Love to hear from Californian transplants! (Boise, Meridian: rental, living in, restaurants)

[nordicwanderer]

I thought we had 'discovered' this place after moving here from NorCal this last spring.
However every fifth person we met was a California refugee. And UHaul trucks from the west are showing up here en masse daily, or at least they were in the summer. Still seeing them on a regular basis. It appears we were both beaten here and followed.
The amount of CA transplants here in the Treasure Valley / SW Idaho is *massive*.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by nordicwanderer

I thought we had 'discovered' this place after moving here from NorCal this last spring.
However every fifth person we met was a California refugee. And UHaul trucks from the west are showing up here en masse daily, or at least they were in the summer. Still seeing them on a regular basis. It appears we were both beaten here and followed.
The amount of CA transplants here in the Treasure Valley / SW Idaho is *massive*.

Hopefully Idaho doesn't turn into a Nevada, Oregon or Washington from all those CA refugees that ruined those places.
You are probably safer in Wyoming from the CA refugees because they won't last from the weather in
Wyoming.

California is now more worse than before with more stupid laws enacted by incompetent stupid voters there who shouldn't be allowed to vote with more crooked liberal government imposing more new taxes.

[IdahoBroker]

All the people that said they would leave the country if Donald Trump won the election didn't pan out, so I am glad for the influx of Californians that keep me busy instead (grin).

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by IdahoBroker

All the people that said they would leave the country if Donald Trump won the election didn't pan out, so I am glad for the influx of Californians that keep me busy instead (grin).

NOBOdy left
We still have an overpopulation problem here.

[barbiloo]

Originally Posted by BoiseBound2012

Long story, but I've been planning my escape from Southern California for years. Looks like I'm less than a year away and would love to hear from/connect with other Californians who have made the move.

If you have time, and are so inclined, would you mind sharing your experiences?

Are you happy you moved?

How did you find a reliable mover, and what was the approximate cost?

Did you have a job to go to, or made the move in hopes of finding something once there?

Utility costs - summer and winter?

Are you living in a home with an irrigation district?

Really...would appreciate any knowledge you are willing to share, I've done my own research but there is nothing like hearing from others who have actually made the move!

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!

Long story, but I've been planning my escape from Southern California for years. Looks like I'm less than a year away and would love to hear from/connect with other Californians who have made the move. (We moved here in spring of 2015)

If you have time, and are so inclined, would you mind sharing your experiences? (I sure will!)

Are you happy you moved? (In a nutshell, our for sale sign is UP in the yard as we speak!)

How did you find a reliable mover, and what was the approximate cost? (rent a uhaul and hire local movers on each end, its cheaper that way, and in 2015 we moved from Az-Raleigh-Asheville-Boise, we used professional movers twice and rented trucks the other times and helpers) If you go to Penske Truck rentals you can get a good idea of a reasonable cost, then add in fuel and local moving hands, the Mayflower etc charged us $8k for cross country move Az-NC)

Did you have a job to go to, or made the move in hopes of finding something once there? (already retired, but have gotten some pt casual jobs, the pay here is LOW, it is a right to work state, not many unions to speak of)

Utility costs - summer and winter? (Uses balance pmts for gas and elec and we pay 44 and 88 respectively each month for a 2200sf home)

Are you living in a home with an irrigation district? (yes we are, the fee in Nampa Irrig Dist just doubled last year to $150 for the year, which is far less than a year because they turn the water on just around Mother's Day -our lawn had gone yellow already, and they shut it off late Sept, and needed it a few times after that. HOA actually ticketed us for yellow lawn in June, go figure...)

