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Old 12-27-2014, 01:10 PM
 
6 posts, read 9,740 times
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Soon to be empty nesters and looking to relocate from Northern California. We live in a great area but it is really expensive to live and we are looking to cash out. My wife and I are both very employable but will need to be reasonably close to a metro area. Interested in Nevada but so many of the reviews I have read are negative (crime, people, blight, wind, etc...)

Where are the better areas in NV and what are the price ranges for new homes?
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Old 12-27-2014, 02:37 PM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
5,314 posts, read 7,766,319 times
Reputation: 3568
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acxpert View Post
Soon to be empty nesters and looking to relocate from Northern California. We live in a great area but it is really expensive to live and we are looking to cash out. My wife and I are both very employable but will need to be reasonably close to a metro area. Interested in Nevada but so many of the reviews I have read are negative (crime, people, blight, wind, etc...)

Where are the better areas in NV and what are the price ranges for new homes?
You're going to find that the most vocal people on forums/review sites will often be the most negative. Many people are miserable, and want to make others miserable.

Nevada, geographically, is very large. It will depend on for what you are looking. There are really only 2 "metro" areas - Las Vegas Valley, which is a combination of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, and Clark County land, and Reno/Carson City/Fernley.

The Las Vegas Valley has 2 million permanent residents, and approximately 1 million additional tourists for a daily total of about 3 million people.

Reno MSA has a little under 600,000.

I live in the Las Vegas area, specifically Henderson. Regarding your points in your post:

By "very employable", what do you mean? In S. Nevada, it is very difficult to be hired unless you are already living here. That is due to the hesitancy of employers to hire in a very transient environment. Like any city, you will find employment based on your skillset. I, personally, make more here than I made in New England, from where I came, and am in sales. But a six-figure compensation package is not unusual in sales, no matter what part of the country one resides. What is your industry, and perhaps I can offer advise based on that.

Crime - Not particularly worse than any 2-3M population metro area. Henderson, a suburb of LV, is consistently ranked in the top 5 safest places to live. I'm in the heart of Green Valley, one of the neighborhoods, and we have had a noise disturbance on our street, and a burglary on an adjacent street in the last year and a half. That is the extent of the crime in my neighborhood. If you live in some of the more depressed areas of town, you're going to have more crime. Just common sense. Bear in mind also, when looking at statistics, the crimes committed by any of the 1 million non-locals are counted in the total numbers, so that does boost the statistics some.

People - Las Vegans are some of the friendliest people whom I have ever met. I have lived in 13 different states, and, hands down, have found people here more outgoing and friendly than anywhere else. I, personally, chalk that up to the 300+ days of sun we get. It's hard to be miserable when it's bright and sunny all the time.

Blight - Yes, we have that in some parts of town. The homeless population is very high here. I think that is also attributable to the weather. If I were to be homeless, I'd pick a place where I wasn't going to freeze to death.

Wind - That is, probably, the only thing I don't enjoy here. It does get windy. But I'll take that over hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes every day of the week, and twice on Sunday

Housing - I find it very affordable. We are currently renting a 2100sqft 4bdrm/2.5ba SFH. We pay $1500/mo including the landscaping service. We moved from a 2bdrm townhouse in the NorthEast for which we were paying a comparable amount. The house we live in was purchased in April 2013 for $236,000. When you combine the lower price of housing with the lack of income tax and ridiculously low property tax, you'll find your dollar will go farther in NV than it will in CA.

This is my opinion of Southern Nevada. There are many great posters from Northern Nevada who can provide their observations so you have a comparison from which to base your decision.
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Old 12-27-2014, 05:40 PM
 
6 posts, read 9,740 times
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Raiderman: Thank You very much for the detailed response.

I am in sales in the HVAC industry and my wife is a medical assistant. Pretty confident we could both find jobs but we would certainly do some checking around before we made a move.

