Gay couple considering New England or Near LA (Los Angeles, Pomona: fit in, foreclosures)

[dbminmo]

We are a gay couple considering moving to CT, MA, or RI from St. Louis and need help in picking a community to settle in. I renovate homes to sell and He may be attending UCONN/Storrs, Harvard or Yale for his Doctorate, our other option would be near Los Angeles at Claremount.

Our main criteria is finding elder day care that provides transportation for my mom whose 92 and has mild Alzheimer's that lives with us. We would prefer a rural, family friendly community, "pun intended" within a half hour to hour of a particular Univeristy.

Our housing needs at first would be to buy a decent duplex he could live in and then a 300k-600k home we both would move into once I'm able to liquidate assets in Missouri.

My work needs would be a ripe market for renovating homes to sell. Ive been reading through the New England threads and am concerned about taxes, their affect on renovated home sales, the commute to these areas and the like.

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have to offer.

[black Jack]

That's a lot of info to digest. Claremont is beautiful. It is a couple hours outside of LA. They completed a freeway north of the colleges and many new homes are in that area. It was an older community 15 years ago, but with the development, I dunno. There are some bad areas south of the 10 fwy that make there way north for crime.

There is a lot of pollution, but a beautiful climate. MA housing market has tanked and may start making a rebound before LA. Either location is a good college setting with open minded well educated people.

[straight outta camden]

I would worry about the "renovating homes to sell" bit of the plan most of all. The Los Angeles-area property market is looking distinctly peaky, with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country in the Inland Empire, just east of Claremont. Southern California's economy may already be in recession. I would rather pull out my own fingernails than take on a property anywhere in America right now, but I would especially avoid southern California.

[zenjenn]

Go to Claremont! The Claremont Graduate School is great and there is an Alzheimer's Care center right in the city of Claremont. I'm not sure if they offer the services you are looking for, but check it out - Mountain View Alzheimer Care Center - http://www.mountainviewcenter.com/

If you want rural and are willing to drive 30 mins or so, you can consider living up on Mt. Baldy. It really is beautiful up there and has a surprisingly rural feel while being so close to civilization. You live in the mountains, winter snow and all, and just make a jaunt down the mountain to school as well as the Claremont village area with its many good restaurants, shops, etc. The drive down the mountain is not filled with the famed SoCal traffic. Your partner wouldn't have to even get on a single freeway to go to school.

Regarding property, I own a home in Claremont and it's a crappy time to sell, but IMO, a great time to buy. There are foreclosures and people are desperate to sell, competing with the foreclosures. If you are in the houseflipping business, and are patient - you could turn this current economy to your advantage. I don't think it will shoot up at the same insane speed as before necessarily, but I don't see doom and gloom either. I do believe it will recover.

I normally am not telling people to move to California, as I personally had many good reasons to move out of state - but from what you describe of your situation and needs I really think Mt. Baldy and Claremont are worth a good hard look (unless by "rural" you specifically meant "country")

[ferretkona]

Might want to consider Palm Springs, very gay friendly and a lot of elderly as well.

[TheRealAngelion]

If your partner plans to go into academia then he should probably stick with Harvard or Yale. Getting a tenure track position is very difficult and competitive and could take years to obtain. Those coming out of the Ivies tend to have a leg up, because the faculties at the better colleges and universities are mostly of the same pedigree. CGU is a good graduate school, but generally would not be considered in the same league as Yale within academic circles.

[waggie]

no doubt in my mind! you will end up in claremont. you can live in Upland, which is NOT LA county, thus lower, much much lower property tax. attend Claremont Grad. Univ, I grad from there, because its a very nice school (its actually 5 colleges: Pitzer, Mudd, Scripps, Pomona, CGU together). if you have a full ride (or 50% off, at least) to yale/harvard, i'd say go for it, but CGU offers better grants, scholarships, because its a smaller school. things like better teacher to student ratio, instructor attention, better atmosphere .... what more can i say?

Upland is a very liberal town. its residents, at least on my street anyway, is a lot of older folks who bought here a long time ago. the area has flourished! all of their are college educated... have i mentioned within the border of SB county, so SB property taxes! 2 minute walk away is the LA county border. 45 minutes to the Los Angeles/Hollywood (not 2 hours). maybe a hour to west hollywood. LA isn't all that, you'll be hitting LA every weekend for a month, then it will be every two weeks, then once every two months... you get my drift.

I believe the poster above is talkin about Mt. View Alzheimer Center.. i've only seen it from the street, dont know anyone thats in there, so i can't vouch for the quality of their services.

300-600k is a very wide price range.... 550k on up would be more claremont appropriate. while, 5 minutes drive away, you can be in Upland, and get the same home for 450k. 450k to 500k will get you the average circa 1980, 1500 sq feet, 3 bed 2 bath. the interesting options, imo, is in the 500k-600k mark (which could probably lowered if you have a good agent). 2000-2300sq ft, 4bed 3 bath. however, still around 1980-90.

the time for flipping houses in claremont is gone, im afraid. there's no profit in that anymore. now its buy cheap and sell it for even cheaper if you're in need of cash. Thats not to say there's no job for you. Even though (imo) there's not much opportunity in flipping... there's other work that's related to what you do. people who DON'T want to sell their home in this crappy market might want to re-do their kitchen, bath... whatever. When people can't make a profit selling their house, yet they still want a better house... the only thing left to do is to upgrade the one they already have. maybe you'll find a niche there.

good luck.