Moving from Sacramento to Syracuse or Ithaca (New York, Manlius: real estate, house hunting)

[purplelabrador]

I am looking for advice on moving from California to the Syracuse area or possibly Ithaca. My job would be in downtown Syracuse. Ithaca sounds like a great place to live, but I am wondering if it is too far to commute daily considering weather.

Can anyone advise me on recommended neighborhoods and school districts in the area?

Thank you.

[CarolL]

According to the Cornell Univ. website, Syracuse is about 60 miles from Ithaca and a 1 1/2-hour commute.

[skaneatelesmom]

Ithaca is a great town, but commuting to Syracuse would be too far for me, especially in the winter. I live in Skaneateles which is about a 30 minute drive to Syracuse. Great schools, great community, but very different feel than Ithaca.
Jo

[vicarian]

Hmmm...I've met two people here in Ithaca that commute from Baldwinsville and Manlius, which are suburbs of Syracuse. But, I guess they don't mind driving for an hour to an hour and a half each way.

Commuting from Ithaca to Syracuse isn't unheard of, but it would be a long drive nevertheless.

[Irishlass]

Although the comute isn't impossible ( I know people do it) You have to think about the winters. I know that here in Syracuse we have had some pretty tough winters. The drive to Ithaca from Syracuse I know well, as I have family there. It's a long commute on rte 81 in the winter!!!

[purplelabrador]

Thanks to everyone for the input. It seems like the commute would compromise our quality of life. I suppose that commuting in the winter would be very different from communting in California. Thanks for the reality check!

[girlgypsie]

Purplelabrador, I just found your post and I hope I'm not to late to give you my input (experience) when we left California to move to Syracuse which turned out to be a year in #@!!. We were very excited about living in the state of New York and looked at the move to Syracuse as another adventure. We have kids, which at the time they were in elementary & middle school. We should have realized all the signs NOT to move there from the beginning but ignored them all.

First off when we went out in August to house hunt. Terrible horrible house hunting experience. I want even get into all of that. But after we got there, I ended up getting my real estate licenses to prove to myself that you treat people like you would like to be treated.

We've moved several times in over 20+ years of marriage and have never been so alone and felt like an intruder than we did in Syracuse. In fact, about a week after my husband started his new job, some of the employees said "give us a few years and then we'll decide if we like you or not" and they were serious. We found it to be one of the least friendly places we've ever lived. We searched for a church to attend and that was useless. We tried 7 different denominations and we never felt comfortable in any of them. Our kids never made ANY friends at all in school. Had it not been for the art teacher at my sons MS he would have been a lost puppy. She got him interested in photography and he actually won a couple of contests. Oh, the one mistake we made is buying a home in Camilus in a neighborhood where everyone had lived for 30+years or had some family connection. BIG MISTAKE. First snow, our neighbor had a snow blower and blew everyone's snow out of their driveway and managed to miss us. This happened more than once.

People were just not friendly. We would go to Wegman's (the big grocery store chain and one and only good item about Syracuse) and sit in the parking lot waiting for people to come back to their car that had an out of state license plate. We would try and start up conversation with them telling them we had just moved there and noticed their out of state plates. Then they would say something like, "oh, we're not from there, we grew up here and have come back!". That happened 99% of the time.

In fact hardly nobody moves to Syracuse that is not from there or has family connections. In fact they have an entire campaign geared towards not attracting newcomers but getting former residents to return. It is called "Come Home to Syracuse". If you don't believe me visit the site at Come Home to Syracuse If this does not give you a clear indication of a city that is not inviting to outsiders then I challenge you to find another that comes close.

Hope you rethink about moving to this part of New York.

By the way, the average number of cloudy days is 205 per year with 120 inches of snow and 365 days of very angry people because they are stuck in the cuse.

[boomvang]

Strange. We moved to Pompey from downstate last December and have found the people around here very welcoming. We have been involved with quite a bit of volunteer work and have met some wonderful folks. The weather has been quite nice, with no fear of all the strange stuff that happens on the West Coast, such as fire, flood, and earthquake.

[girlgypsie]

Excuse me but moving from "downstate" is not the same as moving across the US, plus your probably a native of NY anyway. And the stuff you call strange is not just isolated to the west coast last I recall, fires swept across the southeast earlier this summer, flooding hit the midwest and earthquakes can happen anywhere. In fact a lot of folks don't realize that the area with the greatest and most dangerous fault line is the New Madrid Fault that runs from near Memphis, TN to St. Louis, MO. Anyway, I'm glad you've found the people friendly, count your blessings and be happy. BTW, we are very happy living far, far away from the cuse.

[Sweetbeet]

I have lived in Ithaca for 23 years, and worked in Cortland for the past 15. If you want the best of all worlds in this neck of the woods, I'd suggest considering living in or near Cortland. It is about midway between Ithaca (a great place for cultural events, dining, wacky festivals, good music, etc.) and Syracuse (which also has some of the above, as well as your job). Cortland also has very low real estate prices, in general.

You would be about 1/2 hour from Ithaca (to give you an idea, in addition to my daily commute, which is about 30 minutes with NO traffic at all, we drive from Ithaca to Cortland every weekend just to grocery shop, and often drive up for movies ($6.50 vs. $9.50 at the new fancy-schmnacy 'stadium' theater in Ithaca), plays (Cortland Repertory), etc. Our dentist is in Cortland, that's how close/convenient it is. (Now some people would think we're crazy, there are Ithacans who never venture as far as Cortland, but they're missing a lot.)

You would be maybe 40 minutes from downtown Syracuse (not sure where your job is), most of which would be on Route 81, a highway. 81 can get a bit dicey between Cortland and Syracuse when there is a winter storm, but that's only a few times a year, and if you take your time when the weather's bad you'll be fine. That way you could take advantage of all of the cultural events, sports, nightlife, family activities, etc. of Ithaca, and Cortland, and Syracuse. Cortland doesn't have a lot of industry or jobs (which is why housing is so cheap), but there are some very nice neighborhoods, and I think the schools are pretty good. The people I've met are very friendly in Ithaca and Cortland, I really don't know anyone from Syracuse.

Good luck in your endeavors.