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Thinking about moving out of Cali to Oregon or Washington so drop knowledge on me
- Thread starter BillyMays
- Start date
Yep I can hit the the airport too in about 40 minutes for only 2 dollars using the train. It's amazing
I would avoid greater Seattle area. Cost of living has gone supernova and traffic is fucking awful (not as bad as LA, if you're coming from there, but still seriously bad).
If you have remote work or can find a job, I'd recommend Olympia, Anacortes or Bellingham in WA. For Oregon, Portland and Eugene.
If you have remote work or can find a job, I'd recommend Olympia, Anacortes or Bellingham in WA. For Oregon, Portland and Eugene.
It is an internet thing. I've openly shared I'm from california since I've moved and everyone was very nice and welcoming about it. Don't let a couple internet horror stories scare you off, people are very nice here! Especially compared to the fake full of themselves people in LA and the Oc
Let's be honest...late May - September is typically pretty nice here. Everything else is pretty much grey and rainy though. You will go weeks on end with rain and no sun...no lies there.
Are you white?
Talk about a parking crater.
My town is called the city of subdued excitement. I'm not going to try and convince you it's better than anything else, but it is beautiful.
Talk about a parking crater.
I just thought it was weird recommending one specific month that is 8 months away because it is supposed to be representative of the weather 10 months out of the year.
Yep, my wife and I really want out of California (both born and raised) and we've been wanting to move to either Oregon or Washington for years now. We've been up there several times in the past and just love the weather (let it rain all the time I don't care, it beats melting in the sun 8-9 months out of the year).
Gotcha. Yeah I still have a screen grab of the weather forecast here from back in April. This is what it's like here outside of the late May - September time frame OP. No hyperbole or BS:
In Washington the spring is really rainy, yet there is also a lot of sun as well. Where I live the summers are mostly sunny and get to around 30 celcius on the hot days. That said through the rest of the year the sun is not visable most of the time and actually leads to a lot of people here suffering from Vitamin D deficiency.
Otherwise Washington is a fantastic state with acess to a lot of beautiful nature, outdoor activities, British Columbia, and Oregon.
Otherwise Washington is a fantastic state with acess to a lot of beautiful nature, outdoor activities, British Columbia, and Oregon.
I was just there over the 4th of July. Vancouver sure does love there fireworks lol. They were going off EVERYWHERE there.
Man, you guys are way over-hyping the cost of living in the PNW.
Yeah, it's gone up, but it's nothing compared to the Bay Area or LA. Especially Oregon. You can buy a brand new, 2500 sqft house within a 45 minute drive of downtown Portland for $400k-$500k. Good luck finding anything like that within 3 hours of San Francisco. Also, the taxes are much less here -- in Oregon there's no sales tax, and in Washington, there's no income tax. In California, everything is taxed excessively.
Living in Seattle is about half the cost of San Francisco, and Portland is about one-third the cost. Also there are still very affordable suburbs like Renton (Seattle) or Hillsboro (Portland).
The downside is the weather sucks from about October to March. It's mostly great from April to September and really great in July and August.
Yeah, it's gone up, but it's nothing compared to the Bay Area or LA. Especially Oregon. You can buy a brand new, 2500 sqft house within a 45 minute drive of downtown Portland for $400k-$500k. Good luck finding anything like that within 3 hours of San Francisco. Also, the taxes are much less here -- in Oregon there's no sales tax, and in Washington, there's no income tax. In California, everything is taxed excessively.
Living in Seattle is about half the cost of San Francisco, and Portland is about one-third the cost. Also there are still very affordable suburbs like Renton (Seattle) or Hillsboro (Portland).
The downside is the weather sucks from about October to March. It's mostly great from April to September and really great in July and August.
Have you been there? Or are you just going off of the 2 pics posted?
I moved here from the northeast (I lived in NYC and NJ) and it was far more expensive there than here but I'm also not in Seattle. Not just rent but car insurance was a lot more expensive on the east coast you NEED an AC in summer and heat in winter. Here I don't have AC and have never touched the heat in winter apart from maybe 1 or 2 days when it snowed and was cold out. But yeah utility cost is much worse on the east coast too. At least where I lived.
Both are good moves, also Idaho as well you should consider. I know a guy who moved to Ohio 2 years ago and likes it, and a friend is moving to Bend, OR next month and can't wait. Most people my age I know (30 something) are bailing out of CA fast. Cost of living is too high, and the people running the state are idiots raising costs of shit further. You're not alone looking to jump, I would suggest checking Reddit. I recall a lot of sub-reddits there with CA transplants to TX, WA, OR, ID and AZ.
I'm with you. I love the rain and it's so much better than dealing with months long 100+ heat waves in socal
Your numbers are pretty out of date. Seattle is appreciably more expensive than LA now, and yes, it is cheaper than San Francisco, which is literally the most expensive city to rent in in the world per the thread the other day, but the gap has been closing. Seattle has led the nation in housing increases for the past 20 months straight, and outside of that, most months for the past 5 years. Cost of living is 20-25% more in San Francisco than Seattle. Even Renton is no longer cheap, especially near transit.
For example, this:
in decent shape would be a great deal right now.
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A crapton of people have been moving here to the Boise area from California(including my family, we bailed on San Jose in 1994 because we couldn't afford it and moved to Boise) for a couple decades now. A lot of the long time locals don't like the Californians moving here, but you won't have much trouble with them really. Cost of living is much much much cheaper than California, although it has crept up in recent years(I think it's still cheaper than Seattle or Portland though). The winters can be rough for a Californian though, it gets pretty cold and we see more significant snow than Seattle/Portland do.
