Impressions of Santa Fe trip... (Albuquerque, Rio Rancho: homes, buying, places to live)

[newportbeachsmostwanted]

Originally Posted by mdmagana

I have been living in Santa Fe for 2 years now and I am counting down the days until I can leave! It sucks!

It is a cool place to visit, but a terrible place to live! Most of the people that live here and tell you it is wonderful are locals that have never lived anywhere else, and thus have no idea what a civilized society is.

Here are my dislikes:

1. I tihnk the cost of living is very high.... and I come from Orange County, CA!

2. The New Mexico education system sucks so be prepared to deal with lots of idiots!

3. The roads suck, and suck even more so when it snows becuase they don't salt anything or have nearly enough plows.

4. If you are used to big chain stores and lots of strip malls you will be disappointed. There is a Best Buy, but no Circuit City or CompUSA. There is a Home Depot, but only recently did we also get a Lowes. There are only two Grocery Store chains in town unless you count Whole Foods. (Which I dont!) Generally, fast food places are all very, very over priced and the quality is inferior to their out-of-state or even Albuquerque counterparts.

5. For some reason the no one can explain to me (including my state represetative and senator) the price of gas here is very high!

6. The price of water is EXTREMELY high!

7. If you are not inclined to vote for Hilary in the upcoming election then you probably won't like it here. The political climate seems more liberal that San Fransisco if you can believe it.

8. Medical facilities here are terrible. There is one hospital, St. Vincents... it should be renamed St. Victims. If you value you health care you have to go to Albuquerque.

9. The Food! If you like Hot as Hell TexMex stuff you might like it here. Personally I can't stand any of the "Mexican" food here. It is very different than Mexican food in California and with few exceptions, I think it all sucks.

10. Bad Drivers! I have driven all over the country and New Mexico has the worst damn drivers I have ever seen! There is one major interchange in this entire state and no one here can seem to grasp the concept. It doesn't matter if you are on the freeway in Albuquerque, the Interstate, or just driving around the streets of Santa Fe.... bad drivers everywhere!

Those are my top 10 complaints about Santa Fe. If I was planning to stay in New Mexico I would move to Albuquerque in a heartbeat. Bad drivers aside, I like Albuquerque... the rest of the state pretty much blows as a place to live. there are lots of cool things to see and do while visiting here. Santa Fe is an awesome place to visit on a vacation... but is way to ass backwards for me to tolerate living here much longer.

For me, I was unfavorable of New Mexico too.

It was late at night and I decided to stop at one of the first few towns after crossing the border. I did not see any famaliar signs.(No 76! No In N Out! No Best Western!) Instead, I got gas at some no-name place and waited in line behind five different people [all looked illegal]. Not only that, but I actually bought[lol] an "I Love L.A." Randy Newman cd at the counter. (Horrible cd!) I was just thinking at this point, Goddd get me the heck outta there. Northern Arizona was a much pleasant experience. Hopefully in the future, I will have a better experience to rid me impression of NM.

[tito]

Originally Posted by artichoke63

LLD,

Wonderful comment. Spanish is a lovely language. Many people in the U.S. tend to be insular. In Europe and all over the rest of the world, people grow up speaking several languages in order to communicate with other cultures!

Artie

Lovely or not, knowing a second language is a plus, except when the foreign laguage is spoken to avoid becoming Americanized. I'm a hispanic who migrated to the Good U.S.A. to improve my professional skills and to give my family a better place to grow and to live. I do speak Spanish and made sure that my children did too, but only as way to maintain our roots, not as a rebellion agaisnt the Country that has given us so much.

[Towanda]

newportbeachsmostwanted:

You were in New Mexico.

How exactly does someone "look" illegal?

[tito]

I suppose that anyone who looks poor and speaks Spanish in public is considered a "illegal", because that is the sterotype. The truth is that any citizen from any country in the globe can be an illegal citizen.

[elfyum]

Can someone tell me the good the bad & the "regular" zip codes in Santa Fe? Cause I went to realtor dot com & saw some CHEAP houses!!! They look nice too! And they're big & have land. But maybe they are not in good areas...?
You wanna talk expensive? Look at houses in Miami!!!

[tito]

Look at prices of houses in San Francisco and in Washington DC too. Everything is relative, if you can afford the price is not expensive, because you will have paid a high price, but you also will get a high price when you sell. In my own experience, the best way to gauge a neighborhood is by seeing it with your own eyes and by talking to residents who live there. People who do not live in a particular neighborhood do not have a first hand experience to recommend it or not.