I have only been to Vegas a few times, once on the strip and we also spent several days in the Henderson area for a baseball tournament. It was in the fall, but the weather was great. I think we will travel up in the spring and have a look around!
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Old 12-28-2014, 10:04 AM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
5,314 posts, read 7,766,319 times
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Visiting is definitely the best way to check out the area. Have a great trip!
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Old 12-29-2014, 11:20 AM
 
1,002 posts, read 1,959,262 times
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Las Vegas and Reno are very different so it may take a visit to both to figure out what suits you. If you like northern CA then you might like Reno more than LV.
We live in Reno and like that it has four seasons, though they are not as brutal as the Midwest (where we moved from). Winter does include snow and temps can be down in the single digits at night. There are rare times we get below zero at night. We get snow but it melts quickly as long as you are in the valley (vs Lake Tahoe area). The summer usually has triple-digit heat, but the nights are cool. We have ventral AC and only turn it on a few times each summer, and usually just around 4-6pm when the house really gets hot. Generally if you leave your windows open at night and then close the drapes during the day to keep out the heat the house will stay reasonably cool all day. Reno has sunny days most of the time all year 'round and we enjoy that we can plan things knowing that the weather almost always cooperates. There are parts of town that are windier than others. But we really only see wind when a storm is moving through. The difference in weather between LV and Reno is that in LV people don't do much outside in the summer due to the extreme heat, but you have the rest of the year to be outside as the temps are generally comfortable (although they may get 3" of snow for New Years!, rare). In Reno we are outside almost all the time, though you may not like winter (Dec-Feb) if you do not like the cold. Daytime highs are usually in the 40's and sunny. Yesterday was 52 and sunny. Hubby was working on the driveway on a car project in just a shop coat. Although summer has triple digits I still do yard work in the mornings and evenings, just avoid 11am-3pm unless you are totally in the shade. We enjoy dinner on the patio almost every night and fire up the chiminea for drinks in the evening. Spring and summer are very mild. Feb can have a few foggy mornings and grey days.

Reno is more small city where LV has more amenities of a larger city. Although Reno has plenty of restaurants, small museums, a few malls...LV has more and better. Reno middle class neighborhoods tend to be pretty friendly, we know all of our neighbors.

Jobs are not extremely easy to find here. Medical assist will have easier time than HVAC. Medical assists are pretty low paid in Reno. I work in a doctor's office and most are working around $10-12/hour if certified. HVAC seems to follow the construction trends. There are a few good shops in town that we have used (hubby is shop teacher so we know people shol own/work there) but turnover is very low because jobs are not plentiful.

Housing is surprisingly not all that cheap. I'm not sure about renting apartments. I know houses rent for about the same as LV. And I am recently surprised about the cost of purchasing a home in Reno. It seems to have bounced back a bit. Smaller 3/2 in suburban seems to be going for about $250-325k currently. They were only around $250k last year. I'm sure fixer uppers and foreclosures can still be found for less. Property taxes in all of NV are incredibly low. But we pay it back in other taxes like sales tax and gas tax. However there is no income tax, groceries, and meds.

Hubby and I do notlike extremes in temps and prefer smaller cities. So Reno was the clear winner for us. Coming here from a major city we do miss a few things. I would like an Ikea! I miss cultural neighborhoods and the restaurants you will find there. However, San Francisco is only 4 hours away. And Sacramento is just an hour away with all the shopping, not so much on the ethnic food scene.

Visit both LV and Reno and see which suits you best.
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Old 12-29-2014, 11:25 PM
 
Location: Living rent free in your head
42,782 posts, read 26,078,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by utsci View Post
However, San Francisco is only 4 hours away. And Sacramento is just an hour away with all the shopping, not so much on the ethnic food scene.
Sacramento is about 2 hours and 15 minutes from Reno and that is without traffic or weather issues.
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Old 12-30-2014, 01:03 AM
 
