Moving from Orange County, CA to Madison ? (Eau Claire, York: house, university)

[Dairylander]

That Park Lane house has an offer pending.
It also has a flat roof, which is challenging in WI.
Westmorland is fantastic neighborhood, if you land there, check out Queen of Peace school (Grades 1-8) on Mineral Point Road - great school.

[mommyntheoc]

Hi Beetpapp...sounds like you and I would get along well! My husband will be working at UW as well. Sunset Village is not the burbs, it is pretty much downtown and right across the street from UW. Despite my urging to rent first, my husband has decided it is time we plant our roots and buy a house right away - so we'll be buying. There are some houses in Sunset Village for just over $200k and I'm not having any trouble at all locating beautiful houses with rents in the $1500-2000 range all over the west side. I was a bit surprised by the EPA www.scorecard.org pollution report card for Madison, surprisingly it is not much better in air quality and their water is more polluted than CA. Regardless, I'd take suffocating with intelligent and friendly people over lifelong living next to ignorant glorified pigs! 69 days and counting until our move...I am uberly excited to be leaving this state and it's overpopulation soon!

Thanks for the google tip, I hadn't figured that out but I had found www.walkscore.com that gives you distances to all of your local amenities from an address. =-)

[beetpapp]

^ Yes, we were also very excited when we left CA! Better to visit, than to live. My husband and I are both extremely excited to move to Madison. Although my appointment at UW is only guaranteed a year, so we'll see how long we get to stay.

We're also really excited about the rental we found. Just to clarify, the house is in the very southern end of Sunset Village, so we'll be closer to the Monroe St stuff (which I'm pretty excited about) than University/Campus Dr. You're right, there seems to be tons of houses to rent on the west side, although it appears that many of them are west of the beltline. (I really wanted to stick east of Midvale Blvd and north of Mineral Point) Tough call b/n that and the East side (which suits our personalities), but I just couldn't see myself commuting through downtown to the Research Park every morning, particularly come winter traffic slow down. Also hard to find houses in the Regent, Monroe, & Vila neighborhoods.

Just realized today that we're right off the route 6 busline, which goes to the Memorial Union, the capitol, east side, etc. So with a bus pass, we will get our large yard (we have a dog) and easy access to the Farmers Market.

I'll stay posted - much luck to you!

[mommyntheoc]

Sounds like you are below Sunset Village in Westmorland! =)
What department will you be in? Sounds like you are a post-doc appointment, yes?

[beetpapp]

Originally Posted by mommyntheoc

Sounds like you are below Sunset Village in Westmorland! =)
What department will you be in? Sounds like you are a post-doc appointment, yes?

It's still Sunset Village, as it's north of Mineral Point Rd. (and contained in the Sunset Village neighborhood association map). But very close to Westmorland.

I'll be in the department of Psychiatry. The position is one step down from a post-doc. It's a clinical psychology internship (similar to med school residency, but only 1 year). So will be doing rotations at the clinics located in the research park, as well as the UW hospital.

[mommyntheoc]

Well if this move drives me crazy, I'll be seeing ya soon! lol

How many sq ft, lot size, etc. did you get and at what price?
I'm thinking we should check out some backup rental properties while we are there, just in case the house sale doesn't go through as planned...I'm interested to see what others are paying in the area.

[annkathryn]

Are you talking Vancouver B.C. or Washington? I LOVE B.C.

[annkathryn]

Degrees and schooling, that's all you ever hear about on the Madison boards. Does anybody have a life outside of this?!? LOL. WAAAAAy too big of a deal made out of this.

[mommyntheoc]

BC

lol that is because Madison's top employer is the university! lol

[beetpapp]

Originally Posted by mommyntheoc

BC

lol that is because Madison's top employer is the university! lol

^ Um, exactly! And to annkathryn - hate to break it to you, but YES, I have a quite fulfilling life outside of schooling/work. A very nice one indeed.

Way too big a deal out of what? Not sure I follow...