Relocation Adventure (Fresno, Stockton, Santa Rosa: for sale, apartments, rent)

[Jdcs0684]

I am a 29 year old male. I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. I have found myself in a position to go on an adventure and would like to move out of state. I always thought California would be a great state to move to. I know its expensive but talk about a complete change and the oppurtunity to reinvent myself. I have been in my choosen field of work for 10 years and average 40-45k annually. I dont know what the standard of living is in California though and dont know what are good areas to move to. I dont mind finding a studio apartment but i dont wanna live in a completely urban enviroment. I want to find a happy medium between urban and suburban.

My questions are
A. Whats average rent ranges to expect for a studio or 1 bedroom appartment
B. What are some nice areas that are not extremely populated but yet are a growing community.
C. any other info or suggestions you muight have.

thanks
joe

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

There are too many options. Need to know more, to narrow it down. What kind of work do you do? Can you live anywhere?

There are actually a lot of towns in California, where the cost of living is much cheaper than the SF Bay Area, or LA. Also, if you get away from the coast, it's usually cheaper. Any of the cheap places will probably have more crime, and hotter summers, but you get what you pay for. The schools probably wouldn't be great, either, but doesn't sound like that's an issue for you.

For instance, Redding in northern CA is pretty cheap. And it's a beautiful area. Fresno, Stockton, come to mind, too, for pretty cheap rents, but big enough to have jobs - depending on what you do for work, again.

Check Craigslist out for jobs and housing in different areas. For instance, here's the Craigslist site for Redding:

craigslist: redding classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

Redding is kind of far away from everything. If you move to central CA, you could feasibly go visit the bigger cities, if you cared about that.

Stockton filed bankruptcy, so it's cheap there, but job market isn't great. Fresno is in better shape economically.

Here's the Fresno Craigslist:

craigslist: fresno / madera classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

[OwlKaMyst]

Rent ranges vastly depending on where you go. California is a big state.
I'm in Mendocino county right along the 101 freeway. It is not your bumper to bumper, 24 hour traffic part of the freeway either. The 'big city' of Santa Rosa is an hour south and one does not hit a 'big city' again for 3 hours when going north.
There is a one bedroom apartment available in the apartments across from me and the rent is $725. They are on the small side but they allow dogs, which is hard to find.

When looking for a rental, keep this in mind; the most that a landlord can ask for to move in is twice the amount of the rent. Not all do ask for this full amount, but not matter what, they cannot ask for more than that and call it something else (cleaning, pet, etc.)
So if rent is $700 a month, first month is $700, last month is $700 and deposit is $700; a total of $2,100. It's been my experience that landlords only ask for first months rent (of course), and then a deposit of 1.5 times the rent (for $700, that would be $1050).

And yes, knowing the kind of work you do would be helpful for us to find those areas that have a lot of jobs in that field.
Most of California is not urban and even most of the urban areas have pockets of rural feeling communities.
What are your interests in activities? You like fishing? Racing? Live music?

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by OwlKaMyst

... I'm in Mendocino county right along the 101 freeway. ... and one does not hit a 'big city' again for 3 hours when going north.

What "big city" is three hours north of Mendocino? You don't mean Eureka / Arcata, do you? "Big" city?

[JGC97]

Maybe OwlKaMyst means northeast. That would be Redding.

[OwlKaMyst]

Eureka area- where there is a Costco and a big mall