Do you like where you live?

yupididit said:

jharry3 said:

Do I like where I live?  Its Houston, Tx.   Work is here.   Having grown up in the New Orleans area I can say Houston has no soul.   Just a bunch of people making money to live on, running around in cars like malicious children, cutting people off in traffic with no discernable gains,  running red lights, and always in fear of the next freeway wreck that makes them 1/2 hour late for their destination.   Housing is expensive, property taxes are high, and its become a "Blue" city with "Woke" leaders"; which is not my personal preference.

People don't retire and say "hey, I always want to live in Houston".

So no, I don't like where I live - but its a living.

I hate that people use the term "woke" as something bad. All my life its been used in a positive sense. But, in the past 2 years I've been seen it used as something that is bad or offensive. No understanding of the word and its history has caused this to happen. The word got trendy by a few people and they completely changed its meaning. Sad! 

It's because those few people couldn't spell "empathetic", "inclusive", or "tolerant".  And if they could then they might realize they were wrong.

Just like duty stations:  Your current place is better than the last place, but the next place will be better

Papa, Hungary
Overall, I like it here.  We live in a small farming town (fixin to move to a MUCH smaller village here shortly).  About 30k people or so.  Safe for the kids, great schools, wonderful neighbors.  Love it.  Small town life suits us.  Growing garden stuff, picking berries, and squeezin fruit (making Palinka) is all pretty normal here and we often trade what we grow/make with neighbors and friends. 

There's a lot to not like too:  We're basically stuck working for one employer.  Local language is insanely difficult.  If you fart, the people across town know what you ate before you can open a window...  That sort of stuff.

All in all, it's better than our last place of residence (But nowhere near as good as our next place will be).

Well, after the last couple of weeks, I can offer up rural New Mexico and the T or C to Las Cruces area as not recommended if you need healthcare.  Even with a new hospital (1 of 3) in Las Cruces, apparently getting staff, both specialists and primary care is quite problematic-- apparently the story is that compensation vs. malpractice insurance cost for New Mexico is driving practitioners out of the state in droves.

Certainly the healthcare situation is better for me back home in small town Iowa near larger population centers.

1SlowVW said:

I think I've expressed it before here, but I love where I live. Sackville NB Canada is a small university town (pop 10k residents when school is in). Small town vibes but because of the university you still have good bands, good food options, and the town is kept very clean. 

No town is without issues and we've seen crime go up and down since we've been here. But I live on a private lane and have really great neighbours. We like it here so much that I bought a business here. 

We have an international airport 30 minutes from my doorstep and if we want to go to an city for the weekend we can head down to halifax nova scotia which is about 2 hours away. 

 

Mostly though it puts me about an hour from my parents which is important to me with small children. 

 

We may not live here forever but for right now it's a really great fit. 

 

The Maritimes are a great place. You just have to be able to deal with winter, which weeds out the weak :) I am of a belief that the harder it is to live somewhere, the better the people are because they have to work together.

We're in a city of ~60k people in Metro Detroit. ~1/8 mile walk to 3 great parks, 1/2 mile to a bustling downtown, and every flavor of international and domestic foods within a 10 minute drive. ~1/4 mile to major interestates running both N/S and E/W.

We'd love more space (5500sqft lot say heeeyyy), but the accessibility to everything is hard to give up - and our housing costs are so low that we are able to make our money do a lot for us. Winter is rough, but summers are fantastic.

Omaha, NE

My answer is ehhh. It's ok. I live midtown so it's the old neighborhood that I love. The people are nice. Winters can be a b overall. It's almost the center of the US so easy to travel a lot of places. Some great outdoors stuff is south in Missouri. 

Taxes are out of control for what it is. 6.84% income tax and pretty high property tax. On just a bit over $600K in RE assets, I'll pay $10-11K next year. I wouldn't mind if the infrastructure and schools are decent but they are not. The roads are better in Beirut than my hood.  

