Relocating from San Diego to Denver

[Davros]

Originally Posted by junior2sdca

i've been out to Denver when it's cold and snowing. It really is not something that bothers me. I've been out to Ohio in the height of winter and that kind of cold bothers me. when i say extreme cold, i'm referring to chicago, minneapolis, cleveland cold.

It's not anywhere near as bad as places like that. In Denver, you get breaks from the cold & snow.

[Mike from back east]

You can check rental prices here on padmapper.com to get an idea....

[junior2sdca]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

You can check rental prices here on padmapper.com to get an idea....

thanks that does help.

[Rockies4]

Originally Posted by junior2sdca

I've been thinking very seriously of relocating from San Diego to Denver. While I love San Diego, the COL, housing prices, and lack of job market has proved to be nothing less than frustrating. It's time for a change I think. I have a couple of friends who live there and have visited several times. One friend in particular keeps urging me to move out there and I'm starting to give into the nag. haha

What I wanted to ask was: 1. How is the job market in Denver? Poor, moderate, or fairly good? 2. I currently pay $1400 for an 800 sq ft 2 bedroom apt. how are costs comparable to that? 3. I guess the winter scares me a bit. I grew up in Phx. Lived in SD for the past 5 years, so winters are pretty non-existent in my life. Will it be a terrible transition? I welcome the thought of having snow for once . 4. Anyone else made this particular move - or if not, what suggestions do you have for me?

Any and all thoughts are welcome. Thanks!

Winters here are just plain depressing. The older I get the worse it gets. You must have some sort of covered parking in the winter, or you will be scraping ice and snow off your wind shield most mornings. Yah, it does get in the teens to below zero sometimes, so be prepared to be a sitting popsicle in your car. You can't leave your car running to warm up unattended, or the cops will give you a ticket. When its snows here, it dumps, which means clogged up streets with ice and snow for days depending on temps. If you have a north facing driveway, the snow will not melt and any that does turns to ice over night. The next transfer than comes up near the west coast, I am the first one out of Denver. If you want to make winter enjoyable you have to deal with 2 to 4 hour drives to the ski resorts on the weekends. At least in San Diego you can drive to Las Vegas, L.A or Phoenix. Here in Denver there is nothing but mountains to the west and flat land to the east. There are alot more positives about Denver than negatives, but the winters are just dragging me down.

[evan arellano]

Rockies4 your dragging me down. You forget about the positives about the snow.
Change of scenery(Seasons). Beautiful snow on the trees and grass. Skiing, Snowshoeing, Hunting, Christmas.

With that said I plan on buying a Winter home in Florida when I get older I will spend most of the Winters there.

[rushhournewb]

Originally Posted by Rockies4

Winters here are just plain depressing. The older I get the worse it gets. You must have some sort of covered parking in the winter, or you will be scraping ice and snow off your wind shield most mornings. Yah, it does get in the teens to below zero sometimes, so be prepared to be a sitting popsicle in your car. You can't leave your car running to warm up unattended, or the cops will give you a ticket. When its snows here, it dumps, which means clogged up streets with ice and snow for days depending on temps. If you have a north facing driveway, the snow will not melt and any that does turns to ice over night. The next transfer than comes up near the west coast, I am the first one out of Denver. If you want to make winter enjoyable you have to deal with 2 to 4 hour drives to the ski resorts on the weekends. At least in San Diego you can drive to Las Vegas, L.A or Phoenix. Here in Denver there is nothing but mountains to the west and flat land to the east. There are alot more positives about Denver than negatives, but the winters are just dragging me down.

What's your point? You don't like winter or winters here are horrible? You need to spend a winter in Chicago or Minneapolis for some perspective. Everything you said happens in a snowy winter climate. You'd better move quick 'cause your curmudgeonness is gonna get the best of you.

And it rains here every now and then. When I lived in San Diego the people I worked outside with were such rain wimps it was truly unbelievable. They'd draw a 12" circle on the subfloor. If they counted a certain amount of drops in that circle in a minute, they'd roll up and go surfing.

