Tigard, Tualatin, or Oregon City? (Portland, Wilsonville: new house, safe neighborhoods, to buy)

[katieberit]

My husband and I lived in Portland for many years, then we decided to move to Iowa to be closer to family. We just aren't happy here, and now we want to move back. We can't afford to live in the areas of Portland that offer good schools, so we're looking at areas with more affordable housing and good schools. Our old realtor suggested Tigard, Tualatin, or Oregon City. We'd appreciate any input on those areas from people who live there, or who used to live there. Thank you!

[gray horse]

Don't forget Sherwood and Wilsonville.

[skiffrace]

Tigard and Tualatin are very different from Oregon City.
Those 2 are safe, affluent, family-oriented areas with good or very good schools and reasonable housing costs.
When looking for a 'place to raise a family' they are as good as it gets anywhere in PDX metro area.

It's a good thing that you 'can't afford to live in the areas of Portland that offer good schools' - those areas are few, expensive, greatly overhyped, and you'd substantially overpay for the doubtful 'privilege' of living there.

In general, the West Side (west of Willamette river) has is safe and has good schools (with a few exceptions here and there).
The East Side is the opposite - most of it is c**p, with mediocre schools and higher crime. There are some good areas on the East Side - hyped-up as a 'walkable' (usually misleading), where it costs ridiculous amounts of money to buy a 100+ year old 'historic' (read: continuous project) home.
Oregon City is on the East Side. It has improved in recent years, and it has some nice pockets, but it's simply not in the same league as Tigard/Tualatin.
Last but not least, PDX metro area is not Iowa. When moving here, think commute as important as schooling. The traffic is horrible, try to find housing that is no more than a few miles from work - even a few miles here may take a long time to travel.

[bler144]

Originally Posted by skiffrace

The East Side is the opposite - most of it is c**p, with mediocre schools and higher crime.

I do hear a fair amount of police sirens, but there are lots of perfectly safe neighborhoods on the east side.

The schools, however, are pretty bad other than a few select schools in the highest cost neighborhoods.

Last but not least, PDX metro area is not Iowa. When moving here, think commute as important as schooling. The traffic is horrible, try to find housing that is no more than a few miles from work - even a few miles here may take a long time to travel.

^This. I like Oregon City, but wouldn't be excited to commute downtown from there, and even that stretch of 205 is a mess a lot of the time now.

[mcsewnab]

I moved from out of state to Oregon City without knowing a lot about the area. I did visit the Portland area twice before moving here though. We picked a new house in Oregon City about a mile from the Safeway on Molalla.

We picked this area because of location, access to both sides of Portland, and the affordability of new housing. We have been happy with our decision up to this point.

[katieberit]

Thank you all for the input! I sincerely appreciate it.

[katieberit]

I forgot to mention Happy Valley as another option our realtor suggested. Any input on that would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you!

[Annilyna]

I can only comment on the Tualatin and Tigard area. I'm actually trying to move to that area from out of state. The area seems very safe with reasonable access to Portland (traffic is another matter, but so far from what I hear, you can do a lot worse). For convenience, I wouldn't recommend the Sherwood area - although Sherwood is nice, it seems a little insulated and you'd have a longer drive to to anywhere else outside of it (e.g. to Portland).

Sorry, I can't comment too much on the other areas - I'm still learning them myself.

[mcsewnab]

We looked at 10 or so houses in Happy Valley. We didn't find anything we wanted to put an offer on. Most were on hills so some of the driveways had steep grades and others didn't have much of backyard if any.

A house if a very personal decision so these things may not matter to you. We thought Happy Valley was a nice area though.

[grassfeeder]

Happy Valley is OK. There was a time of some very suspect builds in terms of quality during the housing boom. Commute time into PDX can vary greatly.