Considering a move from Green Bay, WI to Spokane (Airway Heights: transplants, crime)

[GBisBitterCold]

Hi All - This is my first post in these forums, but my wife and I are growing sick of the absolute bitter cold winters in Green Bay, WI. We're not too crazy about the amount of snow we get here either as shoveling is a bit of a pain.

We have lived in Wisconsin all our lives, but see that Spokane seems to have milder winters with similiar (even less humid) summers, which sounded good to us.

From what I see, Spokane's typical temp in Jan/Feb ranges from 20-40, and if it snows, it usually melts or does not get a chance to accumulate at a high rate. Being from Wisconsin, we can handle the odd times that it get's below zero, so I just wanted to confirm that is not the norm, as it hovers in the single digits/teens for most of Jan/Feb in WI.

Also, we'd be looking to start a family and getting a house < $160k. Spokane is about twice the size of Green Bay, so we're not concerned with the comments I've read on here regarding Spokane being "behind the times", and "don't move here"... it can't be any worse than GB...

I've read thru the forums twice, but any added comments from Wisconsin transplants particularily would be great! Thanks in advance!

[st33lcas3]

Wow. Farve has only been gone a week or so and people are already leaving town?

[vette-dude]

To look for housing....I used windermere.com and Johnlscott.com and put in your criteria..

Price of the homes depends on where in the Spokane location you want to live...we were going to purchase in the Suncrest area-which is directly at Lake Spokane and approximately 30 minutes from the city of Spokane...There are a good number of families in this location...older homes in this location start at around $180,000 and up......

The Spokane valley has a good number of "new" construction which may be of interest to you as well.....

We went through this process , had a very good realtor to assist us, plus family in the area...

Good Luck...

[ArcticPhoenix]

Originally Posted by GBisBitterCold

Hi All - This is my first post in these forums, but my wife and I are growing sick of the absolute bitter cold winters in Green Bay, WI. We're not too crazy about the amount of snow we get here either as shoveling is a bit of a pain.

We have lived in Wisconsin all our lives, but see that Spokane seems to have milder winters with similiar (even less humid) summers, which sounded good to us.

From what I see, Spokane's typical temp in Jan/Feb ranges from 20-40, and if it snows, it usually melts or does not get a chance to accumulate at a high rate. Being from Wisconsin, we can handle the odd times that it get's below zero, so I just wanted to confirm that is not the norm, as it hovers in the single digits/teens for most of Jan/Feb in WI.

Also, we'd be looking to start a family and getting a house < $160k. Spokane is about twice the size of Green Bay, so we're not concerned with the comments I've read on here regarding Spokane being "behind the times", and "don't move here"... it can't be any worse than GB...

I've read thru the forums twice, but any added comments from Wisconsin transplants particularily would be great! Thanks in advance!

It will be very difficult to find a nice house here for under 160K. I'm sure it can be done, but it will be a tough challenge. As far as winters go, the winters here, in MY opinion, suck major donkey balls. Now keep in mind, however, that I'm from a place where the winters are a considerable amount warmer (about a 20 degree difference during the day), so this response may be skewed.

Summers here are perfect, though... WHEN it actually gets around to BEING summer. Spring and Fall are a bit on the nippy side, however, and winters are, in my opinion too farking cold. Yes, they are milder than Green Bay, obviously, and they don't get as much snow, but the winters here are still long and depressing. As far as temps go, though, below zero is pretty uncommon around Spokane. I think I've seen it get to below zero once or twice and I've been here for just over four years now.

[GBisBitterCold]

How is the wind chill? Is the spokane area very windy? or is wind chill not brought up very much?

Also, is the NW side of town south of Garland horrible? I saw some nicely redone houses, but do not see any of the neighbors' houses. Wasn't sure if it was just a quick flip in a bad neighborhood, or if the owners actually took nice care of their house.

[ArcticPhoenix]

Originally Posted by GBisBitterCold

How is the wind chill? Is the spokane area very windy? or is wind chill not brought up very much?

Also, is the NW side of town south of Garland horrible? I saw some nicely redone houses, but do not see any of the neighbors' houses. Wasn't sure if it was just a quick flip in a bad neighborhood, or if the owners actually took nice care of their house.

Ahh, as far as the wind chill goes, the Airway Heights area out by the airport is pretty windy, and this is especially true (or so it seems) in the winter. The wind chill is bad in that area. The Valley isn't too bad, though. As far as the NW side of town goes, the areas are sort of hit and miss, though I'd say that much of the area is turning around for the better.

[ILoveSpokane]

Spokane for the most part is not windy like your neck of the woods. The west plains (Airway Heights) are, but the Spokane and the other surrounding cities to the north and east are not. We had a pretty rough winter - that seemed to last forever - but that is not the norm. We do get snowfall that sticks around awhile though. We do usually get a few days where it drops below 0, but never during daytime hours. I would say there is about a 30 days in the winter that are below freezing the whole day through - but i am no expert, just going off memory here.

As for affordable homes, I would say the most bang for your buck (and not wanting a large home) is in the Audubon Park / Downriver Area. It is southwest of Shadle Park High School and the Zip is 99205.

Hope this helps!

[Deena160]

You've obviously already found the city-data site which is a great fount of knowledge. Here's a couple of other links to help. This is the one that's the Spokane crime map which will show you the better parts of town. Unfortunately, I don't think they have one for the Valley yet.
http://www.spokanegis.org/crimemap/default.asp
Also try maps.google.com. Spokane is one of the few places in the country that has the drive by option. If you haven't seen it yet, you gotta check it out. It's awesome. You can choose almost anywhere in Spokane and the Valley and "virtually" drive around the neighorhoods you're interested in. It's made it much easier to cross houses off my list since I'm shopping online, especially since neighborhoods change very quickly--one minute you seem like you're in a pretty nice one, but then you cross over another road and it's not so nice anymore.
Good luck with your search! We've been over twice now(three if you include driving through to look at a couple of homes on the way back from vacation) and we think we're going to like it there. :~) D