Do you like where you live?

z31maniac said:

93EXCivic said:

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...

I was thinking the same thing. The townhouse example, I guess you work from home, eat ramen every day and never have any other activies? 

That's 25% off your paycheck going to housing ... not unheard of in many places.

Also, probably Canadian dollars, so that thouse, while not cheap, its ~$750k. The prices are not too far out of line from anywhere decent down in south Florida, I am sure it would be the same for California or the northeast.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

z31maniac said:

I was thinking the same thing. The townhouse example, I guess you work from home, eat ramen every day and never have any other activies? 

Keep in mind that starting salary for a fresh-out-of-college new grad with a CS degree at Google/FB/etc has been over $100K for a while now.  A couple years experience and some RSUs in an appreciating market and a two-tech-income couple can be making $300K/year.

That example is from Vancouver, Canada, so I have no idea what payroll taxes and such look like there. 

But bringing up $300k is irrelevant to the example, since the example explicitly uses $170k income. You trying to pull a frenchy on me? 

Slippery said:

z31maniac said:

93EXCivic said:

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...

I was thinking the same thing. The townhouse example, I guess you work from home, eat ramen every day and never have any other activies? 

That's 25% off your paycheck going to housing ... not unheard of in many places.

Also, probably Canadian dollars, so that thouse, while not cheap, its ~$750k. The prices are not too far out of line from anywhere decent down in south Florida, I am sure it would be the same for California or the northeast.

I know that's how the banks do it. But I think basing your mortgage payments (and do we know if that number includes property tax and insurance) on your gross vs your net is silly. 

Just the state income tax can vary greatly. Someone just said Nebraska was nearly 7%, OK is 5%, Tennessee is 0%. That's a big change in your take home at $170k per year. 

Things I've learned from this thread:

1. Cleveland IS actually worse than Pittsburgh.

2. Places are crowded.

3.  Places are expensive. 

jimgood said:

Wherever you go, there you are.

Apart from places with regular weather and seismic extremes, or sprawling urbanity, I could live pretty much anywhere.

Meh.  I've lived in all of the above.  Grew up in PA.  When I lived in New Orleans, people would hunker down for hurricanes (or "little storms" as they liked to call them) and marvel at how people didn't instantly die when the temperature in PA got to 20 degrees.  When I lived in L.A. people assumed that our lives ended when there was snow on the ground while they were holding a vase on a shelf during an earthquake.  It's all relative.  Everywhere you go you have problems.  I lived through a 3.2 quake in L.A. and no one batted an eyelash. It made the evening news as about the 9th headline after Jennifer Aniston's new boyfriend and a fluff piece about a Golden Retriever. When I was in Evansville IN they had a 1.9 quake and shut down the schools and everyone bought bread, milk, and eggs like it was the apocalypse.  When I lived in Austin after a record 7 year drought, the locals said, "the lake's a little low."  Up here if we don't get rain for one month we panic that the apple crops will suffer and melt down Wall St.

Slippery said:

That's 25% off your paycheck going to housing ... not unheard of in many places.

Also, probably Canadian dollars, so that thouse, while not cheap, its ~$750k. The prices are not too far out of line from anywhere decent down in south Florida, I am sure it would be the same for California or the northeast.

But that also means the pay is ~$126k.

Honestly I think the pay to housing cost ratio in those places is nuts too.

Scotty Con Queso said:

Things I've learned from this thread:

1. Cleveland IS actually worse than Pittsburgh.

2. Places are crowded.

3.  Places are expensive. 

4. Basically everyone dislikes their politicians.

93EXCivic said:

Scotty Con Queso said:

Things I've learned from this thread:

1. Cleveland IS actually worse than Pittsburgh.

2. Places are crowded.

3.  Places are expensive. 

4. Basically everyone dislikes their politicians.

5. Everybody thinks everywhere has bad drivers 

I very much like where I live.  The only way it could be better is if the sea level rose about 100 feet, I could launch my boat from my backyard instead of having to drive to the river.

I've been bouncing around the last couple years and I know I've talked offline a couple times with Scotty and a few other regulars on the forum about it.  I recently moved back to my hometown (my wife's hometown as well) of Janesville, WI after living in Anderson, SC for roughly a year and a half.  Prior to that I lived in the Milwaukee area for about 8 years. 

