Austin To Santa Fe (Albuquerque, Pojoaque: for sale, houses, buy)

[southernjedi]

Awesome! Thanks for the info guys!

[santafescribe]

Originally Posted by Vinegaroon

There are plenty of jobs in the tourism industry. Your husband might want to start looking on the NM Personnel jobsite, and even perhaps start submitting applications ahead of time. There are many government jobs, and the one thing about NM is that the government retirement system is excellent.

In the paper this morning, the head of the Santa Fe CVB, Keith Toler, talked about increasing the sales staff for the new convention center - he's looking for a new director and a couple of experienced sales people. Check out Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau: santafe.org

[southernjedi]

Hubby and I were thinking if it would be too much on the wishful thinking side to start our own business in Santa Fe? Something that will incorporate itself very nicely into the Santa Fe community

[santafescribe]

Well, I just finished designing the Santa Fe Economic Development website, at www.SantaFeBiz.org - check it out and get some ideas!

[Towanda]

Originally Posted by southernjedi

Hubby and I were thinking if it would be too much on the wishful thinking side to start our own business in Santa Fe? Something that will incorporate itself very nicely into the Santa Fe community

Well, I guess that would depend on what kind of business you are hoping to start.

[lemon&lime]

I lived in Austin in the early 80s and from '89 to '94. I lived in Albuquerque from 2000-2004. Though I didn't live in Santa Fe I did visit frequently and can honestly say the whole area is much more spiritual, refined and cool than Austin. I moved back to Austin very briefly in 1997 and found many of the changes in the couple of years I'd been gone too difficult to put up with (ie explosion in development, traffic on Mopac, Californian transplants, etc) New Mexico does not have the same type of scene (ie tons of students and hipsters) I don't think either; people are even more laid back, though the area does have a mild aloofness about it. I'd rather live in Santa Fe for sure and will never move back to Austin, no one could pay me to live there.

[rybert]

Even as an outsider I could tell that Austin was being over-developed.

[southernjedi]

I've always wanted to have a folk art/craft/primitives shoppe. Selling all kinds of homemade candles, crafts, stitchin and even wool to make handmade folk art items. I have a list of people I know that make their own crafts and have really encouraged me to open a shoppe and sell their items too, maybe even give classes too. A lot of people have never seen primitives arts and crafts so I have no idea if this would work in Santa Fe. This is an example of what the store would offer just to give you an idea. I have a friend who has her own online store and it's called Dusty Hans and she also offers items wholesale. She's really all for my idea to move to Santa Fe and open my own store:

Primitive handmade dolls, quilt fabric, felting wool, treenware, reproductions and paper mache craft supplies

Do you think this would do well there?

[smcdow]

I haven't checked in for a while. Sorry if I'm replying to a stale thread.

Concerning growth: I should point out that when I moved to Austin in 1979, almost zero high-tech companies were located in Austin. What started the ball rolling for Austin's growth was a tiny, little company called PC's Limited which got going in 1984 in a student's dorm room.

PC's Limited grew quickly and attracted people to work for it. There were a few other high-tech companies in Austin back then, but none had the explosive growth and cachet that PC's Limited (which was renamed to Dell Computers) had back then. Those people coming to Austin to work for Dell and other companies attracted other businesses and investors to Austin because of Austin's growing talent pool, which attracted even more people to Austin because of the growing number of businesses in Austin, which attracted yet more companies and investors to Austin because of its growing talent pool, which ...

You get the picture. It's a snowball effect. I'm not saying that this will happen to Santa Fe, but all it would take to tip the scale towards the snowball effect is just one very, very successful company in a growing field to spring up in Santa Fe.

In Austin in 1979, it was completely unimaginable that Austin would ever become a overgrown "big city". It just would have been an absurd, ludicrous thought. Yet, just a few years later an honest-to-goodness nascent high-tech center took form in Austin. And, less than 15 years after that, Austin was well known worldwide as a technology center. By the time the Dot-Com boom hit, Austin was well-poised to be a desirable place to locate your dot-com startup.

So, never say never. If you think that this sort of thing would be impossible for Santa Fe, then remember that there was a time when it was considered impossible for Austin.

I do know that there are quite a few tiny, little high-tech companies located in Santa Fe. And, given Santa Fe's proximity to LANL, I'm surprised (and grateful!) that a wildly sucessful LANL spin-off hasn't already started in Santa Fe, and started the city down the road toward over growing. LANL is well known as a center of cutting edge technology. There are a lot of very smart people working there.

I'd be happy if Santa Fe never experienced the sort of growth that Austin went through. But, it certianly could happen.

[santafescribe]

Originally Posted by southernjedi

I've always wanted to have a folk art/craft/primitives shoppe.
Do you think this would do well there?

The idea seems interesting, but you must always consider that Santa Fe has - county included - just 120,000 people. That's a small market for anything. So your idea has to either appeal to a small but fanatical group who are not price sensitive and will keep coming back (dog owners come to mind in Santa Fe....) or it has to appeal to the (seasonal) tourist trade, with the associated strain on cash flow during those quiet months. Retail is tough - tougher in these days of course - but in a small town with relatively high commercial rental costs, it's very marginal. The combination of a retail presence and online eBay type presence might be a way to go.
Either way, one of you needs to have a day job to compensate!