Moving...Suggestions? I've been being told Forks and PA are bad?

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by jkoenning

I do have another question though, when researching property, I saw Forks had some moderately priced housing, but noticed a lot of them were in excess of 300k. How do the people there afford that with no revenue or economic sources?

There are people here in the Seattle/Eastside that have built very nice vacation homes there, and go up for the weekends during the summer.
There are also "rain lovers" that have retired there. Their money comes from here, not from local jobs. The median household income is $36,000, the median home is worth $128,000. Compare that to Seattle at $61,000/$452,000.

[rainforest338]

Along with above, there are quite a few older people out there that used to work in the timber industry when it was booming. Land used to be a bit less costly, and you could take your own trees to the mill for processing (even working some trades); so it made building a 'dream house' a bit easier. There are some really nice, creative homes out there usually on a hill or next to a river.
Many of the nicer places seem to be people that are older and settled, just don't want or need to move. Also need to compare homes on a more local basis and not by state. The sq ft cost of a home in WA is higher than most mid-west and southern states.
The area does have some work, but not much is private business. There are jobs with schools, dept of transportation, law enforcement, natural resources, and hatcheries to name a few. For private business, it is kind of basics (grocery store, motels, restaurants, quicky mart), logging (driving trucks, building roads, cutting trees), coffee stands, forest product harvest, and fishing/hunting guides. It built itself almost solely upon logging, kind of like say Flint, MI and the auto industry; but is shifting more towards fishing/hunting tourism.