Relocating from PHX to PDX (Portland, Eugene: to rent, crime rates, houses)

[mullenium]

my wife and I are pretty tired of the heat and dust here in Phoenix. We are initially from San Diego and wanted to buy a house to start a family. Phoenix was at the time a logical option, only 5 hour drive from home where we can still visit family and the cheap housing was great.

but now after a few years we are sick of it.. we cant see ourselves Raising our daughter here, and having her go to school here. from the skin cancer, to the allergies and extreme heat, its just getting to the point where we want out. we are also pregnant with our second which is due in Nov.

We are thinking portland, or an outlying suberb of portland would fit our needs well, and allow us to finally settle down for good and raise our kids not having to worry about high pollution ozone warnings on the radio all the time. We love rain, we love gloomy weather. although one issue is that we done know anyone there in PDX, so moving and settling in might prove diffucult

I work in IT, my wife works in administrative and is almost done with esthetician schooling. we do own a house here and are upside down about 40k on it.. we would have to rent it out possibly and then rent in PDX til we are able to sell the PHX house and buy something in PDX.

any advice on places to visit? we wanted to come for a long weekend soon to scope out the area as she has never been to OR, ive only been to Eugene once.

also any advice on moving? i was reading ppl saying to have a job lined up before making the plunge, but its kind of difficult being so far away

Thanks all !

[Skippy Weaselpants]

If you work in IT, you probably would want to look for a job in the area we call the "Silicon Forest", which is, in general, on the west side pretty much from Beaverton to Hillsboro. You'll find lots of IT companies located in that area including Intel. As to settling down and finding a place to live, that area has housing in virtually all price ranges and is a very nice place to raise a family - good schools, an excellent park & rec district with lots of activities for kids, etc.

You may also want to consider Tigard. It has one of the lowest property tax rates in the state and is just a few minutes from that area. Again - good schools and lots of activities for the kids, including a skateboard park.

Crime rates in those west side suburbs are relatively low and the quality of life is relatively high. Oh yeah - there's really good shopping, too.

[Or3g0n]

Originally Posted by mullenium

my wife and I are pretty tired of the heat and dust here in Phoenix. We are initially from San Diego and wanted to buy a house to start a family. Phoenix was at the time a logical option, only 5 hour drive from home where we can still visit family and the cheap housing was great.

but now after a few years we are sick of it.. we cant see ourselves Raising our daughter here, and having her go to school here. from the skin cancer, to the allergies and extreme heat, its just getting to the point where we want out. we are also pregnant with our second which is due in Nov.

We are thinking portland, or an outlying suberb of portland would fit our needs well, and allow us to finally settle down for good and raise our kids not having to worry about high pollution ozone warnings on the radio all the time. We love rain, we love gloomy weather. although one issue is that we done know anyone there in PDX, so moving and settling in might prove diffucult

I work in IT, my wife works in administrative and is almost done with esthetician schooling. we do own a house here and are upside down about 40k on it.. we would have to rent it out possibly and then rent in PDX til we are able to sell the PHX house and buy something in PDX.

any advice on places to visit? we wanted to come for a long weekend soon to scope out the area as she has never been to OR, ive only been to Eugene once.

also any advice on moving? i was reading ppl saying to have a job lined up before making the plunge, but its kind of difficult being so far away

Thanks all !

Sorry to hear about that. There is lots of houses you can seek, from different price ranges. As other guy mentioned about beaverton and hillsboro, he's right. Best area for technology sector jobs. One thing id like to warn you and your wife: be prepared to witness 10 feet deep lush green vegeation and massive trees that is straight as arrow plus fresh water and air. Good luck!

[friggsdottir]

My family just moved to the Portland area from PHX and there is another poster on this board that recently did the same as well. You would have loved it here today, 83 degrees, just glorious. We are still transitioning but so far we are very happy here. I miss the palm trees and scenery once in a while, but that's what airplanes are for.
Once you get settled we should have a little "desert transplant" get-together so we can all meet each other. Congrats on the new baby, I have a 2 year old and this area is VERY child friendly.

[cacto]

One extreme to the other

[jjpop]

Originally Posted by mullenium

Phoenix was at the time a logical option, only 5 hour drive from home where we can still visit family and the cheap housing was great.

You realize that Portland is not a 5-hour drive from SoCal, right? It's more like an 18-hour drive. Or you can fly in a couple hours.

Weekend visits with family really wouldn't be an option from Portland.

[Daisy32673]

I think he meant PHX is 5 hours from San Diego

[jjpop]

Originally Posted by Daisy32673

I think he meant PHX is 5 hours from San Diego

Yeah, I realize that. Just pointing out that he moved to PHX for affordable housing and to be close to family, and now he is looking at moving to PDX, where he will be much further from family.

Seems like some people, especially Southern Californians, think that their state is only about 400 miles long and that Oregon is close since it's a border state. They don't realize that Portland is 1,000 miles from LA. That's about the same distance as LA to Denver.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by mullenium

I work in IT, my wife works in administrative and is almost done with esthetician schooling. we do own a house here and are upside down about 40k on it.. we would have to rent it out possibly and then rent in PDX til we are able to sell the PHX house and buy something in PDX.

As was said above, Beaverton/Hillsboro is your area to look for IT jobs. You can also find positions in Tigard, Willsonville, Downtown Portland, and West side of Lake Oswego. Pretty much to the west of 217 and I-5, south of 26 is your search area.

On the other hand, Portland area is over saturated with IT types due to this reason, and several large layoffs last year. It's not impossible to get a job, but it's been my experience that you need to have a fairly good resume with a ton of different skills and experiences, or extremely targeted skills. You also need to network, network, network.

While unemployed last year, I was putting out out 5 to 7 resumes a day. (ended up putting out just under 800 resumes during the time I was unemployed.) It was practically a full time job just rewriting my resume. In the end, a friend recommended me for a temp position with some very specific skill needs. The manager of that position couldn't hire me on full time even though he could justify the need (later found out the company was being bought out,) so he passed my resume on one of his former coworkers where I got hired on two months later.

I highly recommend using the heck out of Linkedin.com

Also, during that time I created a list of RSS Feeds from various sources for Portland area IT jobs. You can find that list here: Hamell.net » Blog Archive » Job Searching in Portland I was constantly going through those and kept several spread sheets of jobs I applied for (and which resume I used.)

[mullenium]

wow thanks for all the replies everyone!

jjpop: Yeah I know Portland is a lot further away.. we thought moving to Phoenix being a 5 hour drive our family would visit us a lot more especially to come visit their first grandaughter, but it seems its always us who end up driving back to san diego and they never try to make any initiative to come visit us. I think in the 3+ years we have been here both sides of our parents have came out here twice (twice each side)

friggsdottir: yeah we should definitely set something up once we make the jump

hamellr: thanks for the job seeking input, ill check out that list today! i think my resume is pretty good.. I'm kind of like a jack of all trades sysadmin and level 2 desktop support. I might just have to do the temp agency thing for awhile like you, jumping from temp to temp til I find something substantial


also do you guys recommend me applying to places now, then flying up to do in person interviews? or save up money and move first for the convenience of being there to do the in person interviews?