Really...would appreciate any knowledge you are willing to share, I've done my own research but there is nothing like hearing from others who have actually made the move!
(We love so many things about here but we also have a few misgivings, that's the reason for the for sale sign in our yard)
(We bought a new home from Coleman Homes. We were baited in by their brand new construction homes advertised to be $20/sf LESS than old ratty homes, this was a huge mistake because once the house was closing escrow we paid that $20/sf in "lot premium" and some upgrades they claimed were "mandatory". Then heavy equipment shook our house for 4 months while they excavated about 20 feet from our house and shook it heavier than any earthquake you can imagine.)
(We feel very safe here though)
(People are polite, but not overly friendly.)
(Open carry and concealed weapons are everywhere, but that makes everyone safe.)
(Everything here is very very family oriented, wholesome and kid-focused. There is a lot for kids to do with their family, you don't see bored kids outside at all, they are kept busy by all the activities and school events.)
(Property tax homeowner occupied is 100k off the value, which is real nice but the tax rates are pretty high and vary greatly from city to city.)
(There are a lot of healthcare facilities here which is nice, but they don't really perform major surgeries here to my knowledge many of my friends and family and people in news with serious injury have had to go to Salt Lake City or Seattle for high-risk things)
(Front wheel drive or 4wd is advised for winter driving, stud tires work too but then you need 2 sets of tires, because in a NORMAL year you won't need them longer than a few weeks. We won't mention this snowmageddon year we are having right now)

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!! (You are welcome, we wish we had someone tell us the straight scoop when we got here.)

[CAHntr]

Thanks for the detailed and honest post Barbiloo. I know you wrote it for BoiseBound2012 but it is useful information for a lot of us. My wife and I are still a few years away from making a similar move (CA-ID) and I am doing a lot of lurking/research in this forum. Your above post is very helpful. If you don't mind my asking, where are you planning to move to (still in ID or another state) and why?

[barbiloo]

I am posting my response to CAHntr in the thread because others may benefit from hearing our thought process. It is a long response and if you don't want to read it just keep scrolling...thanks!

We retired and moved from NCaL in 2010 to sunny Florida. We got itchy feet 5 yrs later (which is a LONG time for US!) And we moved to the retirement city in S Az that my parents had lived in until they passed away, it has a great recreation dept in Green Valley Az, found it kind of isolated as far as doing "day trips", so we hit the road again less than a year later and went to another place we had researched...Raleigh/Durham NC area, we rented an apt to check the area out and we rather liked it but it seems geared more toward younger working people, busy but beautiful place, we slid on down to Asheville NC area in the Smoky Mountains and tbh, it is OUR all-time favorite area for beauty and kind polite people, good food and lots of recreation activities although some of them we arent physically able to do. We were in an apt there and looked for homes and found the pricing would get us into a home we would be disappointed in, sooooooo. We decided to go to our very first, original retirement location when we lived in Seattle in the 90s we had wanted to retire in Sandpoint Idaho because we like rural life with greenery and mountains, however since it was 15 yrs later, we had accidentally driven through Caldwell Idaho on a road trip so we just threw a dart and landed in Meridian Idaho, one of the Number One Places to Live for a couple years now.

Once again, in an apartment that we really felt very comfortable in, we set out on a new home search in the greater Boise?Treasure Valley area.

What we found out after a long test of our mettle was that the real estate market in Idaho/Boise/TV is completely controlled by the real estate agents. This is a bad thing for home buyers and sellers because there is so much "secret information" that is not available in mls which makes it easy for shady companies to deal under the radar. What we have discovered is that the home builders use this secretive "SOLD DATA" practice to their advantage.

So it appears in the mls, zil low and elsewhere that it is nearly impossible to see what price a home sold at unless you contact an agent and ask them directly, this is even AFTER it has closed, not even the county is given the sales price information and the agents feel this makes their job more secure because they want people to depend upon them, plus when you call an agent to see a house here they will try their best just to get the inquiring party to sign a one year buyer-broker agreement so that you must use that agent even if they don't do a good job or their broker will actually sue you if you use another buyer's agent.

