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509, eastern WA gets very cold in the winter, the Sound moderates the temperature year round and some people don't mind the wet and enjoy seeing green year round. To each their own, no need to get worked up about it.
I like visiting your part of the state, but I could never live there. While I love seeing the diversity of the state, I prefer my views of the heavily forested Cascade foothills and too many sunny days in a row really gets to me. Yeah, there are some crazies that never leave home without their sunglasses just in case the sun breaks through. Not saying I don't enjoy some sunny days, but I generally like the balance of clouds and sun over here in on western side. Don't get me wrong, I understand I am in the minority when it comes to this and warn potential newbies of our dark and gloomy winters, but I view the pros as outweighing the cons.
It might surprise you to know that irrigation is important on our side of the mountains, that year where we didn't really get any snow hurt a lot of farmers over here. You might want to come back for a summer visit this year, we're not all rain and gloom
Yes. I agree. It's dry and desolate, too rural, and there's no jobs over here.
I would much prefer everyone stay crammed into that little chunk of green and wet, and leave us more wide open spaces...
Based on everything I've read though, I think I'm leaning more towards the west side. Olympia specifically looks very appealing. It looks large enough for my line of work, small enough to keep traffic down. It seems somewhat affluent, although not at the Seattle level. Lot prices seem reasonable. And it looks very beautiful. It seems that you could get views of Rainer and of the Olympic Mountains around Olympia/Tumwater/Lacey. I am curious how far outside of those areas I could go before it becomes extremely rural and more rundown/poor.
The Olympia area is appealing, it's beautiful, and our economy is pretty healthy here.
It is not difficult at all to find a beautiful piece of property with nice views, often within a 15-30 minute commutable distance of town.
The only idea I wish to correct in your post is your last sentence. Finding a nice property should be mostly about how far you want to be from town. I would not associate even very rural areas, with being rundown or poor, necessarily. There's all kinds everywhere of course... and being out in the sticks sometimes does allow for a lower cost of living and a lack of strict HOA required landscaping, but that doesn't necessarily mean run down... Driving very rural areas does not usually imply you'll see lots of poor or depressed people. Sometimes it's wealth that affords one the ability to live far from the things of man.
What often makes commute easier in this area is how far of a hop it is to the freeway. If you are within a reasonable hop to the freeway, even Lewis or Mason Counties become a very tolerable commute to Olympia.
There are some negative issues with developing in rural Thurston County. I can answer more if you're interested, but it's probably more than I should try to fit in this post. If you're interested in building from scratch... Google Mazama Pocket gopher in Thurston County. Read some of the news and county websites. We are trying to turn around some of the recent limitations imposed on us, we have elected two new reform Commissioners this last November. But it will take time. Lewis and/or Mason county will have a better, faster, easier permitting process.
Most of the issues with Thurston County only affect you if you build from scratch or need a building permit for new construction. Existing homes are not affected.
The Olympia area is appealing, it's beautiful, and our economy is pretty healthy here.
It is not difficult at all to find a beautiful piece of property with nice views, often within a 15-30 minute commutable distance of town.
The only idea I wish to correct in your post is your last sentence. Finding a nice property should be mostly about how far you want to be from town. I would not associate even very rural areas, with being rundown or poor, necessarily. There's all kinds everywhere of course... and being out in the sticks sometimes does allow for a lower cost of living and a lack of strict HOA required landscaping, but that doesn't necessarily mean run down... Driving very rural areas does not usually imply you'll see lots of poor or depressed people. Sometimes it's wealth that affords one the ability to live far from the things of man.
What often makes commute easier in this area is how far of a hop it is to the freeway. If you are within a reasonable hop to the freeway, even Lewis or Mason Counties become a very tolerable commute to Olympia.
There are some negative issues with developing in rural Thurston County. I can answer more if you're interested, but it's probably more than I should try to fit in this post. If you're interested in building from scratch... Google Mazama Pocket gopher in Thurston County. Read some of the news and county websites. We are trying to turn around some of the recent limitations imposed on us, we have elected two new reform Commissioners this last November. But it will take time. Lewis and/or Mason county will have a better, faster, easier permitting process.
Most of the issues with Thurston County only affect you if you build from scratch or need a building permit for new construction. Existing homes are not affected.
Thanks for the info. I have been warned about the endangered gopher and that if a property requires a gopher study it can take a year plus.
Here is my concern regarding the rural area. My wife and I have visited a few other cities, with the intention of being in a smaller city within 20 minutes of a hub city. What we have found in the few places we've visited is that these outskirt cities are very poor. You would have a nice house surrounded by dump trailers with garbage everywhere. It'd be hard for me to buy a piece of land and build a nice home on it being right next to that. Now I realize that all areas are going to have areas that are less wealthy. In my current home right across the street there is a fairly crappy mobile home park. But there are lots of very nice communities surrounding this area, so it's the exception, not the rule.
Now all of this said, it does appear the Thurston County and north all the way up to Everett has higher median wages and real estate prices than other areas we've looked. So I would assume that even in the more rural areas there are nicer areas than what we've been exposed to in other cities. I'd be lying though if I didn't say I was concerned.
