Rough driving time from South Hills or Friendly area to Santa Clara (Eugene: rentals)

[FloridaMD]

Will (hopefully) be moving to the Eugene area in about 2 to 3 months. Will likely rent, but the job I am looking into is located in the Santa Clara area off River Rd. near the Beltline. It seems Santa Clara rentals are a little higher than I want, but was wondering how long of a drive time it would be if I lived in the south side of town, South Hills or Friendly, or even over on the west side to get up to the Santa Clara area? How is morning and afternoon traffic via that corridor?

[Mr Eugenified]

10-15 minutes. 20 at most. There is little traffic in Eugene to speak of.

[FloridaMD]

I am really undecided about purchasing property up that way. Living in Florida, I have gotten really disgusted with the escalating costs of insurance and property taxes, to the point where I wonder if there really is any financial benefit to owning your own home (and the headaches of the costs of repairs, yard maintenance, etc). Anybody know what the typical tax rate is in that area, say, on a house worth about 300K?

[Mr Eugenified]

Originally Posted by FloridaMD

I am really undecided about purchasing property up that way. Living in Florida, I have gotten really disgusted with the escalating costs of insurance and property taxes, to the point where I wonder if there really is any financial benefit to owning your own home (and the headaches of the costs of repairs, yard maintenance, etc). Anybody know what the typical tax rate is in that area, say, on a house worth about 300K?

The rate is roughly 2% but it is based on the assessed value of the house, not the actual market value. The assessed value is set by the government and is usually a lot lower than the real value. There was a state law passed a while back that capped the amount that the assessed value can increase each year. Because of that, the assessed value of most houses is lagging behind the real appreciated value. So, long story short, you usually pay about 1.1% of the true market value of your house.

Of course, it is case by case, so you have to review any particular house to see its actual situation. You can look up any particular property here: Lane County Assessment and Taxation Property Information

[FloridaMD]

Thanks a lot Mr. Eugenefied. Hope to be up there in a few weeks to get another look around some neighborhoods.

[Mr Eugenified]

In case you missed it, here is a post i did on some of the neighborhoods:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/eugen...ml#post9779097

[haggardhouseelf]

I didn't realize that Eugene had anything that resembled corridors! Wow! I guess the town is growing up a bit.

Seriously, though, unless there's an accident or something you can pretty much get from anywhere in Eugene to anywhere else in Eugene in about 15 - 20 minutes tops. The only people that complain about traffic here seems to be the ones who've always lived here or at least the ones who have lived here long enough to remember when it was more of a "farm town" and less built-out than it is now. If you're coming from Florida you will probably be very happy.

We came from DFW (Texas) via California and also spent some time in the Seattle/Eastside area and those places were horrible places to drive anywhere. By comparison - Eugene is paradise! My only complaint with the driving here is that the roads are bad in lots of places due to the logging trucks and studded tires and probably also due to lack of money spent fixing them. I-5 is the noisiest interstate I've ever experienced in my life.

[haggardhouseelf]

Oh - and wanted to add, too... We found a few homes in Santa Clara and the River Road neighborhood that were great but decided against them because it was in an unincorporated area. It's just something to consider. If it had been within the city of Eugene we would have kept looking over there as there are some nice places there... but if we are going to live in Eugene, we want to be in Eugene, but that's just us. We know someone who lives over there in the unincorporated area and when she had to call the police recently, she had to call the county sheriff instead of the Eugene police and she said it took forever for them to get there. Also we would have had to pay more for use of the public library (which we wouldn't have minded doing since we use the library a lot) and a few other considerations. It's a great area, though. Patchy in parts...

[Mr Eugenified]

Took me 28 minutes exactly to drive from the far southwest corner of town to the far northeast corner of town today (went to Johnson Farms to buy some pumpkins). That's definitely the longest drive you will ever have in Eugene.