Stay in Washington and move to one of the small towns of Puget Sound, like Home, two hours from Seattle: www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,townhouse_type/2146306374_zpid/200000-250000_price/745-931_mp/1800-_size/pricea_sort/47.368362,-122.377052,47.081579,-122.943535_rect/10_zm/
You've now inspired me to see what you can get in my neighborhood for that.
Most expensive in my city is 1.2 mil. 7 bed, 6 bath, 6500 sq feet.
For just a bit more than 1.7, you can get an 8200 square foot historic mansion in St. Paul on a historic street with 7beds, 6 baths, and a large pool in the backyard.
I was going to suggest Salt Lake - it is supposed to be the "silicon slopes", but to to stay in the OP's desired house range, she'd have to live out of the city a bit, which isn't ideal.
But, Salt Lake and Summit counties went for Hillary, and I believe there will be some re-districting happening soon and I think it is a strong possibility for there to be more D representation.
Let me throw Oklahoma City's hat in the ring. State politics suck, but I've carved out a little liberal, community-service-focused community here and I love it. I never have a lack of a sporting event, fundraiser, theater show, or art event to attend. The local brewery scene is starting to blow up, as is the food scene. I can't speak much to tech jobs, and there are some neighborhoods downtown-adjacent where I think the home prices are a little insane (but keep in mind I'm from here and used to LCOL.) If you're a city person (I am and I ache for the day I can move closer to downtown) Mesta Park, Crown Heights, Edgemere, and Gatewood are your more established neighborhoods. If you want to be downtown in a transitional area, look at Jefferson Park and Classen-Ten-Penn. If you hate the city, Edmond, Deer Creek, Yukon, and Piedmont are your typical 'burbs. The Village, Warr Acres, and Bethany are also 'burbs but closer in. (UHHM, I'm trying to be objective, but Yukon, Warr Acres, and Bethany kinda suck.)
The only thing I've heard about OK is that education, both for students and teachers is really bad.
If you can take the heat and find a job, Tucson, AZ is a hidden gem. It doesn't have the best economy (though the university of arizona keeps it going), but my programmer friend does pretty well there and the cost of living is very cheap (he mostly works remotely, which is great because he and his wife leave for at least 1-2 months during the summer). We lived there for 5 years and loved it in so many ways, but I hated the long, long extremely hot summers and missed grass/green leaves and trees. Still, it was so cheap, relaxed and the people are so nice and the place has a very liberal/funky/unique vibe. It's also very beautiful, if you appreciate mountains and deserts and outdoors. I miss it dearly and have a lot of mixed feelings about leaving.
We moved to Nashville, which is booming right now and getting pretty expensive. I haven't lived here long enough to comment much, but I like the four seasons it offers.
mominatrix, - if you leave I'm coming with you! Seriously though Fayetteville, Arkansas, RDU area of NC, Blacksburg was mentioned above (it is gorgeous there). I heard good things about Kansas City Missouri and Amazon has a base there now.
Y'all a 2 bdr, 1 bath with a small garage condo recently sold 1 street over from me here in Seattle for over $500,000. We are refusing to buy because our rent is cheaper than any mortgage and our rent is stupid expensive. But we have a 3 bdr. 1 bath with a garage, fenced in yard and a covered porch within biking distance to DH's work.
Y'all a 2 bdr, 1 bath with a small garage condo recently sold 1 street over from me here in Seattle for over $500,000. We are refusing to buy because our rent is cheaper than any mortgage and our rent is stupid expensive. But we have a 3 bdr. 1 bath with a garage, fenced in yard and a covered porch within biking distance to DH's work.
this thread is killing me. I have got to convince H to find a tech job someplace else. Northern va is ridiculous.
Move an hour and half further south to Richmond! It's a whole new world (very little traffic and much more progressive than it was even 10 years ago). There are a few companies here that pay DC salaries because they have offices in both DC and RVA but employees can choose where to live.
And you can eat at Ronnie's Ribs. I love that place. Mr. Ronnie is the sweetest man.
Y'all a 2 bdr, 1 bath with a small garage condo recently sold 1 street over from me here in Seattle for over $500,000. We are refusing to buy because our rent is cheaper than any mortgage and our rent is stupid expensive. But we have a 3 bdr. 1 bath with a garage, fenced in yard and a covered porch within biking distance to DH's work.
I hate the real estate here.
Thanks, Amazon.
it's apparently more than just an influx of tech workers.
