Affordable places you would actually want to live

[SurfnFish]

I’m from Australia… We have something like 6 of the top 10 most venomous snakes in the world. I think USA has zero.

not to mention spiders, particularly the big bastard I woke up to find sitting on my chest at my friends house in the bush just outside Margaret's River in West Oz...or as my buddy said 'mate, that was quite the yell'

 

[Otter]

Choose a place with fertile soil and a good growing season.

Yes. I think it’s wise to look at “the big picture”.

 

[Tom Butler]

Walla Walla seems to check most boxes.

More and more reading this thread, pretty much. Instead of retire, I was at newly sober with new 2 year degree. Wife and I ran @jaredoconnor initall post criteria (pretty much the same) and ended up getting a job offer here. Took $11 an hr to start instead of $17 with Pierce County and it sure was a good choice.

 

[RCF]

Conspicuously absent from your list are black flies, mosquitos, no see ums, ticks, deer flies, and horse flies. All of which Vermont abounds in, in their season.

You definitely understand.
No see ums are terrible.

 

[offensivename]

Basically went through this a couple years ago, although there are no kids in our house. Wife wanted to leave Portland because she was tired of living in the city. She wanted more winter and neither one of us wanted to move to the east. Also needed to be closer to her family in Vancouver. I rejected moving to BC because of jobs/comfort in the US (although I do sometimes regret just taking that plunge), so we ended up narrowing our search to Northwest Washington. She does pottery and wanted enough population nearby to grow her business, which pushed out the OP (I liked that area). Big things that came up were being close enough to a town to be able to go out for the occasional drink or dinner, as well as groceries and general shopping. She wanted to be near hiking and other outdoors activities (specifically being able to walk to hikes from the house). I wanted to be able to shoot on the property, or at least be very close to a shooting range, and nearby fishing was up there in priority. I also really wanted to be close to the ocean if possible.

We ended up on the Whidbey just south of Deception Pass. Nearby ocean, decent fishing, she has access to the park and does a lot of pottery stuff in Bellingham and the nearby towns. So overall its a good fit. Take home pay is much better with the no state income tax and not living in Portland proper.

That said, I think we've both learned a bit about what we thought was really important that didn't really end up being that important. For her, the hiking turned out to not be as important since she found a hiking group to go out with. She also realized that being nearish to Seattle wasn't as important as she thought it would be for her pottery. I haven't gone shooting since we moved despite joining the local shooting club, but I've fished the crap out of the beach, I do wish we lived closer to a river though.

 

[Evan B]

Yeah it is funny what you find did or didn't matter as much as you thought when you move around.

I moved from "the big city" and bought a house in Duvall, WA back in 2012. I wanted to be out of the city in a rural area, but close to as much as I could. Honestly, it worked out really well and I loved it. Thought I'd be there very long term... but life happens and I ended up single and taking a new job in Vancouver, WA in 2016. I house shopped in the rural areas around there but wasn't a huge fan of the vibe. Just didn't feel "homey" to me. Ended up meeting a girl in SE Portland and slowly transitioned to living with her.

Went back to rural house shopping, but couldn't find anything feasible given both our commutes. Ended up settling for South Gresham, right on the SE edge of urbanization. Honestly, been so much happier here than I thought. A huge part is that we've really built a community of friends here like neither of us have had in our adult lives. Our neighborhood is quiet, close to outdoors and city, and just a really relaxed place. I have a 1/4 acre lot, which isn't huge, but big enough to park 2 boats and have a nice big shed for all my fishing gear.

Given my very close proximity to a lot of great "after/before work" fishing, and within 2hrs of everything else I'd want to fish (including the ocean), it's really hard to think about moving from here.

City or near the city life can be pleasant if you land in the right spot. I grew up on a farm and never experienced a city until I got out of high school, so it took a long time to really acclimate and appreciate... and I definitely think there's more urban living situations I'd hate vs ones I'd be ok with, but if you land in the right spot, it can be great.

 

[Evan B]

To amend to my previous post: I grew up in a rural / small town situation and was surrounded by similar small towns. Most my family lives in very small towns all over the PNW. Small towns tend to be very wary of newcomers, especially if you're from one of the really SCARY BIG cities. They see you moving to their home town as a threat.

Of course, there's always exceptions and sometimes you find your few people you can connect with... but these places tend to be quite protective of their way of life and don't like outsiders. The exceptions to this tend to be places like bedroom communities near larger cities.

Just another thing to consider.

 

[headduck]

I started work as a forester in 1970 and knew fairly quickly that I would be living and moving throughout the western US for the rest of my life. I started keeping a list of towns and places that I wanted to live.

