Is winter in Rochester really that bad? (New York, Albany: for sale, real estate)
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I'm curious, how you could live here 18 years and forget how awful the winters are? I've never moved away for such a long period. How long does it take to forget??
If you are going to complain that Rochester gets affected by hurricanes once every hundred years or whatever and it breaks a few branches off of treess...you might as well complain that at any moment an asteroid the size of a house could come and whipe the whole place out in 10 seconds. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Hi,
My husband and I sat on the beach at the Pacific Ocean and I thought "What the heck are we doing staying in Rochester!" To think that we could have great weather so much more often was a thrill to think about.
I grew up in CA............... and very close to the pacific ocean. I can see while you were visiting falling in love with the good weather & sunshine ect....... but there is a HUGE cost to living in CA. Right now I feel like you sell your soul to live here........ and for what? The weather?? We're planning on relocating to PA or maybe NY so I am looking around on boards getting ideas & advice. But everyone asks us "WHY are you wanting to move? The weather here is SO great!, You can't beat the weather" ect. I am now 3 hrs from the ocean and frankly the weather here is God awful. The summers start in May and are 100+ & by July & August it's a good 113+ degrees. The intense heat lasts till mid Sept. but is still hot till October. In June -August I can't take my kids to the pool until 6 pm because the sun is so strong & HOT... theres only so much sunscreen can do. So we sit in the house until evening & stay out WAY past their bedtime just so they can DO SOMETHING!
NOW having said all that............ lol I have also never lived in snow..... it does get grey here in the winter and it rains but never snows. Winter usually hits around Dec. but not bad....... sometimes we even have a sunny Christmas. That BUGGS me. lol I want SOME snow........ I know NY gets abit more than SOME. lol I always wonder..... which is worse.... hating a good 5 months out of the yr here in the HEAT or not liking winter for half the time in NY or where ever. At least the kids can go out & play all bundled up in the snow. Mine can't go out at all in 113+ blazing sun.
Funny that your daughter moved back. Does she love it?? Or was it a rough adjustment for her?
Glad you are enjoying NV............ I have only driven through it...... I assume it gets pretty hot there as well!
I grew up in CA............... and very close to the pacific ocean. I can see while you were visiting falling in love with the good weather & sunshine ect....... but there is a HUGE cost to living in CA. Right now I feel like you sell your soul to live here........ and for what? The weather?? We're planning on relocating to PA or maybe NY so I am looking around on boards getting ideas & advice. But everyone asks us "WHY are you wanting to move? The weather here is SO great!, You can't beat the weather" ect. I am now 3 hrs from the ocean and frankly the weather here is God awful. The summers start in May and are 100+ & by July & August it's a good 113+ degrees. The intense heat lasts till mid Sept. but is still hot till October. In June -August I can't take my kids to the pool until 6 pm because the sun is so strong & HOT... theres only so much sunscreen can do. So we sit in the house until evening & stay out WAY past their bedtime just so they can DO SOMETHING!
NOW having said all that............ lol I have also never lived in snow..... it does get grey here in the winter and it rains but never snows. Winter usually hits around Dec. but not bad....... sometimes we even have a sunny Christmas. That BUGGS me. lol I want SOME snow........ I know NY gets abit more than SOME. lol I always wonder..... which is worse.... hating a good 5 months out of the yr here in the HEAT or not liking winter for half the time in NY or where ever. At least the kids can go out & play all bundled up in the snow. Mine can't go out at all in 113+ blazing sun.
Funny that your daughter moved back. Does she love it?? Or was it a rough adjustment for her?
Glad you are enjoying NV............ I have only driven through it...... I assume it gets pretty hot there as well!
I think CA is in worst shape than NYS. But I still think NYS is just as bad. I would say NY, CA, NV, FL,Oh and MI are currently the worst states to live in. Mainly due to the economy, jobs and home foreclosures.
Upstate NY is not NEARLY as costly to live in as anywhere in CA...not even close. Pittsford, the most expensive place in this region, probably has a lower cost of living than just about anywhere in CA (and anyplace in CA that would be cheaper to live in than Pittsford would NOT be a very desirable place to live). Upstate NY has high taxes and that's about the only thing more expensive than in CA. If you are talking about Long Island or Westchester county then your assessment would be correct; but you can't put Rochester or anywhere North and West of Kingston in that "unliveably expensive) category that CA would be in. Also Rochester's home forclosure rate, while increasing, is still far far below the rate of that in CA and most of teh rest of the country infact. Hence the reason that our very modest housing market is considered the 2nd "Best" in the country.
If you really want to get your hands around the upstate NY v. CA cost of living issue, do a city comparison between Pittsford and Mill Valley in Marin County (a very comparable Bay Area town). You will find almost identical demographics, same average income (no kidding almost to the dollar) but average home price of $250,000+ in Pittsford and $1+ million in Mill Valley. To get a home with amenities you see in Pittsford in the $400,000-$500,000 range routinely costs you $2-2.5 million in Mill Valley (if you can find it - most homes are remodels of junk built in the 1950s as basic middle class ranchers without insulation - lipstick on a pig).
Rochester's home forclosure rate, while increasing, is still far far below the rate of that in CA and most of teh rest of the country infact. Hence the reason that our very modest housing market is considered the 2nd "Best" in the country.
You and Garmin are both smart guys, so I don't understand why you're both still cheerleaders for Rochester RE, especially since you both grew up about the same time I did. Do the research, Rochester is really going to get whipped. Doggz3's houses may be throwing off this much or that much in rent per month now, but we'll see in 2 years.
I know several of my friend's parents who owned properties throughout Rochester and they still say it was the worst investment ever.
i'm not saying its that good here..i'm saying its not that bad and could be a lot worse st(and is in most of the country). Rochester has a generaly unexciting yet stable real estate market...we dont' have huge spikes in home values and prices, but we also don't have the dramatic recession-causing drops either. I don't consider this a great place to invest if you are looking to buy a house and sell it for some huge profit a few years later, but, even with our outragous property taxes, owning a home here is an option available to more people who wont' have to worry about losing it than in many (currently, most) other areas.
i'm not saying its that good here..i'm saying its not that bad and could be a lot worse st(and is in most of the country). Rochester has a generaly unexciting yet stable real estate market...we dont' have huge spikes in home values and prices, but we also don't have the dramatic recession-causing drops either. I don't consider this a great place to invest if you are looking to buy a house and sell it for some huge profit a few years later, but, even with our outragous property taxes, owning a home here is an option available to more people who wont' have to worry about losing it than in many (currently, most) other areas.
Gotcha, thank you for taking the time to reply. For future reference - should we disagree - I love Rochester. I think we have similar opinions about what makes it great, but differences about what's broken and what needs fixed.
Oh definitely, I've seen other posts of yours and know you aren't here to "bash" Rochester or anything like that. Just explaining how I see things. Nobody sees everything the same way.
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