We loved the weather in SC, very mild winters made up for the oppressive summers.  We had a hard time fitting in and making friends in the smaller town of Anderson and probably should have moved to Greenville but our money went so much further in the Anderson housing market. Live and learn.  We still miss it, for a small city of ~35k people it had some phenomenal restaurants that we frequented and miss dearly.  One thing I really enjoyed about SC was the not being on the eastern edge of a timezone, this made a huge difference in the winter months with daylight savings time.  In Wisconsin we are on the eastern edge of Central Time and it's pitch black by 4:30pm in December.  In SC with being further south and smack in the middle of the Eastern Time Zone the sun sets around 5:30pm.  This was a big mental health boost in the winter.

The summers here in southern Wisconsin are perfect aside for how short they seem.  People start complaining about the heat and humidity once it goes over 83° which is a bit comical to me after living in SC.  The winters can be spotty here, we often miss big snow events either to the north or just south of us.  We rarely miss the cold blasts here though, those days always have me wishing I was back in the south.  Spring always seems to drag on too long as I'm anxious for summer and fall seems to quick and abrupt.

We live 10 minutes from pretty much everything we need right now, just out of the city limits on a wooded 2 acre lot.  We are 35 minutes from Madison, just over an hour from Milwaukee and 1.5 hours from Chicago so there's plenty to do within a short drive if we get bored of Janesville.  Both of our families are within 10 minutes of our house and while most of our friends are about an hour away in the Milwaukee area we still see them much more regularly than when we were 900 miles away in South Carolina.

The wife and I often go back and forth on whether we are happy where we live and often make pros and cons lists to cities across the South.  We had seriously considered moving to coastal Alabama until our last visit where we had to utilize their medical facilities which are seriously lacking compared to what we are used to in Wisconsin.  At this point I think we are in Wisconsin for at least 5 years maybe longer,  we have moved around too much in the previous 5 years and need to just slow down and enjoy life a bit.

This Vancouver stuff reminds me of how I sat next to a Vancouver developer on the way back from Italy recently. I was talking about how 2 bedrm 1000sq ft places in Berkeley were routinely going for more than a million $. He said that he was taking places like that in Vancouver, putting 5 million into the property and selling them for 10 million. Perhaps he was just boasting, but he came off as legit.  

Fueled by Caffeine said:

93EXCivic said:

Scotty Con Queso said:

Things I've learned from this thread:

1. Cleveland IS actually worse than Pittsburgh.

2. Places are crowded.

3.  Places are expensive. 

4. Basically everyone dislikes their politicians.

5. Everybody thinks everywhere has bad drivers 

6. The roads are awful.

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Re: roads.  I always wonder what metrics people use when they out and declare that "the roads here are terrible!" Compared to what? People in NC used to complain about the road surface. Having lived in PA for over 10 years I can confidently say that NC has nothing, and I mean nothing, to complain about. 

Re: Roads

I think there are few different factors to weigh when it comes to road conditions.

1) How much of the population is served by paved roads? Here in AZ, we've got a lot of people who live on dirt roads. Aside from the occasional farmer and way up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, I never encountered a gravel or unpaved road. 

2) Conditions of roads can be impacted by the local government. Erie, PA had terrible roads, as does Pittsburgh. Philadelphia suburbs had pretty decent roads. 

3) What is the condition of most highways in the state/region/city? Phoenix, AZ has some nice highways, but up here in the mountains they turn to crap. In general, I found Pennsylvania highways to be decent. The turnpike has gotten so smooth in recent years. 

In reply to pheller :

Oh man, out here road condition can vary from county to county and I have no idea how any of that works.  But those are all B-roads...  You get on the M-ways out here and it is smoother than a slicked up sheet of glass.  Speed limit is posted as 75mph, but the cameras don't go off until 95mph, and you can do every bit of it without worrying about a darn thing (we usually do 90mph, as does most everyone else in a passenger vehicle)

Love, love, love it.

But that doesn't stop everyone from everywhere I've been from complaining about their roads

I think the roads here in Northern VA are excellent. They better be cause it cost my wife $49 to get to work on morning last week.

Bill, I agree, the main roads in most of europe are pretty great. Love driving there. 

I've been all over. Lived in Erie, in Cleveland a lot, Overseas, and old town Omaha is just a mess. I just want what ever it is to be in decent shape. Minimal potholes and decently smooth. I expect the occasional pothole and I know the north will never be like glass.

I honestly thought there was something bad in the suspension of my car for a while. Checked everything. Finally took a road trip and nope, it was just the roads being so bad. 

