Is Orange Country the Right Place for Us? (San Diego, Santa Ana: middle-class, sales)

[RunAllDay]

Hello, city-data forum-

We apologize in advance for the very long post- thanks ahead of time for anyone who provides us with good information.

Our situation:

We are undergrads going to school in the Northeast (we'd prefer not to give out too many personal details). We are track and cross country athletes for our schools (none of us attend the same school). Recently, we were discussing the fact that while we were reasonably successful runners, we weren't the guys getting offered contracts to run professionally after college by any means. There are hundreds of athletes in our position- not yet ready to give up serious competition and willing to make some sacrifices to achieve our potential, but not fast enough to pay our expenses purely through racing.

Our idea? Well, 5 of us have committed to getting the heck out of the Northeast and spent a couple years pinching pennies. As a group, we decided that, being as we were all born and raised in the New York/New England, it would be nice to do something entirely different- hence our post here, in the Orange Country forum.

As the thread title asks, is Orange Country the right place for 5 recent college grads with dreams of running fast? If so, does anyone have anything more specific within Orange Country to recommend? With a little googling, we were shocked to discover that the cost of living is approximately 14% LOWER than the Boston metro area! (which we're using as a baseline for comparing prices). See, when we hear "Orange County" we think of that show a few years ago with the millionaire houses and nary a minority in sight.

Here are the requirements any place would need to meet for us:

1) Rent: We would be 5 recent college graduates, one of us would be certified to teach. If we each take home 1500 a month, that would allow us to pay about 700/month each for rent. Is finding a 5 bedroom apartment for 3500 a month or less a crazy fantasy?

2) Employment: Cost of living is obviously quite high in California, as it is in Boston. In Boston, this cost of living is reflected in the fact that even a crappy job like telemarketing offers salaries of about $10/hr + commission on sales. Even typically low-paying jobs offer $10-15/hr here. Tax isn't particularly low in Massachusetts or New York either. Yet, we've managed to survive thus far in the Northeast (which, again, apparently has a higher cost of living than OC) off about 15,000 a year after taxes. What kind of tax would we be looking at in Orange County? We'd imagine we'd have to be in a pretty low tax bracket.

3) Standard of living- quite low from the perspective of a middle-class family, we'd imagine. We're college kids. We don't mind living in somewhat sketchy areas- One of us lives in a neighborhood with 2x the national average for violent crime and with a little common sense, we've never had a problem. We're all very tolerant people- hearing people speak Spanish in public doesn't offend our tender sensibilities and while our backgrounds are all lower-class white guys, we grew up in pretty diverse areas and have no trouble getting along in multicultural areas. At the same time, we've got no issues with suburbia- whether the area is a planned city with beige houses or a rundown area that WASPs fear to tread, if it meets our other qualifications, we're good.

4) Running specific stuff: In order to be our runners' paradise, it needs 1) to have excellent weather, which we'll specifically define as less than 10 days a year where the high temperature is less than 40 degrees or more than 90 degrees. Fog doesn't matter but we'd prefer an area with low-humidity. Our "perfect temperature range" is about 55-75 degrees. We also need access to soft-surfaces to run on (dirt trails, grass parks, friendly golf courses, similar offerings) and access to a high-quality outdoor track for training.

5) Area: we'd like to be close to the coast, because we noticed the temperature in the summer seems to rise precipitously even 15 miles inland. We need to be reasonably close to an airport in order to travel to different races. A vibrant local road-racing scene would be really great. We know that the Carlsbad 5k is a huge event down there, but beside that, we don't know much about the Socal running scene. We'd also be more than ok with living in a so-called "student-ghetto," that is, the cheap(er) housing often found near large universities. We'd also be of similar age to the students there, and noise/undergraduate shenanigans don't bother us in the least. Essentially, we're putting our "real lives" on hold for 2-3 years to find out if we've got the right stuff for running. If not, hey, we got to experience a different area of the country, hopefully meet some new people, have some adventures, and retire from serious, competitive training knowing, hey, at least we tried. We've got no plans to do this thing long term, unless by some miracle Nike or whatever shoe company comes a-knockin'.

Sorry this is so long. Here's the best summary we can do:

1) 500-700 dollars in rent, lower-class areas fine by us
2) good soft-surface running options
3) part-time employment in $12-18/hr range
4) normal weather is dry, 55-75 degrees
5) college town/city is preferable

Sorry for the novel!