I always thought the towns would remain the same. They don't.

Towns like Boise that stayed on my list for decades are no longer liveable. I never thought I would see the day that the Boise metro area would be larger in population than the Spokane metro area.

Wenatchee was a incredible small town in the 80's. It became an awful small city after 2010. Complete with gridlock traffic, crime and murders, homeless people, urban traffic noise all day long, chain stores sucking the lifeblood out of the business community, and of course, the weekend tourist traffic!!!

That is one thing you want to do is move FARTHER away from metro area than a weekend recreational drive. Otherwise, your meeting thousands of "friends" you never knew every time you go outdoors.

Since I did community economic analysis for the Forest Service for years, I have kept track of my towns. It is amazing the growth in small towns that at one time only Forest Service and BLM folks knew existed.

And the growth in the cost of housing. I talked to several people that wanted to move from Portland to Wenatchee and could not afford the asking price for houses here. And that is happening throughout the west. There is a city in Arizona, that is so off the beaten track that even Arizonians don't know it exists. Housing prices have quadrupled there in the last four years. This is a city of 50,000!!!

BTW, 50,000 population is the magic number. That is when all the corporate stores move in and totally transform a community. The worst of the bunch is Costco. You NEVER want to move to a community with a Costco, it is on a downhill slide.

A friend of mine owned a small high tech business over on the coast. He got offers he couldn't refuse and had the ability to live anywhere he wanted in the world.

He moved to Pomeroy. There might be a lesson there.

Didn't read em all... Yet. But gotta say the Costco in Sequim adds so much convenience. Didn't make the town a shithole at all.

In fact, folks drive from Forks and beyond to shop there and it anchors other nearby useful tenants. The home Depot is super nice too. The hospital, not so much but Seattle is close-ish for real deals.

Small enough to see the same faces, but big enough to not know their business.

Having the natty park nearby brings lots of other folks as well.

Cool spot for sure but certainly not for everyone.

 

[509]

Didn't read em all... Yet. But gotta say the Costco in Sequim adds so much convenience. Didn't make the town a shithole at all.

In fact, folks drive from Forks and beyond to shop there and it anchors other nearby useful tenants. The home Depot is super nice too. The hospital, not so much but Seattle is close-ish for real deals.

Small enough to see the same faces, but big enough to not know their business.

Having the natty park nearby brings lots of other folks as well.

Cool spot for sure but certainly not for everyone.

Lots of people will NOT move to a city unless it has a Costco. That was my point, once Costco comes in the character and residents change dramatically.

When Costco moved into East Wenatchee in the early 1990's nobody shopped there. Costco was on the verge of closing the store.

However, right at that time the mass migration started to Wenatchee. From the people I talked to Costco was a deciding factor on moving to Wenatchee.

It changed the entire character of Wenatchee. If the most important thing in your life is shopping at Costco, such that you won't move unless the city has one then we probably don't have much in common.

The key factor is a trading population of 50,000. That is when all the corporate stores showed up and destroyed the small businesses in Wenatchee. The trading area needs to be under 50,000 for a healthy business community.

 

[Shawn Seeger]

I mean, other than occasionally seeing a tag on an overpass, I've literally never had a run-in with any of those things.

In driving into Seattle (starting in Kent/Des Moines) I have seen 3 if not 4 of these on every trip into town. WSDOT couldn't get the new wall sections up fast enough for the taggers and gang taggers! In the new 509 extension. And walking to the surgeons office of a hockey game you can't miss the drug issue.

 

[Shawn Seeger]

The whole Lyme disease thing really puts me off ever wanting to live out east. If it weren’t for that, we would be considering it. My wife is from NJ.

Just so you know, lyme disease is in Western Washington I got it from a tick in my woods last October.

 

[Evan B]

In driving into Seattle (starting in Kent/Des Moines) I have seen 3 if not 4 of these on every trip into town. WSDOT couldn't get the new wall sections up fast enough for the taggers and gang taggers! In the new 509 extension. And walking to the surgeons office of a hockey game you can't miss the drug issue.

Yeah the drug issue is way more a thing in downtown areas in the major cities. But I rarely have reason to go to downtown in either Portland or Seattle.

 

[Buzzy]

Didn't read em all... Yet. But gotta say the Costco in Sequim adds so much convenience. Didn't make the town a shithole at all.

In fact, folks drive from Forks and beyond to shop there and it anchors other nearby useful tenants. The home Depot is super nice too. The hospital, not so much but Seattle is close-ish for real deals.

Small enough to see the same faces, but big enough to not know their business.

Having the natty park nearby brings lots of other folks as well.