My fam is here so it's good coming back. I spent the last 20 years in Austin and the CO front range. Don't really want to move there again. Came back originally for the wrong reasons and now back with a different setup and it's much better. 

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

mainlandboy said:

calteg said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

j_tso said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Dallas, Texas. Used to be a good place to live. Then everybody from everywhere else moved here.

Housing used to be reasonable. Now it is stupid expensive. 

Traffic used to be reasonable. Now it's insane. My car insurance is going up because transplants drive like idiots.

Same complaints about Austin. It doesn't help that the racing series I like (IMSA, WEC) stopped coming to COTA. Still gotta drive it myself a lot more before I'm done with the place.

I know at least two people who actually moved to Dallas to get away from the high cost of living in Austin. Housing is even worse down there.

Having lived in both, Austin housing prices are much, much worse. At least in Austin you have culture and food and an abundance of live music. DFW has...the stockyards...and deep ellum is kinda cool sometimes. 

I wish the housing prices where I live were more like the prices in Austin. I live in the greater Vancouver area.

I love the abundance of outdoor activities here (mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, snowboarding) and the proximity to the ocean, but our housing costs are nuts.

 

There is stupid expensive. Stupid, stupid expensive, and stupid, stupid stupid expensive. It's all unaffordable to me. I would not consider either place. 

I grew up in Northern California near San Francisco and left the state  after finishing college for Colorado because housing there was stupid expensive even then. Years later I left Colorado for Texas because my rent kept going up but my salary didn't When I got to Texas I decided to buy a place after getting priced out of both California and Texas. That still doesn't help with horrible traffic, higher taxes and the California everything has a price culture that is moving in here to Dallas now. 

I feel like I am being chased across the country by a mad pack of developers, investors and house flippers turning each place where they land into yet another level of hell. 

Come to PA.  I bought my 2bd/1ba detached house with a garage for $87k.

How much do you have to make to afford a $1.8M house?  I'm guessing it's about 15 times what I make.

How is the job market there? I have heard horror stories about the rustbelt. What I do is specialized so I would need a big city nearby.

I love it here.  Great climate, all my family lives here, short commute that I could make by bicycle easily.

Only problem is it is being destroyed  by the people running it.  It is almost like they are trying to get everyone who pays taxes to leave.  It is truly astounding the disdain our elected officials have for the state and federal Constitutions.  Pretty soon the state will be bankrupt, I think we beat Illinois to insolvency by a mile.  I am betting on a federal bailout for all the states that get run into the ground.

Oh yeah, to all you guys in Texas, Arizona and Nevada, I want to sincerely apologize for the Californication of your states.  Austin and Dallas used to be great, sorry.

A little west of the DFW Metroplex.

I love it, small town feel, old homes, everything I need is here and the metroplex is just a short drive, still has the rural feel of its origins, good schools and most people are pretty good. Im close to the "downtown" because I wanted an old home, so its not like a suburb where Im right on top of my neighbors, the lots are a little bigger and I get along with my neighbors.

Im not a city guy, this is about as close to city living as Id like, we've been looking for a bigger piece of property in the middle of nowhere which would be ideal for me, my wife much prefers to be close to her family though.

Outside of preferences of being farther away from civilization  my only real complaint is property taxes.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Come to PA.  I bought my 2bd/1ba detached house with a garage for $87k.

How much do you have to make to afford a $1.8M house?  I'm guessing it's about 15 times what I make.

Damn that is tempting...since the pandemic price spike, some of my neighbors have cars parked out front that cost more than this.

Drove through western PA on the way back from the Challenge last year, the scenery was much like Ontario but with more hills and less water...I also like the autobahn you guys have, apparently you call it an Interstate?

mainlandboy said:

calteg said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

j_tso said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Dallas, Texas. Used to be a good place to live. Then everybody from everywhere else moved here.

Housing used to be reasonable. Now it is stupid expensive. 

Traffic used to be reasonable. Now it's insane. My car insurance is going up because transplants drive like idiots.

