What is the best and worse of living in and around Anchorage? (Barrow: rental market, crime) - Alaska (AK) - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

hogfamily · 10-23-2013, 05:18 PM

We are a SINGLE income family. We do not spend 50% of our income on housing. We do live in a modest home in a great South Anchorage neighborhood. We did not feel compelled to buy more house than we could afford.

Point I was making is that if you are frugal and do not need to have the latest fad item you can live well in Anchorage on a modest income.

We are not deprived of doing what we like. We save money not buying fad items so that we can do stuff that we like.

Shopping at Value Village is not dumpster diving, it's frugal. We just bought a new, with store tags still attached, Edie Bower goose down extreme cold weather parka for $30. Would have been over $300. if bought from EB.

highlife2 · 10-23-2013, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hogfamily

We are a SINGLE income family. We do not spend 50% of our income on housing. We do live in a modest home in a great South Anchorage neighborhood. We did not feel compelled to buy more house than we could afford.

Point I was making is that if you are frugal and do not need to have the latest fad item you can live well in Anchorage on a modest income.

We are not deprived of doing what we like. We save money not buying fad items so that we can do stuff that we like.

Shopping at Value Village is not dumpster diving, it's frugal. We just bought a new, with store tags still attached, Edie Bower goose down extreme cold weather parka for $30. Would have been over $300. if bought from EB.

Interesting, I live in an inexpensive nice appartment now but am looking to buy and I guess I just have expensive taste, I love basher/campbell airstrip and the west end of sand lake or that road between upper omalley and huffman. But I refuse to be house poor so will likely settle on something in those general areas but a little cheaper which means it wont be as nice or have a view. Never the less a modest home in anchorage still costs around 250-350k in a decent area and that would get you a house that is 500k here anywhere else.

I think I am going to put money away and see if a catalyst develops that significantly drives prices downward quite a bit. I have heard of that happeningn before in the 80's, getting a house up on basher for 250k would be a sweet deal.

hogfamily · 10-23-2013, 06:09 PM

I will agree that housing is expensive in Anchorage. We could have bought a lot more house for the same amount elsewhere.

We bought a cosmetic fixer and are slowly fixing.

We live in the area between the golf course and zoo. Lots of decent houses in the area many under 250k.

jthomasbutcher · 10-24-2013, 04:39 AM

Highlife seems to always discourage anyone from moving here....like every post so go away negative nancy....hog life thank you for your posts, we shop frugal as well...goodwill baby! I'm not so concerned about rent prices really, I know they are high but we make decent money and are able to spend more on things, plus we will both get a cost of living raise with our respective jobs. The point of this thread (until highlife came on here) is that we have already made our plan and the reality of us living there is about 90%. I was just hoping to hear from some locals about day to day life, the good and the bad. So how about you hogfamily? what is the best and worst of living in the area?

hogfamily · 10-24-2013, 04:58 AM

Just returned from a medevac. Time to hit the rack. I will try to add more tomorrow.

You might want to check out our blog. It has some of our Alaska adventures that may give you an idea of some of what we love about Alaska.

hogfamily Adventures (aka the hog blog): Past hogfamily Adventures

hogfamily · 10-24-2013, 01:30 PM

As it has been said many times, “The best thing about living in Anchorage is that it is only 30 minutes from Alaska”. There is some truth in that.
I have temporarily lived in several large cities and I have to say Anchorage is my favorite.

We are not into the nightlife so will have to defer that to others. Our idea of nightlife is a campfire, watching the stars and the northern lights, and movie night at home.

The area you live in makes a difference. Our neighborhood is an older established area that was built up in the late 70s. The lots are one third acre and up. The neighborhood has a fairly good mix of age groups. We all look out for each other. The location is quiet and we are an easy five to ten minute drive from all the shopping and noise you could want.

The Anchorage School District has some great alternative and charter schools. The regular schools may be not so good especially if your kids have any learning challenges.

The cost of living is higher than most places in the lower 48. Housing can be expensive and property tax is quite high.