Location: Boneyard Flat, NV
36 posts, read 55,068 times
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We are Commiefornia refugees, from the cenral valley (Modesto-Turlock area).... We sold our 20 acre almond ranch with a custom built 2860 sq. ft. house and never looked back..... Wife says "best thing we ever did"... I kind of agree with ALL the regulations coming, and with the water shortage farmers are being villanized (for growing food, imagine that!!!)..... Anyway, we've been comming to Reno for years to visit friends and relitives, but seriously decided to consider moving here fairly soon in 2010. We looked around the Reno / Sparks area for homes in early to mid 2013... we settled on a home in North Spanish Springs, a development called Pebble Creek. It's 15 miles north of I-80 just west of Pyramid Hwy (Nv 445). It is deserty, near mountains (desert, not forresty), about 20 minutes north to Pyramid Lake, 4 miles south to a grocery store (Savemart) auto parts (autozone) fast food and pizza. Only 9 miles south to Costco, Super Walmart, Home Depot, more flavors of fast food and real resturants. The development started in about 2003, but the original builder went bust (hard to imagine as the homes sold for $800K to 1.2 Mil). A new builder bought the remaining lots and built homes in the $350K+ price range, some with additional detached garages, and they have now started building a new phase. All lots are 1 acre +/- smallest home is 3000 sq ft. Fairly nice standard features (tile roof, tile shower and tub enclosures, tile floors and granite counter tops in kitchen), but slab floors (although NOT as bad as I thought a slab home would be here). We bought new. It took 6 months to build. There have been several of the original homes come up for resale, but they don't last too long. The mountain views are nice and the neighborhood is friendly, but very quiet. HOA is $350 per year. Local TV stations come in great with a small antenna in the attic, Internet is 60 Mb with a cable modem and IP phone is unlimited LD, with VM, caller ID, call waiting etc. all for like $55 per mo. (goodbye AT&T!!!) Nat gas cook top, hot water and forced air furnaces, electric ovens and both gas and electric for cloths dryer... And a big plus... Looking south towards Reno vs. looking north from Reno, the air looks cleaner here.... Originally considered south east and south west Reno. We're glad we expanded our search area..... a lot of house and 6 cars worth of garages for the $$$$..... And it's all new.....

There's also an older development called Bridal Path (about 4 miles south of where we are) on the east side of Pyramid Hwy. We looked at a couple of resale homes there, but decided to go new instead...
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Old 03-12-2015, 09:55 PM
 
Location: Fallon, NV.
27 posts, read 43,203 times
Reputation: 42
Default Moving to Nevada

frednutcase is right about the Reno area. My wife and I have been here since '96 having escaped from San Diego's high crime, crowded conditions and basically nasty people. Not to mention the incursion of illegals from the south that help drive the crime rate up. The cost of living there was horrible and far worse now.

We came to Reno to visit two years earlier and had a great time. People everywhere are friendly and easy to talk to. Neighbors don't avoid each other like some in California, most established neighborhoods have people know each other and that's what we liked about it, small town friendly and not crowded.

But, that was almost 20 years ago and that has changed over the years. Lots of growth from 2000 to 2008 and not all of it for the 'good'. Reno has probably 30%+ of the population is hispanic now which is more than double what it was 20 years ago. That has contributed to our unemployment being the highest in Nevada. Some areas of town have become 'blighted' because of that. Some places have two or more families living in a 2br place, cars parked across their front lawns and generally overcrowded.

There are good rural neighborhoods like frednutcase mentioned also and less costly areas that are still nice in Reno. All depends on what you're looking for.

I work in the electrical wholesale business and new construction has been pretty 'flat' for the last four years and was slowing down every since about 2007. Now that Tesla is building a huge place east of Reno, there is a housing frenzy going on and home prices and rental rates are steadily climbing again as there is an incursion of people who want one of the 2,000+ jobs that have been talked about. What's funny is that plant is almost 25 miles east of Reno and one would think there were 20,000 jobs coming up this summer by the way prices are going up...

Depending on your wife's experience, there are some decent jobs as medical assistants. As for HVAC work, that's a real hit-and-miss here, even for an A/C Expert. Some of the shops are union and other are not but, the only steady kind of work is service work. New construction for mechanical contractors is starving to death since there is very little going on.

My personal opinion is that you would like Reno better than Las Vegas. I don't know where you are coming from in No. California but, Reno has a much milder climate than Las Vegas, especially in the summer. The few times I have been there were all in the mid-summer. Three years ago I went there for a family reunion and it was 114 for the high and 94 at 4:00am the next morning! It stayed like that for several weeks which is typical for Las Vegas in the mid-summer. Yes, they are not as cold as Reno typically is during the winters but, Reno isn't a whole lot different than most of No. California for that matter. We have had a few winters that are pretty cold with some snow then we have had a few recently that are much warmer than usual and little to no rain and snow. I'm sure you know all about that too!

If you don't NEED to work when you get here, you can easily keep an eye on the job situation and put out feelers for what is out there. I would like to retire late this summer but, I probably won't get to do that since I need to keep health insurance for my wife who is disabled because Medicare is a joke to get prescription coverage. Half her medications aren't covered by any medicare plan but, my insurance through work pays that 80/20.

Paul
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