Ohio to Santa Rosa, CA. need advice!! (San Francisco, Sonoma: real estate, apartment)

[marcrnsm]

Our current unemployment rate is 15% and is worse in the winter season due to Cedar Point. The area depends on Cedar Point, but when it closes in the fall you can't buy a job. All jobs here are retail, so when the tourist leave so do the jobs. My girlfriend and I are wondering how much money would it cost for rent, where is the best place to live, and is it is easy to get a average job to help start paying the bills immediatly. We hope to be able to scrape together $2000 to get us started coming down. She has worked mostly retail, I have done mostly manufacturing and transportation (non-CDL). Are we doomed?

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by marcrnsm

Our current unemployment rate is 15% and is worse in the winter season due to Cedar Point. The area depends on Cedar Point, but when it closes in the fall you can't buy a job. All jobs here are retail, so when the tourist leave so do the jobs. My girlfriend and I are wondering how much money would it cost for rent, where is the best place to live, and is it is easy to get a average job to help start paying the bills immediatly. We hope to be able to scrape together $2000 to get us started coming down. She has worked mostly retail, I have done mostly manufacturing and transportation (non-CDL). Are we doomed?

Pretty much, yep!!! Although the unemployment rate isn't quite that high, it is about the same with few jobs and those that are available are for pretty skilled professionals, like the medical field as an example. Even jobs in the fast food industry are not all that easy to find. I have heard InnOut is hiring, I don't even know if that is for real and I don't think there is one in the Santa Rosa area unless it has opened in the past couple of years, maybe it has.


$2000 would not be a dent in what you would need to get started. It would be enough to get you from Ohio to California and maybe would last about a week or two if you were very careful. Would you be driving one or two cars, that would make some difference. But if you only have one car, for both of you to get to and from work, if you can find jobs would not be easy. Are you both unemployed right now and are you drawing unemployment benefits?

Good luck, but I think you might be better off looking somewhere else or staying put for the time being.

Florida might now be everyone's favorite place, but it would be a little better than Ca I think.
Nita

[Roccaluma]

You might have to come up with 3 or 4 grand just to move into some kind of dump apartment. That is if the landlords let you rent their cherished dump. They would do a credit check and expect that you have a job or jobs. As soon as you get into california you would then have to deal with smog. So your car might become useless because it might not pass smog or cost thousands to fix. Or you could just leave your car with its old plates from Ohio, but a cop might notice after awhile and give you a ticket, you are required to change registration within 30 days.
You might if you are dead set on moving here find a shared rental place that lets you both share a room for $400 on up.
High taxes are everywhere. And since everyone has too pay such high rent and real estate prices, that means that wages have to be high enough to pay the workers to live here. I find it amazing that I cannot find a $10-$12 large pizza with a few toppings here at a pizza joint. For example there is no Dominos anywhere near Forestville or Sebastopol, so one day I was dying for some pizza, I ended up at a nonchain place and payed $22 for a medium with two toppings. How can that be? That is what this place is like, the normal costs for things creep up and up. Gasoline is always 30 cents to 40 cents higher here. Currently I am paying $3 bucks a gallon.
Also you must realize that you will never be allowed to own a home here! The homes here are for people who both work and make a combined income of $70,000 or more.
You could always buy a van and sleep in it, theres a homeless shelter that lets you park your car in their lot and sleep at night in a big dormitory room. It has showers washers and driers and feeds you one meal in the afternoon. They will nag you about a job and you have to have some kind of plan and some proof showing your job search and or savings if you get a job, you might be able to stay there 3 months. Morgon street catholic charities will guide you there.
This place is immorral in its real estate prices, I kind of hope a major depression hits to just crush real estate prices here.

[gogetta]

Do you live in Sandusky?

[xyv1027]

Marcrnsm, Santa Rosa is not that far from some spectacular wine country including the Sonoma and Alexander Valleys. I was in the area last week for a couple nights and saw several establishments and some wineries that were hiring. I wonder if your girlfriends retail experience could get her the in she needs at one of these places? And wineries also have a need for more labor intensive jobs related to production and bottling. Peak harvesting and wine production season is right around the corner. Just a thought...

[Joe_Ryder]

California has the most Expensive housing in the US and Santa Rosa, though cheaper than San Francisco is much more expensive than Ohio. Unless you're prepared to live in you car somewhere you won't make it.

Fuel gets progressively more expensive as you head west. If you only have $2000, much of that will be gone once you get here. You are much closer to places like Texas and the South who are also having trouble but are not nearly as expensive as CA. Texas in particular has more manufacturing jobs than CA.

I don't want to sound negative because I've been in your shoes brother but CA isn't the place right now. I'm not saying it's impossible but just that it would be easier somewhere else.