Our boys love it here. They have not lived anywhere else so their opinions are a bit tainted. We have traveled some to the west lower 48 and Mexico. They enjoy the places we have visited but want to continue to live in Alaska. They would like to live in Willow but at this time they need to be in the school they are in.

The main negative is the winters are so long. We like winter and snow but it could be shorter. Anchorage winters are fairly mild compared to other parts of Alaska.

As was mentioned before….most Anchorage drivers suck. They tend to forget how to drive in the snow and on icy roads from one day to the next. And look out during the first snowfall….there have been mornings driving our kids to school that it seems there are more cars in the ditch than on the road. And don’t get me started about red light runners…..

Hope this helps.

Anchorage - Things to do in and around town -

Oh yeah, not many other larger cities will you see this.......

....or do this.....

highlife2 · 10-24-2013, 04:35 PM

I just want to emphisize that cost of housing in anchorage is no joke, it can easily run up to over 33% of your net income, I guess for some people thats not too big of a deal but I like my disposable income, sleep and sex. After all how much you make is not relavent, its how much you keep to retire early and/or do what ever you like doing.

That being said as a pilot the air space up here is awesome, once you get out of the anchorage area lol, you almost dont even need a radio (almost), that is what I love about it, plus oil jobs up here pay bank if you can cleaverly avoid being taken for a ride in the housing market. Also snowmaching is alot of fun out in the valley, 4 wheeling, etc. You can still do alot of those things without tons of restrictions like in the lower 48 though its starting to get out of control out in sutton with that new rec area the valley built, the yahoos will likely ruin it for everyone else since cops have to be up there almost every major holiday weekend to respond to something.

jdhpa · 10-24-2013, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hogfamily

Oh yeah, not many other larger cities will you see this.......

Don't let the moose fool you, they're just sucking up to get more pumpkins

jthomasbutcher · 10-25-2013, 04:10 AM

Thanx again hog life, we are mostly keep to ourselves people too. We do go out a couple times a week but really nightlife things. We have been looking at several places in and around Eagle River because we don't want to live in Anchorage. At first we were shocked at the pricing but now we kinda go "okay that's a nice apartment for $1500". Once again, we both will be making better money so after the initial sticker shock of consumables it will even itself out to what we are making here in GA. I read a post on here that a guy was walking out his front door to go to work and a moose was lying under the snow on the porch, he didn't even realize it was there until he climbed over the snow pile and the pile moved. I love how people in AK have these funny moose stories, where we live we don't even see deer! Highlife, I could have gone with out the "sex" comment but altogether thank you for your post, what part of AK do you fly in?

highlife2 · 10-25-2013, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthomasbutcher

Thanx again hog life, we are mostly keep to ourselves people too. We do go out a couple times a week but really nightlife things. We have been looking at several places in and around Eagle River because we don't want to live in Anchorage. At first we were shocked at the pricing but now we kinda go "okay that's a nice apartment for $1500". Once again, we both will be making better money so after the initial sticker shock of consumables it will even itself out to what we are making here in GA. I read a post on here that a guy was walking out his front door to go to work and a moose was lying under the snow on the porch, he didn't even realize it was there until he climbed over the snow pile and the pile moved. I love how people in AK have these funny moose stories, where we live we don't even see deer! Highlife, I could have gone with out the "sex" comment but altogether thank you for your post, what part of AK do you fly in?

I fly the mat su valley and want to venture out to talkeetna and maybe gulkana this next summer (I fly for pleasure not work). I fly a biplane so I dont fly in the winter. Going to try to go out today if it warms up to above 40 and stays nice. As far as that comment, im just being real, when you get bogged down with commuting, traffic, outragoius prices, dis-similar schedules, etc its a real issue. Flying is why I cant pay a land lord $1500 for a place to sleep. I am now looking at condos again, only this time I would put 30-40% down so my total cost of housing was under $1000 that way I fix my costs and take myself out of the rental market and if I ever had to rent it out I could undercut everyone around me and not have to deal with selling a condo.