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Old 08-20-2010, 08:19 PM
 
9,725 posts, read 15,117,072 times
Reputation: 3346

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Where exactly is this Sheraton you are talking about? Cross streets or address please.
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Old 08-20-2010, 10:21 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles, CA
787 posts, read 1,936,191 times
Reputation: 379
Big time troll....I agree Lovehound. Looks very questionable.
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Old 08-22-2010, 11:25 AM
 
Location: Sacramento, CA
771 posts, read 1,576,121 times
Reputation: 422
Not trolling. I've got friends that have lived down there 20+ years and they say a decent house from downtown LA is going to be 60 miles out, and cost you 650K ... that you can rent cute places, but at almost 50, I'm not interested in renting - I want to put down roots. If I can't afford to rent, then I might as well stay here, much as it sucks here in NorCal, Sacramento is a *lot* cheaper. You can buy a house here even though the schools are extremely bad.
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Old 08-22-2010, 11:50 AM
 
Location: Planet Earth
1,084 posts, read 3,276,184 times
Reputation: 857
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluevelo View Post
Not trolling. I've got friends that have lived down there 20+ years and they say a decent house from downtown LA is going to be 60 miles out, and cost you 650K ... that you can rent cute places, but at almost 50, I'm not interested in renting - I want to put down roots. If I can't afford to rent, then I might as well stay here, much as it sucks here in NorCal, Sacramento is a *lot* cheaper. You can buy a house here even though the schools are extremely bad.
Your friends are wrong.
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Old 08-22-2010, 11:55 AM
 
Location: SoCal
14,530 posts, read 19,998,650 times
Reputation: 10539
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluevelo View Post
Not trolling. I've got friends that have lived down there 20+ years and they say a decent house from downtown LA is going to be 60 miles out, and cost you 650K ... that you can rent cute places, but at almost 50, I'm not interested in renting - I want to put down roots. If I can't afford to rent, then I might as well stay here, much as it sucks here in NorCal, Sacramento is a *lot* cheaper. You can buy a house here even though the schools are extremely bad.
What is a decent house? And where will you be working or otherwise focusing your time? Downtown?

Rather than trolling then, you either don't have any specific idea of what you want to do or you are not communicating it.

My neighborhood (Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley) is perhaps 30-35 miles from downtown and it's decent (again, depending on what you mean by decent). I live in a quiet neighborhood that resembles a slightly better than nearby Van Nuys, mostly 3-4 bedroom single story houses built in the early '50s, and selling for about $250K-$400K. I'm hoping to get somewhat more than $300K for my 3 bedroom house, which I call decent but again it depends on what you mean by decent.

So tell us exactly what you want and exactly where you'll be doing it.
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Old 08-22-2010, 11:59 AM
 
5,381 posts, read 8,641,509 times
Reputation: 4550
Bluevelo,

You are all over the place with your posts. You say that you want to establish roots, so a house is important for you, but you also say that a move to LA would be a strategic part of your plan to move to the East Coast to be near your kids. You ALSO want them to move to California. Obviously, they cannot be on both coasts simultaneously.
You say you are almost 50 and not interested in renting, but then you state that you are presently renting as a housemate on Sacramento, with a good deal which could not be replicated in LA., so maybe you will stay there.
You add that it is important that you settle in a place with good schools, but you suggest that maybe you should stay in Sacramento, even though you state that the schools there are terrible.
Frankly, you do sound like you are trolling, but if you are genuine, I would suggest that you take some time to write down your priorities. You should also make a list of pros and cons for moving to LA vs. staying in Sacramento.
Finally, do not forget to consider your both your short (getting your kids to live with you in a safe neighborhood with good schools?) and long term goals (homeownership and what else?).
Remember, we take our problems with us no matter where we go.
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Old 08-22-2010, 01:12 PM
 
Location: California
37,048 posts, read 41,993,490 times
Reputation: 34856
Where are your kids and will they be staying with you? You mentioned schools, and child support, so how exactly is that going to work if they aren't with you full time? Maybe schools aren't an issue.

If you are >50 and only have your kids part time (and I assume they will be adults soon enough) you don't need a huge place or a single family home. You should be looking for the home YOU want to be retired in. I don't think you can play the real estate market at this point and try to flip something in 10 years.

