What Makes Ashland More Expensive than Medford and Grant's Pass? (Grants Pass: hotels, house)

[Searching-01]

Hi All,
Was continuing my search for a place to buy a home and was looking at Medford and Grant's Pass... noticed prices are significantly higher per sq. ft. in Ashland.

Anyone know what's behind that?

[Larry Caldwell]

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in Ashland. The whole town has a tourist economy.

BTW, there's no apostrophe in Grants Pass.

[PNW to NEPA]

I live in Ashland. Ashland is a unique place in that it has all the natural beauty of much of southern Oregon, but it also has a certain cultural scene. It has a very big regional theater (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), it has a university, it has a well-regarded public school system that is financially supported by the community taxing itself to provide more extracurricular opportunities for the students, it also taxes itself to keep its public library branch open more days/hours than other regional branches. The tourist economy means the city government keeps it looking very pretty, well kept. It has higher property taxes (and other taxes on utilities, restaurant meals, hotels, etc.) to fund all that. It's not the only spendy town in southern Oregon, there's also Jacksonville, but it's much smaller than Ashland.

Like a lot of "hip" places on the I-5 it also gets more than its share of traveling drifters with backpacks, road dogs, panhandling and bad sidewalk busking. That's mostly an issue in the summer. But overall, it's a very friendly, close knit town, and pretty self-contained. It's a great place for kids. Mine grew up here. That said, we moved here 20 years ago, a little family with a modest income. If we were looking now, there is no where we'd be able to afford. That's the thing most people complain about, the cost of housing. (Although it's a problem in much of southern Oregon, it's even more of a problem here.) I have to say I don't entirely get the beef since almost every regional area has certain more expensive parts of it and less expensive parts. For some reason people think Ashland is to blame for being desirable enough that people with more money want to move here.

Anyway, that's another way-too-loaded topic. The thing that makes the town attractive to tourists is the same thing that makes it attractive to residents. It's pretty, has a lot of culture (not just theater, but art, music, a little art-cinema movie house, charming shops, good restaurants, coffee shops, and so forth.) It's also a very politically liberal community, which is more comfortable for some people than a more conservative one. There is every religious expression under the sun here, from Baptists to Buddhists. There is a perception of it from other parts of the county as being snobby, I have never felt that but then I live here so maybe that makes me a snob too? Although I live in one of the funkier parts of town in a 2bd/1bath, 1000 sq/ft, 70-yr-old house... so maybe not.

Mostly I think it's a place of nice, generous people who support the community (including with their self-taxed pocketbooks). You can definitely feel the difference that the higher average incomes makes in the community though. It gives the town the ability to craft its image, to have more control over atmospherics. For example there's a sign ordinance that keeps businesses from ugly-fying the town with big lighted signage. There are building footprint restrictions that have kept out big box stores. There is a building permit process that limits big barren parking lots, poorly designed buildings, scale and so forth. All those kinds of municipal restrictions drive some folks in don't-tread-on-me Oregon crazy. It's because Ashland doesn't need big commercial development to support it that it can operate the way it does. It's economic base is largely dependent on being this very pretty, culturally rich small jewel box town. Also a college town. Southern Oregon Univ has a very lovely campus.

We're planning on moving away within a year or so (husband is retiring, kids live on the east coast, and we've lived here a really long time and need to shake things up a bit) but there is a great deal we'll miss about it.

[PNW-type-gal]

When I moved to the area 6 years ago from the other side of the Cascades, I looked at Ashland and, while there are some nicer things, for me there was absolutely nothing to justify the inflated prices. There are a lot of second homes and upscale retirees, but, for an employed person, you'd either be working in seasonal tourism and retail or medical or driving to Medford for work. From Medford I go to Ashland maybe once or twice a month, and that is generally to visit a friend.

I have friends who live there, but they have lived there at least 15 years and most of them much longer than that. I also know a lot of people who have left Ashland (for Talent, Phoenix, Medford) because of the housing prices - you don't get much for your dollar, at least not from my point of view.

[PNW to NEPA]

It's very true you don't get much for your dollar if what you're looking to buy is only house or house+land. I think many people, though, are buying residency in the town as much as any particular house. The town factor is not as important to some people, even people who could afford to buy here. Like I said, if we were buying now we'd also have to look elsewhere whether we preferred Ashland or not, but in response to the original question I'm just offering what I think is the reason for the higher housing prices. For people buying now, it can't be just any particular (expensive) house, it's really the community. If you want to be able to run into somebody in a coffee shop and find yourself in a conversation about string quartets or Norwegian novelists, then in southern Oregon you'd better be in Ashland. (And since it's a small and relatively walkable town, you can wander into coffee shops that way.) And it's community aesthetics, the arts, the college, and so forth. The theater brings a lot of creative professionals into town.

If I had to move into southern Oregon today, I'd probably look at finding a fixer in Talent. Talent is shaping itself (slowly) into being a similar kind of place. Plus it's nearest to Ashland and gets spillover from there. Lots of interesting folks living up Wagner Creek and thereabouts. It's sort of a hybrid community now, but has more young folks than Ashland. If most of southern Oregon is pick-up trucks, and Ashland is mostly Prius's, then Talent is sort of split down the middle.

[PNW-type-gal]

It's also the city with the lowest vaccination rate for children in the state of Oregon because of some pretty out-there beliefs in "natural" medicine and a huge post-New-Age culture that I find particularly annoying. So YMMV.

[PNW to NEPA]

No, my mileage doesn't vary on that point. The vaccination issue annoys me greatly. Mostly because stupid annoys me, wherever it imposes itself on the public.

[Johnny Z]

I used to think I wanted to live in Ashland, now I'm glad I don't. Some people like the culture and trippy life style, which adds to the cost of living.

[PNW-type-gal]

There are definitely good things about Ashland (Lithia Park is gorgeous) and there are some fairly tight cross-sections of community there. If someone wanted to be a part of those communities, it would be a great - but very expensive, by Oregon standards - place.

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by Johnny Z

I used to think I wanted to live in Ashland, now I'm glad I don't. Some people like the culture and trippy life style, which adds to the cost of living.

What's "trippy life style"?

Does that mean it's a neo-60's (perhaps "hippie") kind of place?

Saw some of that when I was working and living in Boulder, Co. But not much.

Boulder is monied enough on average that folks will wear clothes like the 60's (blue jeans and such, causal) but are actually IBM'ers and such.

Used to joke that "The People's Republic of Boulder" was populated with "rich hippies". But I guess given the income it takes to have a home there... they really aren't truly "hippies" but rather "60's styled techies" or what not.