I am just coming into this so it may be covered, but Pearland Texas. Excellent schools, diverse AND inclusive suburb of Houston that is 15 minutes from the zoo and museum district on the weekends.
www.har.com/3619-chadwick-dr/sale_23982374 This one has a great neighborhood pool too. I thin same as Glenhill Dr address. All have great neighborhood amenities, schools, neighbors.
I am just coming into this so it may be covered, but Pearland Texas. Excellent schools, diverse AND inclusive suburb of Houston that is 15 minutes from the zoo and museum district on the weekends.
www.har.com/3619-chadwick-dr/sale_23982374 This one has a great neighborhood pool too. I thin same as Glenhill Dr address. All have great neighborhood amenities, schools, neighbors.
I am just coming into this so it may be covered, but Pearland Texas. Excellent schools, diverse AND inclusive suburb of Houston that is 15 minutes from the zoo and museum district on the weekends.
www.har.com/3619-chadwick-dr/sale_23982374 This one has a great neighborhood pool too. I thin same as Glenhill Dr address. All have great neighborhood amenities, schools, neighbors.
Downside - this is in fact Texas.
Tell her how to pronounce it correctly!
Pear Land. Like Pear Tree but put Land there.
Siri requires that you say Pearlend with the syllables smooshed together. If you pronounce it clearly Siri spells Pair Land.
Ps the house next door to me has a pool, covered patio, shade off the pool, fruit trees, newish floors and paint and is for rent for 2700/month. Come be my neighbor! The next neighbor is a hilarious Aussie and his family. And there are so many kids on our street. 5 4th grade girls in a span of 15-houses between the stop sign and the end of the street (we are in a cul de sac). Lots of kids older and younger too.
To continue the pittsburgh chant - weather-wise - it's kinda gray there a lot, but you're used to that. The summers don't get too stinkin' hot. Average highs crack 80 but only by a bit. Winter is cold, but you don't get the crazy lake effect snow so it's not totally insane. It's on par total average snowfall wise with MA*. If you ever have a day where you just can't take the sleety winter nonsense for one more second...you just go to Phipps conservatory and walk around and it's all better. There is good camping/biking/hiking/river fun/outdoorsyness within a short drive in basically any direction. (you can literally ride a bike to Washington DC from pittsburgh on trails. I've done it.) Reasonably not awful skiing? I don't actually ski or snowboard, but H says Seven Springs is nice enough and it's not far at all. Pretty extensive parks. I got lost once in a city park there.
Uhhhh let's see..what else....I have a lot of friends (and family) there that if I hook you up with them on FB would welcome you with open arms - you're their kind of people. Makers and gamers with kids.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm so invested in this totally theoretical move of yours and that it be pittsburgh. I'm probably just jealous. our market isn't as hot and our mortgage isn't as paid off, but at this point we could come damn close to buying outright if we moved back there and made some compromises on space/condition. But H hated it there. So never will I move back.
*Fun note - remember the epic Dibs/SnowChair thread? Where I made that ridiculous chart of snowfall vs. population density categorized by the prevelence of dibs? Yeah, I just pulled that out of my "random crap" file on my desktop to check showfall amounts. LOLs
I am just coming into this so it may be covered, but Pearland Texas. Excellent schools, diverse AND inclusive suburb of Houston that is 15 minutes from the zoo and museum district on the weekends.
www.har.com/3619-chadwick-dr/sale_23982374 This one has a great neighborhood pool too. I thin same as Glenhill Dr address. All have great neighborhood amenities, schools, neighbors.
Downside - this is in fact Texas.
We have really good friends who just moved to Pearland (well two years ago) and they LOVE it. I'm also jealous of their housing prices, ha.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm so invested in this totally theoretical move of yours and that it be pittsburgh. I'm probably just jealous. our market isn't as hot and our mortgage isn't as paid off, but at this point we could come damn close to buying outright if we moved back there and made some compromises on space/condition. But H hated it there. So never will I move back.
It's still purely theoretical for us as well. Like, our house has three rooms that are totally ripped apart (the second bathroom is in the basement, it's down to studs and is essentially two holes in the concrete that WE CAN'T FILL IN UNTIL THE FUCKING RAIN STOPS. Work in that room has been stopped for months because of this (we've had record rainfall since October) and it's becoming an issue. Our upstairs bathroom is ripped apart, though nowhere near as bad, and our kitchen is mid-done.
It'll take us at least a year, going at a good pace to get those three rooms put together in even remotely OK condition. Plus we need to replace the floor in the kitchen and living rooms. And the outside is a freaking mess.
