From East to West...er, Southwest (Albuquerque, Las Cruces: home, buying, pros and cons)

[Margief60]

Hello,

Has anyone moved from the East to the Southwest If so, can you give some pros and cons? I am considering it but am afraid the culture shock will be too much. I currently live in New York State with all the lakes and green.

I am considering Las Cruces.

[Towanda]

Hi Margie.

I grew up in upstate NY (Rochester area) and moved to Albuquerque when I was 24 years old. Yes, it was VERY different from home and while I missed the green and the lakes, I absolutely fell in love with New Mexico ~ the culture, the mountains, the food, the weather, the spiritual aspect... everything. I never looked back. 37 years later, I still feel the same, and I visit New Mexico every chance I get. I only lived there for one year, but I am finally going to get to move there soon.....for me my dream come true.

I fully realize that New Mexico is not for everyone, so my advice to you is to visit the state, travel around to different areas, get a feel for the atmosphere and the very different cultural aspect.

New Mexico is VERY different from New York in so many ways. May I ask why you are considering this move?

Sharon

[Margief60]

Sharon,

Thank you so much for your response. I am only about 35 miles from Rochester.

My husband loves the Southwest. New Mexico is a dream of his. He lost his job almost 2 years ago and cannot find anything substantial around here. The cost of living (taxes) are so high here we can't take it any more.

I have only been to he Southwest once when we went to Vegas. I haveknown many people who have gone to NM and loved it.

The only problem is he wants to just take off and land there. I am not that brave.

What made you leave after a year?

[Towanda]

We were only there for one year when my husband was in the Air Force at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque. Then he got orders to go to Texas, and leaving New Mexico was very hard for both of us.

We have cousins in the state, so we made many trips back there from Texas....always had a place to stay in Santa Fe. And we never gave up our dream of moving there someday. My heart always seemed to be in NM even though we lived through the years in Texas, Michigan and Kansas.

For you, that would be difficult maybe .... just moving there cold without getting to check it out first.

I am not familiar at all with the Las Cruces area, though I do have a friend who moved there a year ago and loves it. I could not live there.....WAY too hot in the summer for me.

There are lots of threads here on this forum about Las Cruces with information that should help you. Click on search at the top of the page and you should find some of the threads. Or you can scroll down the list of topics and find many about Las Cruces. From what I have seen since I joined this forum, it is a popular place!

I certainly do understand about the taxes in NY. I go back to visit every year and I find the whole economy depressed .... very uncertain. Many areas of NM, on the other hand, are growing like crazy and it is pretty cool to be a part of that excitement and optimism. I still love NY because it is where my roots are, but it would be very hard to live there.

(Check Private Messages at the top right of this page.)

[Margief60]

Isn't all of NM hot in the summer?

Santa Fe is pretty expensive isn't it?

[_yb]

Las Cruces can get pretty hot during the day but it cools off nice in the evenings. Plus we don't have the humidity here in NM that you all have back east so the heat is not as bad.

[Towanda]

Santa Fe is the most expensive part of NM. The cost of land is very HIGH .... we bought our building lot in 1992, and it is now worth 6 times what we paid for it.....if we were buying now we couldn't afford it.

Building a home is costly ... but we have cut back on some of our early expectations and had to give up some things we wanted.

It remains to be seen how hard it will be for us to live on the local economy in Santa Fe. We live very simply and don't need to go to the most expensive stores and restaurants, so I am not very worried.

Yes, all of New Mexico is hot in the summer, but I would say it is 15 degrees or so cooler in northern NM than southern. My experience is, though, that everywhere in the state cools off at night, which for me will be like heaven.....the heat and humidity of Kansas in the summer is very oppressive.

[domino]

The temperature differences from place to place in NM have more to do with altitude than latitude.

[I_LUVNM]

Red River, Chama and Angel Fire stay pretty nice and cool all summer but boy is it cold in the winter!

[chilegal]

When we decided to look for a place to retire, we flew into ABQ and went south, checked out Silver City, Loved Cruces, but to big for us, and landed in Alamogordo. Loved it! The Mts at our back door, and decided to start looking right then. And found what we wanted. In other words, we just went without knowing what we were infor and have not been sorry at all.
Go with an open mind and give it a chance. Yes the summers can be hot, but the temps are about the same as Illinois and much less humidity. That suited me just fine.
Good luck.
Jane