[jazzlover]

Santa Fe has become for New Mexico what Aspen has been for Colorado for years: a "vision," mostly concocted by transplants from everyplace else of what New Mexico (or Colorado, in Aspen's case) "should" be like. The fact that the "vision" never really squares with the historical reality is of little consequence. ("Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.") Aside from the fact that such places always tend become unaffordable to the people who were born there, lived there, worked there, and (before all the development) retired and died there, most of the "natives" wind up leaving because the "truth" of the place is replaced with fiction.

Santa Fe wasn't the first place that this happened, and--sadly, it won't be the last. Places like Durango, Telluride, Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Glenwood Springs--just to name a few in Colorado have headed down that road. Santa Fe and Taos in New Mexico are just the New Mexico version.

So, if one wants to live the (expensive) fictional, fantasy version of New Mexico, Santa Fe is the place. If one wants the "real deal," go elsehwere. Too bad, there really is some great history in Santa Fe, but one has to dig through all the fiction to get to it. The sad thing is that the typical mass-media drowned, 30-second attention span suburban American drone can't tell the difference! Of course, they probably think that Taco Bell is actually Mexican food, too.

[Towanda]

Well, Gee whiz!!!!

Why not just kick all the "outsiders" out of Santa Fe????

Why not pass some laws so that "outsiders" (despite the fact that I have been a property owner/taxpayer in NM for 15 years) are not allowed to move into the state??????

Why not just continue to assume that "outsiders" coming in to Santa Fe and Taos are bad for the state?????

Plunderers...cheapening the history of the city and state...driving up costs....and for heaven's sake: we cannot even tell Taco Bell from "real" food.

[BrianH]

Originally Posted by mdmagana View Post
I have been living in Santa Fe for 2 years now and I am counting down the days until I can leave! It sucks!

It is a cool place to visit, but a terrible place to live! Most of the people that live here and tell you it is wonderful are locals that have never lived anywhere else, and thus have no idea what a civilized society is.

Here are my dislikes:

1. I tihnk the cost of living is very high.... and I come from Orange County, CA!

2. The New Mexico education system sucks so be prepared to deal with lots of idiots!

3. The roads suck, and suck even more so when it snows becuase they don't salt anything or have nearly enough plows.

4. If you are used to big chain stores and lots of strip malls you will be disappointed. There is a Best Buy, but no Circuit City or CompUSA. There is a Home Depot, but only recently did we also get a Lowes. There are only two Grocery Store chains in town unless you count Whole Foods. (Which I dont!) Generally, fast food places are all very, very over priced and the quality is inferior to their out-of-state or even Albuquerque counterparts.

5. For some reason the no one can explain to me (including my state represetative and senator) the price of gas here is very high!

6. The price of water is EXTREMELY high!

7. If you are not inclined to vote for Hilary in the upcoming election then you probably won't like it here. The political climate seems more liberal that San Fransisco if you can believe it.

8. Medical facilities here are terrible. There is one hospital, St. Vincents... it should be renamed St. Victims. If you value you health care you have to go to Albuquerque.

9. The Food! If you like Hot as Hell TexMex stuff you might like it here. Personally I can't stand any of the "Mexican" food here. It is very different than Mexican food in California and with few exceptions, I think it all sucks.

10. Bad Drivers! I have driven all over the country and New Mexico has the worst damn drivers I have ever seen! There is one major interchange in this entire state and no one here can seem to grasp the concept. It doesn't matter if you are on the freeway in Albuquerque, the Interstate, or just driving around the streets of Santa Fe.... bad drivers everywhere!

Those are my top 10 complaints about Santa Fe. If I was planning to stay in New Mexico I would move to Albuquerque in a heartbeat. Bad drivers aside, I like Albuquerque... the rest of the state pretty much blows as a place to live. there are lots of cool things to see and do while visiting here. Santa Fe is an awesome place to visit on a vacation... but is way to ass backwards for me to tolerate living here much longer.

1) Youre right the cost of living is really expensive there
2) Not all of it, terrible to generalise all New Mexicans.
3) Roads are as narrow as you can get i agree there. They usually do get salted though.
4) Albuquerque is down the road. The benefit to living in either city is its so close to the other.
5) Simple, companies can charge what they want to charge.
6) Drought
7) No comment
8) Its not a bad hospital, but as you said Abq is down the road.
9) Cant believe you called it TexMex. New Mexican food is the best food that is closest to Mexican. There is always hamburgers, nobody forces you to eat it.
10) Have you been to Texas ?

[Carlitosway]

Originally Posted by elfyum

Can someone tell me the good the bad & the "regular" zip codes in Santa Fe? Cause I went to realtor dot com & saw some CHEAP houses!!! They look nice too! And they're big & have land. But maybe they are not in good areas...?
You wanna talk expensive? Look at houses in Miami!!!

I've been making reservations for my trip and think SF is very expensive. Even more than South Florida. And now there is going to be a bill where if it passes, property taxes will be null.