In terms of location, our priorities are as follows: Beautiful land, with views if possible. Access to nature. If we had a piece of property within walking or biking distance of a nice big hiking park or trail system, that would be amazing. If not, within a short drive would be nice. A nice little walkable downtown with things to do. We aren't night life clubbing type people. But we like to be out and about evening nights and weekends if there is something to do. Even if it's just going to a nice restaurant and then walking around downtown or something. Bonus points if this is within walking or biking distance for daytime downtown excursions. I don't know if this is possible though, so it's not as big of a priority. Lastly, work drive times. My nature of work often involves me driving to various places throughout the community. For this reason, being close to larger population centers (40k people versus 3k) and being in an area that doesn't have terrible traffic problems, would be nice. Lastly, on the weekends we plan on going on little day trips to mountain hiking/biking/kayaking/whatever. We have dogs, so our trips can't be 14 hours long. As such, a drive time of about an hour is around our limit that we would want to get access to these things. I think from Olympia to Mt. Rainer National Park it's closer to 1.5 hours. Not ideal, but if everything else was great it'd be acceptable. If we lived slightly closer to Rainer to cut that down to an hour 10 or so, even better.
I guess just a nice blend of the above. Right now I'm eyeballing the areas just north of Olympia, I guess it's called N. Olympia and Boston Harbor, over to Nisqually Wildlife area, south to E. Olympia area and then northwest to the Madrona Beach area. I'm not sure if I should expand or retract my search in any directions. One last thing I should mention is I want to have high speed internet access available. That is a deal breaker if I didn't.
I'm also mildly intrigued by the areas outside of Tacoma. Lakewood/Puyallup. I'm under the impression that Tacoma is where the traffic starts to get bad. I've also ready Tacoma isn't as nice/safe as Olympia (although, what that really means I don't know?). I'm curious if the areas south and east are just outside enough to avoid the terrible traffic, while still maintaining close proximity to a major population center if I need to go there.
Lastly - I may have mentioned this in these threads before, I do have some trepidation regarding the roads. Being a flatlander, steep grades, big curves with drop offs, especially in icy/snowy conditions makes me nervous. I will probably get used to this. But if there are any areas that are particularly scary I'd like to know so I can avoid that area.
PS90, western WA is not Seattle from the Canadian border to the OR border, we do have our wide open spaces. You should come over the mountains and visit the other half of the state, maybe check out the Olympic peninsula or the farming communities.
Some of us even live on acreage and those big meanies in Seattle haven't come and forced us to build apartments on it and a Whole Foods!
Couple of thoughts. You do not need to go all the way to Rainier to find nice places to bike or hike in W WA. We have, just to the West of us in Olympia, Capital State Forest, with thousands of acres of improved and mapped trails, open to hiking, biking and horseback riding. Closer in are lots of smaller parks and trails.... Chehalis Western Trail is part of the wider Rails To Trails program. Tolmie State park has a great walking trail that is local... Many others... no need to drive to the mountains to find woods to hike in.
Look in the West side of Olympia, Black Lake and Tumwater areas too. Many of the things you are looking for in terms of pretty homes, nice areas, good outdoor recreation are found on the West side.
The downtown evening walking thing is a little harder to find... and maybe it's just our W WA culture of many months of rain.... we don't do a lot of urban walking to shops and restaurants.... but you can find some of that in Olympia.
If that's important.... maybe look at Gig Harbor. It's a little quaint town with lots of shops down by the water... not sure you'd find them open after dark though.... the restaurants are.
Last edited by Diana Holbrook; 01-17-2017 at 10:33 AM..
My wife and I have visited a few other cities, with the intention of being in a smaller city within 20 minutes of a hub city. What we have found in the few places we've visited is that these outskirt cities are very poor. You would have a nice house surrounded by dump trailers with garbage everywhere. It'd be hard for me to buy a piece of land and build a nice home on it being right next to that. Now I realize that all areas are going to have areas that are less wealthy. In my current home right across the street there is a fairly crappy mobile home park. But there are lots of very nice communities surrounding this area, so it's the exception, not the rule.
Now all of this said, it does appear the Thurston County and north all the way up to Everett has higher median wages and real estate prices than other areas we've looked. So I would assume that even in the more rural areas there are nicer areas than what we've been exposed to in other cities. I'd be lying though if I didn't say I was concerned.
Hazardous to extrapolate rule-of thumb experiences elsewhere to here, and especially to the Puget Sound area (Bellingham to Olympia). Lots of posters come here with assumptions garnered elsewhere that just don't apply here. If really interested, you should come out for a visit.
Hazardous to extrapolate rule-of thumb experiences elsewhere to here, and especially to the Puget Sound area (Bellingham to Olympia). Lots of posters come here with assumptions garnered elsewhere that just don't apply here. If really interested, you should come out for a visit.
We have about 5 days during Spring Break where we are going to be able to go somewhere. Right now the number 1 contender is Olympia. I just want to make sure I use my 5 days wisely and hit up the right areas.
It doesn't snow much west of Seattle. The large area of sea water, whose temperature ranges from a high of maybe 55 to 60 degrees in summer, to a low of 45 to 50 in winter, moderates the swings in air temperature. It doesn't normally snow much. Of the four winters I lived in the north Olympic Peninsula, it did not snow at all except in the highest mountains during two of those winters. The other two winters saw some snow, but it was NOTHING compared to more inland areas. Shoveling? Ha, there was none for us. It was a four-year holiday from shoveling. Now, the farther from the water and higher you go, the more chance of encountering snow. No surprise there.
There can still be some slippery roads or spots, but unless you intend to drive up mountain roads in winter, this is virtually a non-issue. Then again, I lived the entire rest of my life in two regions with heavy-duty winters. Since you come from FL, just be careful but not fearful. If you want the year-round *naturally watered greenery* without the summer humidity, the more coastal side of the PNW fits the bill.
We have about 5 days during Spring Break where we are going to be able to go somewhere. Right now the number 1 contender is Olympia. I just want to make sure I use my 5 days wisely and hit up the right areas.
Then you won' t be far from the Kitsap Peninsula, check that out. It would suit your needs, but my post got walked all over.
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