I would say Boise could be a potential option for the OP, but it all depends on his preferences.
Nah, SF is easily twice as expensive as Seattle. I just chose between three job offers: one in SF, one in Portland, and one in Seattle. So I did a lot of research on this and know what I'm talking about. Just spend a few minutes checking rents on Trulia, then consider that you give 4% of your income to the state in the form of an income tax.
The biggest issue is that you can't really "escape" SF -- all the suburbs within an 2 hour commute are just as expensive or even more expensive. If you work in Seattle and are willing to drive 30-60 minutes, you can score a 4 bedroom house in Renton for under $500k. You will not find anything like that in any of the SF suburbs. LA, I don't know as much about, admittedly.
It is a pretty great city. I have some minor issues with it(as well as the general politics of the state, which are about as red as a Southern state), but overall I really do like it here.
I mean, I'm consulting actual data and have been house hunting here for the past year. "Nah" isn't a real counterargument.
Only negative I've heard is there isn't a "lot" to do in the city-area but that wouldn't bother me, but might others.
I don't know what data you're looking at. It's obviously incorrect.
Here I just did a 2 second search on Zillow: 18617 112th Ave SE, Renton WA 98055. 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2k sqft. Listed for $449k. 30 minute drive to downtown Seattle. Find me something like that near SF. I did a search and the closest thing I can find is 95698 Zamora. It's a 90 minute drive to SF and they're asking $2.2 million.
I'm consulting cost of living. Not "buying a 4 bedroom house within an hour drive". Keep moving the goalposts.
OP: One downside of Seattle right now is the huge influx of knowitall self important techworkers like the one quoted.
Depends on what you are into. If you like the outdoors it's great for that, the mountains are pretty much our backyard. Hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, etc. are very popular activities around here.
You literally said house hunting....Also, one of the key reasons the OP cited was having space for a family.
I mean yeah, gas prices, movie tickets, and McDonald's are about the same. You got me there. But housing is twice as expensive.
Let me help you out:
EDIT: And anyway, I don't know why you're obsessing over San Francisco when OP is from Orange County and wants to move out of CA. The point is that Seattle IS fucking expensive, and your statement about that being "way overhyped" was completely false from the point of view of any human outside of the Bay Area.
Well played.
This is so goddamn true. Every dentist I go to knows I wasn't born here.
See, here's the thing, Portland has this really strict urban growth boundary, and we've been full for like, 20 years. Totally.
This post is so wholesome it warms my heart. Fuuuucking goddammit, you can stay.
Everything else in your post was about housing. You talk about rents, home price appreciation, the cost of houses in Renton near public transportation, etc.
If you want to use an online cost-of-living calculator, then yeah, it's about 20% less expensive. But those calculators are inherently flawed because they pull a basket of goods in a particular city and do a simple one-to-one comparison. They don't consider the situation in the suburbs, or more complex things. For example, the lack of income tax in WA is very great for you if you make a lot of money. If you don't make much money, it doesn't matter at all, and indeed, the high sales tax is a negative. Or the relative quality of restaurants: Portland has a lot of cheap restaurants that are great. In Seattle, all the cheap restaurants suck. This is hard to quantify. Many people insist on owning a car, even if the local public transportation is great, so comparing transportation costs is difficult.
Look at what you personally like to spend money on and what lifestyle you want then do a comparison.
Yo Irvine is still mad expensive relative to most parts of the country.
OP check out some of the more up-and-coming cities that are currently experiencing an influx of jobs, opportunity and economic revitalization but haven't been crowded up yet like the PNW. I hear good things about North Carolina, for example. Lots of young people from New England are moving down there for jobs, and I hear the rent isn't out of control yet.
The whole west coast has this problem...not just Portland. I'm up in Olympia which is small compared to Portland and there are homeless people everywhere. I can step outside my apartment right now and take a picture of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk.
There are certain disadvantages if you are poc regardless of where you go in pnw. It's gets a lot worse outside of cities. Expect actual seasons and expect no sun in the fall and winter. It's clean especially in Oregon and both states are super pretty.
Lived in Seattle for 2.5 years and now in Portland.
Love both and can't go wrong with either, just depends on what you can afford and what area you want to live in. If you love the outdoors, even better!
Love both and can't go wrong with either, just depends on what you can afford and what area you want to live in. If you love the outdoors, even better!
I know Irvine/Lake Forest and pretty much all of Orange County is relatively expensive than the rest of the country, but hey if you want to own a house that's the cost. Irvine you are basically 30 minutes from Newport, Huntington Beach, and a little farther from all of the beaches south down to San Diego. I guess from someone in the Valley that seems pretty amazing.
I feel like there is basically 2 seasons here. Summer and then rain lol. Spring/Fall/Winter here all seem quite the same compared to say the northeast US (where I moved from).
I've lived in Seattle for a decade and I love it.
Beautiful summers. Rainy season. Outdoor activities all year regardless of weather. Excuses to stay inside and watch movies or play games when I don't feel like being outside.
Beautiful summers. Rainy season. Outdoor activities all year regardless of weather. Excuses to stay inside and watch movies or play games when I don't feel like being outside.
I've heard that Eugene is pretty nice. I didn't like culture in Portland. Seattle is OK but it's turning into another San Francisco.
Anyone that moves there, just please change your CA plates ASAP and stop talking about CA like it's the dope shit. It's really not, you fled the place. People in the PNW don't want the Cali mentality, being from there gets you no status bonus. Adapt and become one with nature or don't move there at all.