Cool spot for sure but certainly not for everyone.

Sequim may not be that hole you mention but it sure isn't the same Sequim it used to be (the one stop light town); no more Cal's where all the cool guys with hotrods would burn rubber after circling the restaurant - always wary of the city police chief. ;-) (Then again, what place is the same 60 to 70 years on?).

@509 - My memory is faulty, Vlad, as I don't remember East Wenatchee's Costco being in trouble. It's 50 miles from our house in Ephrata - we get there once or twice a month. What I can't figure out is the growth east of "Costco", what's driving all the subdivisions and apartments? Lots of orchard land becoming houses, townhouses, condos and apartments.

Sorry for the thread drift. Sequim's a cool place.

 

[JS]

Or you are a smart guy with an engineering degree. Small town teacher. Pretty good gig for a family man. After I lost my Land Surveyor job during the housing crisis a spot opened teaching engineering and surveying at the CC. Now I teach math. The world could use more good math teachers. My wife's been with the public schools for 28 years doing special needs. You won’t get rich, but everything else is great.

It’s also as rewarding as work can possibly be IMHO. I teach 7th and 8th grade math. It is not glorious, but every single day I get the chance to mentor students that have no one else looking out for their academic success/acquisition of basic math skill.

 

[Mossback]

always wary of the city police chief. ;-) (Then again, what place is the same 60 to 70 years on?).

Lol

Same story in Issaquah in the 70's....only 50 years ago.
Who was the chief in Sequim ?

 

[Buzzy]

Lol

Same story in Issaquah in the 70's....only 50 years ago.
Who was the chief in Sequim ?

We had friends living on Beaver Lake (less than 50 years ago), I doubt I could find my way up there now. It was Carl Klint.

 

[RCF]

Lol

Same story in Issaquah in the 70's....only 50 years ago.
Who was the chief in Sequim ?

Same for Missoula - only less than 40 years ago.

 

[Mossback]

We had friends living on Beaver Lake (less than 50 years ago), I doubt I could find my way up there now. It was Carl Klint.

Me neither...and I was up that way less than 10 years ago.
All our High School kegger spots are now housing developments...

 

[Shawn Seeger]

@jaredoconnor just finished the entire thread and will suggest a couple of things.

My wife and I planned while raising our kids to retire early 59 & 55 , respectively, then our employer decided to move her job to Seal Beach California and mine to Huntsville Alabama. Both of these options were non starters for us. We had already built what was to be our retirement home (had bought the land 25 years prior). So we had to just tighten the belt for 2 years, and retired even a bit earlier. I will say to any young person plan to retire as early as possible, and get a really good financial planner, and be honest with yourself about retirement lifestyle.

I had worked with old guys my entire career, and I respectfully listened to advice about location and transitions. Knowing my retirement home will not be the last place I live, unless a sudden death or accident.

Here are just a few things, (remember advice is free so may not be worth anything),

* schools will change in the quality of education as time moves forward, might start great but could duck in a couple years, likewise the schools that suck now child get better as new families move into the area. Also keep your personal geopolitical and religious beliefs in mind.

* when considering location remember a vacation view of a location isn't the same as living there. Some guys I know bought because the "fishing" or "hunting" was great, then 10 years later they were VERY disappointed when the quality went down or regulations changed.

* do you need a lot of friends or are you ok with just a few? Will you be injecting yourself into the community to build a network? Join a church or local club/organization? We we moved to our rural community we spent 5 years not meeting or joining, then we realized we wanted soon social interaction. We had both been raised to give back.

* would you honestly be ok with a lot slower lifestyle? We have friends that come out and realize after a weekend this is not the life for them. It is 1.5 hours to closest Costco, .5 hours to closet grocery store and they are small..5 hours to closet small hospital and 1.5 to big everything hospital. But we are almost exactly 2 hours between SeaTac and PDX.

Lastly, I present to you Mineral Wa. A very small town with good hard working people. We have or own lake, there are salmon and steelhead rivers close, there are lakes and reservoir close. There is pretty good hunting too. There is good hiking and camping all around. Mt. Rainier is only 18 miles from home/town. We have White Pass ski area.

Also, if you want to retrain the timber mill is hiring.

Several guys I have met said if you work hard you can move up quick with on job training...

Careers

Whether you’re completely new to the forest sector or a skilled professional, we’ll meet you where you’re at and help your career thrive.

careers-hamptonlumber.icims.com

And to sound sappy at the end, home is where the heart is, because there is no prefect place. Otherwise if would cost to much and be over crowded... haha

Good luck!

 

[_WW_]

So...I hear they are looking for air traffic controllers.