East Liverpool ... East Palestine (Youngstown, Springfield: real estate, property taxes, military)

[Rathagos]

Hello all.

My wife and I currently live in west central Texas, and are trying to decide on where to put our (hopefully) final roots down, and would like to get any information or input you might have on either of the two cities listed in the subject line. We are also considering Traverse City, Cadillac, and Houghton in Michigan.

I'm 43, retired Navy, and am working as a contractor on a military base. My wife is a CNA and hoping to get her LVN license before we'd make the move. The kids we have will either be out of school or in college before we move, so shool districts are not a consideration when looking for where to buy a house.

Ideally I wouldn't want to spend over $300k for a house (and hopefully that might buy me a little land with it, too).

I don't necessary "need" a job, but might take something of there's an opportunity. Would be nice just to have a little extra "spending" cash.

We don't mind cold/snowy weather. In fact, my wife is from Beaver Co., PA, so we'd prefer to be somewhere where's there actual seasons that last more than 1 week.

Any information you can provide us on either of those cities would be greatly appreciated. If you're from there, feel free to get on a soapbox and sell the city to us. The best people to sell a city to move to are those that live there. We'll take the bad with the good, we're not naive enough to believe that any city is "perfect."

Thank in advance!!

~Rath

[South Range Family]

East Liverpool is a hole in the wall river town with nothing to offer. I wouldn't even consider it.

East Palestine is 30 minutes North of East Liverpool. It's a quiet town on the Ohio/Pa. border. The closest good shopping is 10 miles away in Chippewa, Pa. (Beaver County).

East palestine is surrounded by rural farm land that would offer you many choices.
I know you don't care about schools, but school districts are the best way to shop for property around here. You can have many different town names and addresses going to one school district. I would recommend Crestview Local schools, Springfield Local schools, and Columbiana Local schools to find some property.

300K would buy you a really nice mansion with some acreage in all of those areas.

What was your specialty in the Navy? Jobs are scarce around here, but people with the right skills to offer find them readily available.

[Rathagos]

I was in intelligence, specifically satellite imagery analysis. Don't think I'll find much there to match that. Now, I'm a learning managment system (LMS) and Oracle database administrator. Again, I don't know about the job market there, but those are majority big city-type jobs.

I know the wife can get a job just about anywhere with the nursing skills.

I don't necessarily want to spend $300k for a house that's just my high end. I just want something about 2000 sqft, with a backyard where I'm not looking at my neighbor. Something near a lake would be nice, too. (Doesn't have to be right on it, but a short enough drive to drop a pole every now and again.

I don't mind driving for a bit. Where I live now, it's 90 minutes to the next closest town (Abilene) and about 3 1/2 hours to San Antonio.

Thanks for responding, SRF.

~ Rath

[South Range Family]

Satellite Imagery is good. Go to Google Earth. Have a look around. East Palestine is on the Northern edge of Columbiana County. Route 14 is just about the border. Columbiana County isn't as clear as it could be. Mahoning County has very clear shots.

You will see that everybody has their own pond for fishig. There are also some great fishing lakes around here. Just to the West of EP you will find Pine, and Evans Lakes for fishing. They just Reopened to the public. Farther Northwest is Berlin Reservoir. You would find many choices for fishing in this area.

Boardman is just to the North. They built a brand new hospital last year. The Beaver Medical Center is UPMC Beaver. Beaver, and Boardman are each 20 minutes from East Palestine. You would also have the big hospitals in Pittsburgh.

My house is 3100 sqft on 10 wooded acres with a separate 4 car 2 story garage. I also have a half acre pond. I can't see any of my neighbors. I would have been able to sell for about 300k. In today's market, I would guess that I'm closer to 250k now. My total property taxes are a few dollars under 5 grand. You should be able to find what you are looking for.

[Cosmic]

Both have seen better days. Sort of bottomed out but I don't think they would be high on my list of places to move too.

