Relocating to Visalia,Ca from East Coast. Need advices!

[ekscp]

I have to agree with the previous post. Do not buy here right away. Being from the east coast, you may be in for a great cultural shock. I have lived here since jr. high, and have watched the progression "or degression" of this town. We now have children of our own that are in grade school and high school. We pulled them out of the school system. There are more and more people pulling their kids out. I would not recomend this area to raise a family. There of course are good or convenient things about this area, but they come with a price. There are a lot of christians here, yes, but there is a lot of crime as well. It isn't safe to leave your house unlocked anywhere in this town. If you look at the gang maps you will see that yes north central Visalia is where a major part of the gangs are, but you will also notice that they are scattered in almost all the nieghborhoods now. There are a lot of things that go on around here that they don't publicize. All in all if you can avoid the central valley you are better off, but if your heart is set on it check into another town such as Exeter. You will still have to deal with some of the same problems but they are in smaller form. Most of the problems come here. Exeter has a smaller town feel, and people still watch out for each other there. The schools are also much better.

[sameoldsonganddance]

RENT!! Don't buy. I cannot stress how important that is. We have made that mistake before. Got all "googly" with the looks of a place, then reality sets in once you actually "live" there. All the pretty falls off. Good luck.

[coyoteskye]

Originally Posted by sameoldsonganddance

RENT!! Don't buy. I cannot stress how important that is. We have made that mistake before. Got all "googly" with the looks of a place, then reality sets in once you actually "live" there. All the pretty falls off. Good luck.

Yeah, (not the i have any experience in this area) i can't understand why anyone would buy in a community where they have not lived for quite awhile ... especially coming from the east coast and moving to a totally different world, ie; California.
O.P. ... it just seems like a no brainer ... rent for awhile and then see.
Especially given this market ... aren't home prices expected to continue to decline for quite some time?

[sms1967]

Visalia isn't bad... schools are nothing special but you can find most anything else you need to know online. With all the distressed homes now, you might have someone hook you up with a condo to rent. In this area, you can rent a 3 bdrm home for $1200/mo. Go to greatschools.com and research the education if you have kids. Also, since that can be misleading, research the school API scores. In California, anything less than an 850 API score means the kids are in trouble.

[Las Vegas Mommy]

Visalia stinks!
Everytime I would go to visit relatives out there, it smell like poo! Its even worse in the summertime!
It looks like one of those towns off the highway in a real creepy movie. JUST KEEP GOING!

[sms1967]

Um, Las Vegas Mommy, "it smell like poo"?? Is english your first language? And does living in a ****hole like Las Vegas qualify you to bag on someone else? You're a moron... quit 'contributing' to something you know nothing about. Nobody gets any value from your uneducated opinion.

[FresnoFacts]

Sounds like Las Vegas Mommy has never gotten off Highway 99 and visited Visalia, just saw the freeway sign and assumed she was driving thru it on 99. Or else she's never been in downtown Vegas to see true creepy.

The city proper sits about 3 or 4 miles off Highway 99.

I don't see anything creepy in these pictures of Visalia:

[manimal]

The niceness of neighborhoods in Visalia change too much to really make a blanket statement about what's going to be nice and what isn't (there aren't the proverbial right and wrong sides of the tracks here). You can go from nice to not-so-nice in the space of a couple blocks, and then back to nice a few blocks later. Unfortunately, it seems like not much value is placed on taking care of old homes, so the nice neighborhoods are the ones with 5-10 year old McMansions that weren't built as well as the old ones. The neighborhood you mentioned regarding the north side between Mooney and Ben Maddox is bad, but the NW and SW corners have their bad spots too, so check it out before you make any commitment. There are the usual meth and gang problems that you will find throughout the Central Valley but most of this is confined to certain neighborhoods only, so it's worth your while to be picky.

And like the other posters have said, rent at least 6 months before you buy. Month-to-month tenancies are easy to get here, so rent somewhere, discover which neighborhoods you like, and whether you like living in the city at all. I'm assuming that you have some kind of a job lined up, as this is not an active employment market if you don't.

It's not backwater and I can't see a reason to go to Bakersfield (75 miles away) for anything, although I do go to Fresno (40 mins away) to do some shopping at times for specific items. But you can get most of what you need right here. The population is 120,000, which is small by California standards (45th largest in the state) but large by the rest of the country's standards (would be the 3rd largest city or higher in 27 states, and 5th or higher in 38 states). Your entertainment choices will be limited (I've made lots of 3+ hour drives to LA and SF for concerts and the like-we have minor league baseball and the very occasional theatre concerts but that's it, and Fresno has a little more), and the air quality is pretty bad if you're sensitive to that.