Same complaints about Austin. It doesn't help that the racing series I like (IMSA, WEC) stopped coming to COTA. Still gotta drive it myself a lot more before I'm done with the place.

I know at least two people who actually moved to Dallas to get away from the high cost of living in Austin. Housing is even worse down there.

Having lived in both, Austin housing prices are much, much worse. At least in Austin you have culture and food and an abundance of live music. DFW has...the stockyards...and deep ellum is kinda cool sometimes. 

I wish the housing prices where I live were more like the prices in Austin. I live in the greater Vancouver area.

I love the abundance of outdoor activities here (mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, snowboarding) and the proximity to the ocean, but our housing costs are nuts.

 

I'll concede that Vancouver is likely one of the worst housing markets. We traveled to Vancouver last year and visited a city an hour away, all the houses were still 1m+

Karacticus said:

Well, after the last couple of weeks, I can offer up rural New Mexico and the T or C to Las Cruces area as not recommended if you need healthcare.  Even with a new hospital (1 of 3) in Las Cruces, apparently getting staff, both specialists and primary care is quite problematic-- apparently the story is that compensation vs. malpractice insurance cost for New Mexico is driving practitioners out of the state in droves.

Certainly the healthcare situation is better for me back home in small town Iowa near larger population centers.

That's too bad. We spent a couple weeks in Alamogordo in 2021 & really liked it for a smaller city, but expected Las Cruces would have nearly all the healthcare options one would need. 

Scotty Con Queso said:

Too many cold and grey days. Too far from the ocean.

I lived briefly near Detroit, and those were my exact complaints. My wife is a born-and-raised Michigander, and I never would've been able to pry her away if it weren't for the Navy making her move to Virginia. I followed her out there and enjoyed it for what it was (northern Virginia near DC). The mountains were closer, the beach was closer, and the seasons were great. 

Now we are in Mooresville, NC back near my home, and I love it. The big downside to this area is that is growing unsustainably quickly, but coming from DC, it isn't *that* bad. Schools are great, I enjoy my job, great mountain roads are a day-trip away, one of the best go-kart tracks in the country is just on the other side of town, and track days are nearly year-round. My parents are close enough to visit their grandkids often, and we got in the house before the market went up 60%. 

Summers get a wee bit hot though. 

classicJackets (FS) said:

We're in a city of ~60k people in Metro Detroit. ~1/8 mile walk to 3 great parks, 1/2 mile to a bustling downtown, and every flavor of international and domestic foods within a 10 minute drive. ~1/4 mile to major interestates running both N/S and E/W.

The food is easily one of the biggest things I miss about that area, haha

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Come to PA.  I bought my 2bd/1ba detached house with a garage for $87k.

How much do you have to make to afford a $1.8M house?  I'm guessing it's about 15 times what I make.

Wow, I can't imagine house prices that low! A very high income is needed to buy a house in the Vancouver area:

Most of the people who live in detached homes here bought the house many years ago before things went nuts, or they were able to borrow significant funds from family in addition to a large mortgage.

calteg said:

mainlandboy said:

calteg said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

j_tso said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Dallas, Texas. Used to be a good place to live. Then everybody from everywhere else moved here.

Housing used to be reasonable. Now it is stupid expensive. 

Traffic used to be reasonable. Now it's insane. My car insurance is going up because transplants drive like idiots.

Same complaints about Austin. It doesn't help that the racing series I like (IMSA, WEC) stopped coming to COTA. Still gotta drive it myself a lot more before I'm done with the place.

I know at least two people who actually moved to Dallas to get away from the high cost of living in Austin. Housing is even worse down there.

Having lived in both, Austin housing prices are much, much worse. At least in Austin you have culture and food and an abundance of live music. DFW has...the stockyards...and deep ellum is kinda cool sometimes. 

I wish the housing prices where I live were more like the prices in Austin. I live in the greater Vancouver area.

I love the abundance of outdoor activities here (mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, snowboarding) and the proximity to the ocean, but our housing costs are nuts.

