:15. The office closed at 5:30 and, if I left at that time, I rarely made it home by 7. I waited until at least 7pm to leave work and it was only a 40 minute drive, so I got home 40 minutes later but sat in traffic an hour less daily.
Then I moved back to the area where I grew up (40 miles north of Atlanta) in 2008. I worked for a homebuilder and lost my job when the company folded thanks to that nasty little housing bubble bursting. When I found a new job, my daily commute was 128 miles round-trip and spent 3.5-4.5 hours in the car daily! To make matters worse, when I lost my previous job I ended up filing for bankruptcy and had to surrender my leased 2007 Acura TL. My commute sucked when I lived in Midtown, but at least I was sitting in hours of traffic in a very nice car. But the 128-mile trek to the new job was spent in my 2006 Mazda3…a great car and it would have been the perfect commuter, if it had an automatic transmission! Driving a stick shift in hell traffic pushed me to the brink…some days I debated whether to drive home or drive into the retaining wall!
Sorry to rant…but the one thing that sucks about Atlanta is the traffic! :smack:
You are correct. Texas is one of the nine states that has no State Income Tax for Individuals (most of those states have some form of Income Tax for Businesses). The other eight states with no state income tax are- Alaska (no sales tax either), Alabama, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire (no sales tax either), South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington and Wyoming.
But logic dictates that states without a state income tax for individuals obviuosly have other sources of revenue to compensate. South Dakota and Wyoming are the only exceptions to that. But how much could it cost to run South Dakota, $50/year? =)
Two of the most common ways these states generate revenue is Higher Sales Tax and various taxes on Businesses (some brutal). Texas, Tennessee and Washington all have higher than average Sales Tax rates- 8.25% for Texas, 9.75% for Tennessee and 9.6% for Washington. (Note- those are the MAXIMUM rates possible, cities/counties vary.
In the majority of states, when you consider all taxes (income, sales, property), the overalll benefit isn’t substantial for one system vs. another.
Some people who live on the border of states with two differenty systems often ‘cheat’ to save money (or so they think). If they live and work in a state with no income tax but a high sales tax rate, they do all of their spending in the next state with a lower sales tax. A perfect example of this living and working in the Chattanooga, TN area, but crossing into Georgia (state line is less than 10 miles away) to go shopping. The funny thing (at least to me) is that people who do this don’t realize that driving 35 miles to spend $50 at Wal-Mart saves them $1.88 in sales tax…and using the current IRS standard mileage rate, that drive costs them $39.11!
And I call that $37.23 difference the “Stupidity Tax”! If they do that every single week, that adds up to more than their monthly lot rent at the trailer court! :eek:
I live in Orange County. As already mentioned by everyone, it is expensive to live here. If you should decide to move out here, avoid Santa Ana. There are better communities here in OC with far lower homeless populations, methadone clinics (my buddy is a Tustin cop), gangs, graffiti, and high population density. Picture entire neighborhoods of single family homes with absolutely no street parking. This happens when you have too many people living in most houses. Astro vans and shopping carts everywhere.
Just did the math: 324,528 population, 76,896 housing units = Santa Ana’s property occupation density at 4.22 per housing unit (2010 census). That is higher than LA or NYC. There were 76,896 housing units at an average density of 2,794.4 per square mile. Keep in mind Santa Ana doesn’t have a lot of high rise housing. Most of those people live in crowded single family houses.
Do a google street view of First Street, or better yet, Sullivan.
UPDATE: We just got back from our househunting trip to Denver. There were a couple of days of cold, rainy weather that made us wonder if we hadn’t accidentally gone to Portland; but when it cleared up the scenery was mucho impressive.
We looked in the west and in the north, but anything that was in our price range (200-250k) was cheap for a reason. We saw more crappy houses that I did when I used to visit foreclosed houses, and even the crappy houses were listed at ludicrous prices. So, on the last day we wound up looking in Aurora. In what will probably be a controversial choice on here, we eschewed the endless subdivisions farther out for a nice 1950’s house just south of 6th, about 6 blocks west of Del Mar Park. The City-Data forums are not a fan of that area, but it looked quite nice to me.
It has:
A bus route that stops within 2 blocks of my office, with a 40 minute ride;
Super-easy access to medical facilities (the huge and expanding Anschutz medical campus is about a mile away).
It is generally close enough to everything we will visit. The price was just over $200k; we didn’t see anything comparable in the more popular areas, even when we looked at houses priced as high as $280k.
We’ll be moving in December (I hope the weather doesn’t suck!) Denver Dopers, what do you think? Good choice or not?
Denver and surrounding areas have some very strict breed specific legislation. You mentioned you have 4 dogs, make sure you dogs’ breed(s) isn’t banned before you move there.
I would choose Santa Ana hands down. Although I don’t live there, I have been there quite a number of times and it is great. The roads are nice and wide, and although I haven’t looked at real estate in the area, I’m sure there are some homes that would accommodate your requirements. The weather would be great for your wife. The east coast can be very nice most times of the year, but winters are unpredictable. Snowstorms are no picnic, unless one doesn’t have to leave the house. The John Wayne airport is not too big and not too small, and I believe they are doing some renovations there. Yes, there is traffic on the freeways, but there is traffic in any major city. Perhaps you could take a week-end trip to the various cities that you mentioned, and then it would be easier to make a decision. Good Luck
We picked Denver. The real estate in Santa Ana was the problem.
It looks like the cheapest non-auction ranch in the county is $399k.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/Orange-County-CA_rb/
That’s a really good point. I remember reading that Denver is very anti-pit bull, at the very least.
Whoa. Really? My aunt lives in Westminster. Solidly middle-class me would never call her neighborhood “bad,” not in a million years. Different strokes, I guess, different strokes.
Some of them “uppity” Denver folks should come up here and see north Minneapolis. They’d have a coronary. 