-We Like to RunAllDay

[bhcompy]

1) most apts are studio to 2bd around here. better bet would be to rent two sides of a duplex or something. you might be able to swing that on 3500/mo
2) tax wise you're looking at high taxes despite low wages. the highest tax bracket starts at 42k, and that's around 9.5 to 10%(went up a few times recently, don't recall what it is). the lower brackets are fairly small. sales tax is extensive(grocery and prescriptions are the primary exception) and currently 8.75% in OC
3) just dont live in a gang area and you'll be fine. not too many whitewashed areas. heavy mexican and asian(both oriental and south asian) populations in OC
4) running wise, there are options. There, of course, is the beach. You can run up and down the beach from Surfside to Newport Penninsula pretty much unbroken. The Santa Ana River Bike path is also available and one of the longest trails in Southern California(don't run it alone or at night though). There are a few large parks/recreation areas that have dirt trails for hiking/running/horseback riding. Many of those are along Santiago Canyon Road in Santiago Canyon, Silverado, and Trabuco Canyon
5) John Wayne Airport is a major airport and can get you where you need to go. There are various communities around there that may or may not suit you. Cheaper areas in Costa Mesa are close to Orange Coast College, Irvine has UCI, Santiago Canyon has a college.. These areas are all close to John Wayne

[BRinSM]

i just ran the surf city (half) marathon in huntington beach, there were something like 30k people signed up for the 5k, half marathon, and full marathon. so yes, running is big in OC. i would check into jobs serving/bussing at local restaurants or delivering pizza, you should be able to make some money doing that. i wouldn't count on finding a 5br house in your price range. if a couple of you guys are willing to bunk with eachother, you should be able to find a 3br apartment or house though and perhaps even be able to save a few extra bucks every month.

[MonkeyKid]

I recommend you have some cash saved up before you come over here. Don't expect to get a server/bartending job asap, the job market here is terrible. The name of the game here is sacrifice. If you can sacrifice a lot of comforts, this will put you at a better position in transitioning here.

Also lets compare apples to apples. You say Boston metro is more expensive then OC? could be true. OC has a diverse landscape of rent prices. How about we compare the average rent in Massachusetts to OC? You can't just generalize an area like the OC and say prices are more inexpensive here. Take a look at Craigslist. That will give you a good idea of rent prices.

[RunAllDay]

Thanks for the replies so far-

Monkeykid, the baseline we used for comparing the Boston Metro to the OC was an online Cost of Living calculator that simply said, on average, the OC was 14% less expensive than the Boston Metro area.

Now, this isn't the be-all-end-all, of course. The Boston Metro area includes rich places like Brookline and Cambridge, where 1000 a month will get you a polite "no, nothing for that price" instead of the slammed door in your face 700 a month will get you. Likewise, there are places like Brighton where you could find something for 500 a month. I have a feeling that looking at the OC has a whole is like saying "the average price of an apartment in New York City is _____" without taking into account if that apartment is in Manhattan or Queens.

We figure if the OC's "average" figure has to take into account the very ritzy places, then like Boston or New York, there must be some reasonably-priced apartments for rent to balance things out. Craigslist is giving us some good ideas and helping us narrow down a little.

In terms of our criteria, how do Huntington Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, and Santa Ana stack up? That (large, we know) area seems to be fairly close to a number of good soft-surface running options. Bhcompy, could you expound on those areas a little bit? We have the city-data profile for them, of course, and wikipedia, but could you provide any insider insight to those areas?

[CAtoTX09]

Really quick not having read the other replies -

We make well over $200k combined and left OC due to the cost of living. Granted we wanted a nice house with a nice yard, and were fed up with being stuck in a condo, but still, everything is crazy expensive.

People look at taxes, housing cost etc., when figuring cost of living but leave out a lot of the little things.

For example, eating out anywhere is very expensive vs. anywhere else. Even little things like getting an oil change cost double from the exact same outfits in other states. Gas is very high. Sales tax is high. We spent $200/mo on tolls. Etc.

If you're really stuck on living in So Cal, San Diego is a lot less expensive than OC. But you might want to look at somewhere like Austin or Phoenix that you would enjoy and where you won't go into financial ruin just to make an existence.

[BRinSM]

Orange County Trail Runners

maybe you don't want to join this group, but it appears that they have resources that may interest you.

[CAVA1990]

Curious where all of you will find part time jobs for $12-18/hour. That should be your first consideration. Suggest you look on Craigslist.

[bhcompy]

Originally Posted by CAtoTX09

Really quick not having read the other replies -

We make well over $200k combined and left OC due to the cost of living. Granted we wanted a nice house with a nice yard, and were fed up with being stuck in a condo, but still, everything is crazy expensive.

People look at taxes, housing cost etc., when figuring cost of living but leave out a lot of the little things.

For example, eating out anywhere is very expensive vs. anywhere else. Even little things like getting an oil change cost double from the exact same outfits in other states. Gas is very high. Sales tax is high. We spent $200/mo on tolls. Etc.

If you're really stuck on living in So Cal, San Diego is a lot less expensive than OC. But you might want to look at somewhere like Austin or Phoenix that you would enjoy and where you won't go into financial ruin just to make an existence.

Granted 200k is 1/3 to 1/4 the price of a nice house with a nice yard in west OC. which is right where traditional housing metrics point is affordable.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by bhcompy

Granted 200k is 1/3 to 1/4 the price of a nice house with a nice yard in west OC. which is right where traditional housing metrics point is affordable.

You folks are lucky to live in a place where average salaries are so high and there are plentiful jobs that pay that well.