Whatever you think you hate in Sac/NorCal isn't going to be different in LA/SoCal. It's more of the same, different scenery. In fact, you already live in a highly desireable area so let's be honest, it's not going to get much better. Look around Roseville, Folsom, Davis, etc. Those are nice places.
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Old 08-22-2010, 09:33 PM
 
Location: Sacramento, CA
771 posts, read 1,576,121 times
Reputation: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ceece View Post
Where are your kids and will they be staying with you? You mentioned schools, and child support, so how exactly is that going to work if they aren't with you full time? Maybe schools aren't an issue.

If you are >50 and only have your kids part time (and I assume they will be adults soon enough) you don't need a huge place or a single family home. You should be looking for the home YOU want to be retired in. I don't think you can play the real estate market at this point and try to flip something in 10 years.

Whatever you think you hate in Sac/NorCal isn't going to be different in LA/SoCal. It's more of the same, different scenery. In fact, you already live in a highly desireable area so let's be honest, it's not going to get much better. Look around Roseville, Folsom, Davis, etc. Those are nice places.
Thanks for the input everyone. I'll be 49 in November. My son and daughter will be 11 and 9 in early 2011. They've still got a ways to go yet starting 3rd and 5th grade shortly, so I'm going be almost 60 when they graduate high school.

I would not live up in Roseville working in downtown Sacramento. It takes an hour to get to downtown now and traffic in Roseville is bad. Folsom is nice; Davis is very pricey and I-80 can turn into a parking lot across the causeway any day of the week.

Right now, they go to a very nice suburban school district in Cheshire, CT, halfway between Hartford and New Haven. From what I've seen I would not be able to get them in a comparable school in Sacramento or its suburbs. The school quality simply isn't there.

What I'm trying to decide is whether its worth the risk to go to LA for say 24-36 months and then try to get a transfer to within 100-150 miles of Hartford's metro area. I'm very concerned that I might get stuck in LA and not be able to get out. I work for the feds in a very specialized position; and the only rationale I can see for going to LA is to get a promotion to get to the East Coast - IF it gets me to the East Coast faster so I can near my children.

I see them maybe 2-3x a year, six weeks a year total. This is absolutely killing me to be here. I feel terribly guilty every day that I'm apart from them, but it is also not realistic in this economy for me to quit a good job and just move, because there's no way I can easily replace a 100K a year job with the benefits and retirement I have now.

I could probably get easily transferred to DC, but its got a COL that's just as bad as SoCal - probably worse, actually... commute times that are just as bad, and the work environment in HQ federal offices is just not that great.

Its a depressing situation no matter how I look at it. I'm just really honestly trying to figure out what to do. I'm terribly unhappy here, but I could tolerate a couple of years of being really unhappy IF I knew for sure that I could get to Hartford, Albany, Harrisburg, Boston, Providence, etc. and be within driving distance of my children (DC is still a hard 8 hour drive - Harrisburg is a hard drive too but you can avoid I-95 for most of it).

My kids are growing up without me regularly being in their lives and I'm worried sick that its causing them a lot of damage... on another hand, I can start to certainly understand why a lot of men will simply walk away from their children when they can't see them as often as they like. It hurts too much...
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Old 08-22-2010, 10:12 PM
 
Location: SoCal
14,530 posts, read 19,998,650 times
Reputation: 10539
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluevelo View Post
What I'm trying to decide is whether its worth the risk to go to LA for say 24-36 months and then try to get a transfer to within 100-150 miles of Hartford's metro area. I'm very concerned that I might get stuck in LA and not be able to get out. I work for the feds in a very specialized position; and the only rationale I can see for going to LA is to get a promotion to get to the East Coast - IF it gets me to the East Coast faster so I can near my children.
Sounds like a bad idea to me. Getting stuck in LA isn't that bad but you plainly don't want to be in LA, so you're looking at a bad choice even if it's for only 2-3 years.

Make a different plan. There's some easier way to get around a mountain than tunneling under it.
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Old 08-22-2010, 10:18 PM
 
Location: Sacramento, CA
771 posts, read 1,576,121 times
Reputation: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lovehound View Post
Sounds like a bad idea to me. Getting stuck in LA isn't that bad but you plainly don't want to be in LA, so you're looking at a bad choice even if it's for only 2-3 years.

Make a different plan. There's some easier way to get around a mountain than tunneling under it.
Thank you. I'm just trying to do the right thing, and it is very hard to determine what the right "thing" is - other than I feel stuck with no good choices right now.

I'm not anti-LA. If I made 200K a year I would probably move to SoCal in a heartbeat. But you've got to make enough money to be able to afford a decent place to live and have a reasonable commute in a metro that's as large as LA is and relatively transit poor (compared to Chicago and the old NE rail cities).
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