I'm hoping that the market will continue to stay hot. We're in a 'cheap' area of Seattle (probably the cheapest zip code in the city limits), so I think there's a lot of room for upward migration of housing prices, as compared with the rest of the city... According to Zillow, our house has gone up $25K+ in value in the last 30 days. I know that's not sustainable, and I know intellectually that we could sell our house to a flipper who wouldn't care about the incomplete renovations... and it might come to that. But right now, it's hunkering down and getting the work done. But it's sooooooooo not anything we're doing any time soon.
I like the suggestion of Pittsburgh. I grew up in the rust belt. If I were coming out of college or my husband and I were just starting out, we would definitely be in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Detroit. Beautiful summers, all. LCOL, large enough for some infrastructure (transit), major sports teams, and cultural interest. Small enough to carve a niche, gt involved, and put down roots.
That said, those places aren't quite developed enough yet for my H to get a job in his industry equivalent to what he has now - which is part of why they are still developing. We're really comfortable in the Philly burbs, where we are only a few hours to DC, Baltimore, NYC, the beach, or the mountains. Lots of transit, lots of culture, decent winters, somewhat hot summers, and we bought a house for under $200k, which it would be hard to do in the metro areas of most east coast cities. One major difference between LA and Philly, though, is that LA is FULL of transplants, which I'm sure you're familiar with in Seattle. Say what you will about them, bit I actually find that to be a benefit - they are bringing new ideas, they have a REASON to be there, and you can bond with others about their journey to find a city that's right for them. Most cities, Philly included, and DEFINITELY a lot of smaller cities, tend to be people who have just always been there. This is a double-edged sword. They can be VERY invested in their neighborhood and have a ton of family support, but be resistant to new ideas and new residents may feel like outsiders.
I haven't spent much time in Albuquerque, but given that it's only an hour from Santa Fe, my guess is that's a very good benefit of living there. I loooove Santa Fe, but it's getting pricey (even the city proper, not just Los Alamos, which is $$$$).
To continue the pittsburgh chant - weather-wise - it's kinda gray there a lot, but you're used to that. The summers don't get too stinkin' hot. Average highs crack 80 but only by a bit. Winter is cold, but you don't get the crazy lake effect snow so it's not totally insane. It's on par total average snowfall wise with MA*. If you ever have a day where you just can't take the sleety winter nonsense for one more second...you just go to Phipps conservatory and walk around and it's all better. There is good camping/biking/hiking/river fun/outdoorsyness within a short drive in basically any direction. (you can literally ride a bike to Washington DC from pittsburgh on trails. I've done it.) Reasonably not awful skiing? I don't actually ski or snowboard, but H says Seven Springs is nice enough and it's not far at all. Pretty extensive parks. I got lost once in a city park there.
Uhhhh let's see..what else....I have a lot of friends (and family) there that if I hook you up with them on FB would welcome you with open arms - you're their kind of people. Makers and gamers with kids.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm so invested in this totally theoretical move of yours and that it be pittsburgh. I'm probably just jealous. our market isn't as hot and our mortgage isn't as paid off, but at this point we could come damn close to buying outright if we moved back there and made some compromises on space/condition. But H hated it there. So never will I move back.
*Fun note - remember the epic Dibs/SnowChair thread? Where I made that ridiculous chart of snowfall vs. population density categorized by the prevelence of dibs? Yeah, I just pulled that out of my "random crap" file on my desktop to check showfall amounts. LOLs
Charlottesville, VA. You have to go 15+ minutes out of town to get a decent sized house under 300k but there's plenty out there. An hour from Richmond, drive able to D.C., beaches, etc. great music, food, wineries. A college town. ❤️ it here.
To continue the pittsburgh chant - weather-wise - it's kinda gray there a lot, but you're used to that. The summers don't get too stinkin' hot. Average highs crack 80 but only by a bit. Winter is cold, but you don't get the crazy lake effect snow so it's not totally insane. It's on par total average snowfall wise with MA*. If you ever have a day where you just can't take the sleety winter nonsense for one more second...you just go to Phipps conservatory and walk around and it's all better. There is good camping/biking/hiking/river fun/outdoorsyness within a short drive in basically any direction. (you can literally ride a bike to Washington DC from pittsburgh on trails. I've done it.) Reasonably not awful skiing? I don't actually ski or snowboard, but H says Seven Springs is nice enough and it's not far at all. Pretty extensive parks. I got lost once in a city park there.