The other bad thing that this sales data secrecy creates is that home builders put in the BASE price of their home that they have not even built yet and they omit the lot premium and of course any upgrades the buyer chooses so that the mls looks like you can get a new house for less than an existing home, which shuts out ordinary sellers from asking market value for their homes because buyers believe they will get a 'deal" from the builders.
Ok. So to answer your question CAHntr:

1) We are planning to move elsewhere, out of state and here are some of the reasons why:

2) We are not getting any younger and with this colder than normal winter we just had, we have not been able to get out of our house or driveway for weeks at a time, we are housebound, our muscles are getting restless for some exercise, we want to be warm and go outside and enjoy nature but its been so cold..So we figure we dont want to was 1/3 of each year being snowed in when we didnt grow up with shovelling snow and slipping and falling on ice. My husband has been getting plenty of exercise shovelling snow, but for a 70 yo man that is a lot to ask of his heart to be in zero degree weather lifting heavy shovels full of snow for hours at a time.

3) We will move to a warmer place. Since we have already experimented with several locations, we believe it is prudent to just return to one of those places since we will sort of "know the drill" of the areas. We don't need to learn yet another state's set of rules and regulations, shopping, dmv etc.

4) Every place we have been has pluses and negatives, so we have to choose the negatives we can withstand and enjoy the pluses this time around.

5) Florida has so much good weather and so many activities and sights to see that are within hours of each other, whereas here we can only take "day trips" to nowhere because even in good weather Boise is a day's+ drive from everywhere.

6) Asheville N Carolina is gorgeous but they have snow and ice in winter too. We can't justify returning there just because we love the sandwiches in Downtown Hendersonville, so if we are in Florida, it is a long days' drive to Asheville, a weekend trip...it is also a day trip to one of our fav car shows in Biloxi Miss...a day's drive from our grandkids in Atlanta...a day's drive to Key West which we want to see....a day's drive from Charleston which we love to visit....a 2 day drive to The Grand Ole Opry or to Graceland.....

7) Returning to CA is out of the question, groceries, taxes, gas, dmv, rent, home prices are ALL out of our price range.

8) Returning to So Arizona is still on our radar because of the senior recreation activities including bus tours etc. And the house prices are very reasonable and climbing fast. But the negative of nowhere nearby to go on a road trip weighs heavily on our minds.

9) We are studying a different part of Florida, we lived in Brevard Co the first time, we have so many favorite eateries and Kennedy Space Center, Port Canaveral Cruises, Cocoa Beach, Disneyworld (Florida resident pass is awesome) and some awesome wildlife parks that you drive thru to see birds and other creatures...Anyhow, we may try The Villages area, we did see it real quick one day on a road trip, but they have the senior recreation and housing is pricier than S Az, but it is because there is more to do around there.

10) We have PLENTY of time to decide where to go because we have our home for sale and the builder's practices of advertising prices of their new homes lower than what we bought ours for 15 months ago will keep us in the research mode for a long time I fear.... Prices have skyrocketed here but there is no way for the casual buyer/browser online to know that. They built our home in 2015, one of about 6 on this street, last year the same builder in our same subdivision built over 40 brand new homes, sale prices not disclosed....and they excavated and subdivided over 150 lots for construction starts this spring...so IF the prices really are LESS than 2015 prices they would not be in business building ten times the amount of homes in 2017 than in 2015, its called "economics".

Other than our restlessness we really have found little negative about our area here in NAMPA Idaho. Crime is reasonably low, schools look good, sports games at BSU and there are several small colleges here N Nazarene University, College of Western Idaho are all around us. Lots of hospitals and doctor offices. People drive so politely it sometimes gets me upset if you can believe that could happen after all the nightmare traffic in CA.

Bottom line is we just want to get out and SEE the world again..We are adventurers on a budget, so we like to live where we play.... Smile smile

[CAHntr]

Thanks Barbiloo. Very informative post and thought provoking. We'll still visit and do our due diligence but it helps to have some of those quality of life and other intangibles answered.

[BoiseBound2012]

Orig. poster here, I LOVE IDAHO!

It's everything I'd hoped, and more.

Even found my future husband. ;-)

[FutureNorthender]

Congratulations, BB2012!