Keith Tanner said:

Grand Junction, CO

Definitely. Great weather, one of the sunniest places in the US, loads of outdoor opportunities, no rusty cars. Saturday I was snowshoeing through fresh powder on a frozen lake at 10,000', Sunday I was riding a bike in a t-shirt and shorts. Small enough to avoid most city problems, big enough that you don't have to leave town for amenities. It does get a little warm in the summer but like the joke says, it's a dry heat and you can always head for the mountains. No bugs :)

Cost of living is 96% of the national average, and it's mostly that high due to Californians cashing out and buying houses here. Not terribly multicultural. Politically - well, let's just say that Boebert is our representative, but only by a few hundred votes.

I've lived all over the world, never in a place I hated. There's always something to find.

 

I still regret not taking the risk of moving out to CO and the employment opportunity you presented to me. 

I don't really have a home at the moment and have been a vagabond the last 5 years. Over those past 5 years I've resided in:

• Orlando, FL
• Abilene, TX
• Newport News, VA
• Random desert country on the other side of the world
• Tacoma, WA
• Hermosa Beach, CA
• San Antonio, TX
• Destin, FL

My girlfriends house is where I reside in NW FL just outside of Destin. It's got a small town feel with big town traffic due to all the military personnel and tourists within the confined space (beaches to the south, military testing range to the north). Can get to a lot of racetracks within an 8 hour radius: Road Atlanta, Daytona, Sebring, AMP, NOLA, Barber, 'Dega, The Firm, & NCM. Stretch it to 10 hours and MSR Houston, Harris Hill, CMS, CMP, and COTA are in the mix. Beaches are beautiful, plenty of trails for hiking or biking, and most things are relatively cheap. 

Housing prices are artificially high, gas prices are within the median, home insurance rates are asinine, there's a huge lack of ISPs for such a densely populated area, property taxes keep going up, and there's only small airports even though they define themselves as international. 

I'm at my wits end with being on the road so much and ready to have a forever home. Hopefully somewhere near my children and with or without at SWMBO. I absolutely love being on the open road and seeing this beautiful country. Not having a real place to call "home" is the sucky part. 

yupididit said:

I think the roads here in Northern VA are excellent. They better be cause it cost my wife $49 to get to work on morning last week.

I think it depends on how you define excellent.  Well paved?  sure.

Adequate to support traffic?  no.  Cheap? no.  Logical? many times the answer is also no.

I forgot to mention the infrastructure in NW FL is terrible. 

The county capitals hoard all the beach tourist money to develop or improve those areas around the capital while the beach towns are left without things like sidewalks, bike paths, road repairs, etc. They also have the brilliant ideas to put bus stops along the main traffic artery vs. within neighborhoods. The amount of accidents and fatalities related to that is quite bothersome. 

Scotty Con Queso said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Re: roads.  I always wonder what metrics people use when they out and declare that "the roads here are terrible!" Compared to what? People in NC used to complain about the road surface. Having lived in PA for over 10 years I can confidently say that NC has nothing, and I mean nothing, to complain about. 

I'm compare OK roads to our next door neighbor Arkansas. They have fantastically well-maintained, twisty two-lane roads all over the NW part of the state. 

You can be on a fun road like that in Oklahoma, come over a hill going into a corner only to find it's covered in loose chip-and-seal. 

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

93EXCivic said:

Scotty Con Queso said:

Things I've learned from this thread:

1. Cleveland IS actually worse than Pittsburgh.

2. Places are crowded.

3.  Places are expensive. 

4. Basically everyone dislikes their politicians.

5. Everybody thinks everywhere has bad drivers 

6. The roads are awful.

Driving in New Orleans a decent amount has cured me of thinking most anywhere else has terrible roads.

I'm also in Vancouver, the very edge of Kitsilano to be specific.  I really like my immediate area, there's a pub across the road, grocery store a short walk away, as is a cold beer n wine store, the beach isn't too far away, and there's many different restaurants in the area.  I work downtown so it's just a short bus ride or really short drive (though pricey when you look at parking costs).   As for the rest of Vancouver, I'm starting to hate it more and more.  Prices are through the roof (as previously stated), drivers are getting worse by the day,  traffic is getting out of hand (if you have to commute) and our gas prices seem to be the highest in Canada.  I would eventually like to move away from Vancouver, but work/income and being close to family is keeping me here.