Uhhhh let's see..what else....I have a lot of friends (and family) there that if I hook you up with them on FB would welcome you with open arms - you're their kind of people. Makers and gamers with kids.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm so invested in this totally theoretical move of yours and that it be pittsburgh. I'm probably just jealous. our market isn't as hot and our mortgage isn't as paid off, but at this point we could come damn close to buying outright if we moved back there and made some compromises on space/condition. But H hated it there. So never will I move back.
*Fun note - remember the epic Dibs/SnowChair thread? Where I made that ridiculous chart of snowfall vs. population density categorized by the prevelence of dibs? Yeah, I just pulled that out of my "random crap" file on my desktop to check showfall amounts. LOLs
I like the suggestion of Pittsburgh. I grew up in the rust belt. If I were coming out of college or my husband and I were just starting out, we would definitely be in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Detroit. Beautiful summers, all. LCOL, large enough for some infrastructure (transit), major sports teams, and cultural interest. Small enough to carve a niche, gt involved, and put down roots.
That said, those places aren't quite developed enough yet for my H to get a job in his industry equivalent to what he has now - which is part of why they are still developing. We're really comfortable in the Philly burbs, where we are only a few hours to DC, Baltimore, NYC, the beach, or the mountains. Lots of transit, lots of culture, decent winters, somewhat hot summers, and we bought a house for under $200k, which it would be hard to do in the metro areas of most east coast cities. One major difference between LA and Philly, though, is that LA is FULL of transplants, which I'm sure you're familiar with in Seattle. Say what you will about them, bit I actually find that to be a benefit - they are bringing new ideas, they have a REASON to be there, and you can bond with others about their journey to find a city that's right for them. Most cities, Philly included, and DEFINITELY a lot of smaller cities, tend to be people who have just always been there. This is a double-edged sword. They can be VERY invested in their neighborhood and have a ton of family support, but be resistant to new ideas and new residents may feel like outsiders.
I haven't spent much time in Albuquerque, but given that it's only an hour from Santa Fe, my guess is that's a very good benefit of living there. I loooove Santa Fe, but it's getting pricey (even the city proper, not just Los Alamos, which is $$$$).
I have always heard that it's hard to move to Pittsburgh and not know anyone- most people either grew up here or came for college and stayed, so already have a tight group of friends. We moved here for college but Dh and I have found this to be true with what we've seen.
Post by mominatrix on Apr 26, 2017 13:08:15 GMT -5
Damn, Richmond is looking good.
Not that you care, but I think I've fallen in love with one particular neighborhood there (Woodland Heights). Close enough to feel like the city, yet single family homes and lots of available parks... cute houses right in our budget. if anybody knows it, please chime in.
H even looked up the cost/salary differentials to here. He seems ready to go.
I like the suggestion of Pittsburgh. I grew up in the rust belt. If I were coming out of college or my husband and I were just starting out, we would definitely be in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Detroit. Beautiful summers, all. LCOL, large enough for some infrastructure (transit), major sports teams, and cultural interest. Small enough to carve a niche, gt involved, and put down roots.
That said, those places aren't quite developed enough yet for my H to get a job in his industry equivalent to what he has now - which is part of why they are still developing. We're really comfortable in the Philly burbs, where we are only a few hours to DC, Baltimore, NYC, the beach, or the mountains. Lots of transit, lots of culture, decent winters, somewhat hot summers, and we bought a house for under $200k, which it would be hard to do in the metro areas of most east coast cities. One major difference between LA and Philly, though, is that LA is FULL of transplants, which I'm sure you're familiar with in Seattle. Say what you will about them, bit I actually find that to be a benefit - they are bringing new ideas, they have a REASON to be there, and you can bond with others about their journey to find a city that's right for them. Most cities, Philly included, and DEFINITELY a lot of smaller cities, tend to be people who have just always been there. This is a double-edged sword. They can be VERY invested in their neighborhood and have a ton of family support, but be resistant to new ideas and new residents may feel like outsiders.
I haven't spent much time in Albuquerque, but given that it's only an hour from Santa Fe, my guess is that's a very good benefit of living there. I loooove Santa Fe, but it's getting pricey (even the city proper, not just Los Alamos, which is $$$$).
I have always heard that it's hard to move to Pittsburgh and not know anyone- most people either grew up here or came for college and stayed, so already have a tight group of friends. We moved here for college but Dh and I have found this to be true with what we've seen.
I could see that being true. I'm thinking about it, and I don't think I know anybody who moved to pittsburgh without an 'in.' Either went there for school or had family/friends there. I had both. Went to school there and my brother and his whole giant tribe of loveable weirdos was already there.