Was just in East Liverpool recently. Bit sad, I remember when it was a much nicer place. Not much there in terms of shopping. Probably way too much crime / drugs. Real estate is cheap compared to most of the rest of the country.

You are better off in the general areas around Columbiana. Salem or something a bit out in the country. $100 - 150K buys a decent shack with some land. Real estate market is pretty glutted now, lots of stuff for sale, you are better off moving to the general area and renting a while until things settle out a bit better. Danger of you being the Greater Fool standing there with hot cash in your hand. Best to get aclimated to the area first.

My sister lives in that area. I am up there a bit. Be careful of real estate being over priced in terms of what your money actually buys compared to other areas of the country. Lot of houses the quality can be questionable. Market is generally trending down. Also must understand Ohio is got a huge variation county to county; town to town how things get done. Especially in how local taxes work. That general area you must understand exactly the entire tax structure. Some places pay their real estate / school taxes separately. Different rules, different strokes for different folks.

Still a very nice area of the country. Should be no problem getting a decent medical type job. If you are smart and have good technical skill should be able to get a good job. General area is in the Great Lakes weather pattern and they tend to get a more severe winter than southern Ohio. General dividing line runs along I-70. I always compare the weather with my sister to SE Ohio, she always has far more extremes.

[Traveler87]

East Palestine is not a bad looking town. Nice schools, nice park with an ok pool, and a very nice housing stock. Not far from entertainment in Boardman either.

[Toto2]

Hi Rath!

My husband and I are making the move from Southlake, TX (DFW area) to the Youngstown area. He has been there working for about 3 months, and the moving van shows up here tomorrow for our move. We looked all over the area and there are really alot of nice suburbs there. Housing is VERY affordable, and getting a little acreage doesn't seem to be a problem. We close on a house just outside of Columbiana, OH on May 8. I'm an RN CCM and my husband is Market Manager/General Manager of 3 radio stations in Ytown. I'm really impressed with the Youngstown Incubator, which has alot of high tech development. You might want to read up on it.....there are alot of links here to that site. Also remember that telecommuting is thriving, so you may live in the Ytown area but work for a company anywhere in the U.S. In fact, that's what I am doing. Cortland girl is a regular contributor to the Forum and has information on EVERYTHING!

Good luck, and I hope you will choose the NE Ohio area for your relo. If there is anything we can do to help, just let me know.

[South Range Family]

Hi Toto2

I was thinking about you and your husband the other day. I was sitting at a temporary redlight right in front of Firestone Farms. They are replacing a small bridge on route 14.
There was a crane with a huge piledriver. It was hammering 80' long beams into the ground. I was feeling sorry for the residents in the area because they did the same thing to us last summer. 6AM to 8 PM 7 days a week. It was killing me. They are supposed to be done by August.

[CortlandGirl79]

Originally Posted by Toto2

Hi Rath!

My husband and I are making the move from Southlake, TX (DFW area) to the Youngstown area. He has been there working for about 3 months, and the moving van shows up here tomorrow for our move. We looked all over the area and there are really alot of nice suburbs there. Housing is VERY affordable, and getting a little acreage doesn't seem to be a problem. We close on a house just outside of Columbiana, OH on May 8. I'm an RN CCM and my husband is Market Manager/General Manager of 3 radio stations in Ytown. I'm really impressed with the Youngstown Incubator, which has alot of high tech development. You might want to read up on it.....there are alot of links here to that site. Also remember that telecommuting is thriving, so you may live in the Ytown area but work for a company anywhere in the U.S. In fact, that's what I am doing. Cortland girl is a regular contributor to the Forum and has information on EVERYTHING!

Good luck, and I hope you will choose the NE Ohio area for your relo. If there is anything we can do to help, just let me know.

Toto,
I just wanted to wish you good luck on your move tomorrow! I'm sure you'll feel so relieved once you get into your new house. Congrats and welcome to the Yo!!!!