One kid, when hit in the forehead with a drop of rain while I was talking to him whined "I hate the rain!!!"
I felt like I was living in some alternative reality out there. After one "mini-thunderstorm" in East County a lady came into the post office in total amazement at "the white stuff on the road, I'd never seen anything like it." It was hail. She'd never seen hail.

And your "at least you can drive to Vegas, L.A. or Phoenix" made me laugh. In San Diego you can't drive south 'cause you hit the border, yeah drive north into LA traffic, drive east and you're in the Anza-Borrego desert. I never drove anywhere but to work and the store and sometimes to the beach (but that was so one-dimensional I got totally bored with it). Driving endlessly on traffic clogged freeways with no end in sight till maybe you were well north of LA just didn't seem like a good time to me.

[junior2sdca]

I've been in sunshine and warm weather all my life. I actually welcome the change. I know it's going to be cold. I know it'll be snowy. I wouldn't even be considering Denver if I wasn't aware or think I could handle that. I appreciate the mountains and the overall layout of the city.

And let's be clear: Phoenix is a 5 hour depressing drive across the desert from San Diego. I'm from Phx, so I've done it many times. I sucks. I won't do it in the summer because it's just way too hard on your car and I get terrified of getting stuck in the desert heat and having my car become a death trap. I've nearly broken down in that type of heat before, and let me tell you...that's not good!!! Vegas is an even longer drive across the desert. It's a little more enjoyable knowing that Vegas is your reward, but the drive back is horrendous! And LA...you have to time it right. Otherwise, you're sitting in wall to wall traffic. It once took me 6 hours to go from San Diego to downtown LA - something that's an hour and half drive at most all due to traffic!!!! So it's not as glamorous as it sounds. Every place has plus and minuses. I've lived in Diego for 5 years, and I want to be able to afford a house for less than $450,000 bucks.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by junior2sdca

I've been in sunshine and warm weather all my life. I actually welcome the change. I know it's going to be cold. I know it'll be snowy. I wouldn't even be considering Denver if I wasn't aware or think I could handle that. I appreciate the mountains and the overall layout of the city.

And let's be clear: Phoenix is a 5 hour depressing drive across the desert from San Diego. I'm from Phx, so I've done it many times. I sucks. I won't do it in the summer because it's just way too hard on your car and I get terrified of getting stuck in the desert heat and having my car become a death trap. I've nearly broken down in that type of heat before, and let me tell you...that's not good!!! Vegas is an even longer drive across the desert. It's a little more enjoyable knowing that Vegas is your reward, but the drive back is horrendous! And LA...you have to time it right. Otherwise, you're sitting in wall to wall traffic. It once took me 6 hours to go from San Diego to downtown LA - something that's an hour and half drive at most all due to traffic!!!! So it's not as glamorous as it sounds. Every place has plus and minuses. I've lived in Diego for 5 years, and I want to be able to afford a house for less than $450,000 bucks.

You need to come to Denver, preferably once in the summer (you might be surprised how much hotter Denver gets compared to SD, depending on how close to the coast you live now) and once in the winter (and I don't mean having fun skiing in the mountains for a whole week either), explore all around, see what kind of real estate you can actually get for the money (you might be surprised how expensive Denver is, especially the most desirable areas... while cheaper than San Diego, there are other cities that are much cheaper yet), and meet/talk to some people here. It's easy to make a place look perfect on paper and to get excited and talk yourself into it, but what you really need is to come to your own determination based on how you feel when you're physically there. It's wayyyy different than San Diego and Phoenix, but it's wayyy different from the Northeast and upper Midwest too.

For me, the snow and the cold is not the problem with Denver in the winter. You can adapt. The problem is that, in a normal year (not an abnormally warm & dry year such as this year), for about 6 months out of the year everything is brown and bleak and ugly. The only thing that saves Denver is the mountain view, which is not as great as militant pro-Denverites make it out to be, but that's for another topic. You want to talk about depressing... the Sonoran desert of Arizona is absolute eye candy compared to the Great Plains.