 

I'll concede that Vancouver is likely one of the worst housing markets. We traveled to Vancouver last year and visited a city an hour away, all the houses were still 1m+

I could not fathom Vancouver's market.  Tacoma's market was bad enough!  The house we bought in 2012 for $260,000 (100yr/old Craftsman) ended up selling when we moved to Kuwait in 2016 for $350,000 and I thought that was reasonable as we did our fair share of work to the place.

Last year it sold for over $700,000, and it is in way worse shape than when we left it (a lot of the landscaping has been ripped out, the paint is damn ugly, etc...).

Out here, no one really has a lot of money so houses are cheap.  We bought our (liveable) house that's "down town" for our community for $66,000 about 2 years ago (It's a rare one in the sense that it has a large plot of land in the middle of town with fruit trees, grape vines, etc).  Since then we've started refurbishing it and building additions while we live in a rental, and in the end it'll cost us about another $66,000 before it's done.  But it's paid off and we're working as money comes in (or just doing it ourselves).

Here's the kicker though:  In Hungary you only pay property taxes once.  It's 4% of the house purchase price and then you're done with it for as long as you own it.

I nearly had a heart attack when I found out.

Delaware OH

I like, just wish there were more interesting roads closer, takes about an hour to get to "fun" roads to drive.  I have lived in a lot of places:

• Kentucky
• Ohio 
• Virginia
• Missouri
• Germany
• New Jersey
• California, close to Reno NV
• Texas
• Louisiana

With the exceptions of Germany and San Francisco I would take where we are now over any of the others.  Housing/cost of living is not crazy, schools are good, the wife and I enjoy the 4 seasons, and don't get adversely effected by the gray winter days.  My wife has talked about moving to the Pacific Northwest from time to time, but all of our families are in the easter half of the US so I really don't see that happening.

mainlandboy said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Come to PA.  I bought my 2bd/1ba detached house with a garage for $87k.

How much do you have to make to afford a $1.8M house?  I'm guessing it's about 15 times what I make.

Wow, I can't imagine house prices that low! A very high income is needed to buy a house in the Vancouver area:

Most of the people who live in detached homes here bought the house many years ago before things went nuts, or they were able to borrow significant funds from family in addition to a large mortgage.

I can't imagine paying that large a percentage of my pay check towards housing cost...

Opti said:

A little west of the DFW Metroplex.

I love it, small town feel, old homes, everything I need is here and the metroplex is just a short drive, still has the rural feel of its origins, good schools and most people are pretty good. Im close to the "downtown" because I wanted an old home, so its not like a suburb where Im right on top of my neighbors, the lots are a little bigger and I get along with my neighbors.

Im not a city guy, this is about as close to city living as Id like, we've been looking for a bigger piece of property in the middle of nowhere which would be ideal for me, my wife much prefers to be close to her family though.

Outside of preferences of being farther away from civilization  my only real complaint is property taxes.

Weatherford ?

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Yep

In reply to Opti :

I lived in Weatherford for many years (Azle now). My most recent house was north of the square. I knew from your description what town you must be talking about.

In reply to mainlandboy :

We built our 2300sqft house on 2 acres for $208k. Current values have it in the 350k range if we were to sell. Lots of houses on tiny lots or in town for under $100k around us though. 

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

How strange. I got started as a car guy rebuilding a fox body at my Grandfather's place in Weatherford. This was in the mid 90's, so Weatherford was "the sticks" back then. 

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

I saw you used to be in Weatherford in your old build threads, never recognized anything specific enough to know where. You are out by my parents now (Reno), I saw something in the GMT400 thread that was vaguely familiar but I wasnt sure where.

In reply to calteg :

About 10-15 years ago some friends, a bunch of college kids, rented an old shop close to the square and stuck everyones projects in there to work on them. At any given time there would be 5 or 6 foxbodies and the odd galaxy there. Its an actual operating shop now though. Ive never owned a foxbody but i sure have worked on a bunch of them in Weatherford.