[Tetto]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't call it cheap. Very comparable to Fairfield County. I've been looking high and low since Monday and have come across great deals - some are bank owned, but others are just your average sale. I don't think a 4br home with over 2300 SF priced at a little over $500k is much different than here, especially when I'm looking at estimated taxes of $4k a year. Here, taxes would be about 8k on the same house.

I'm just trying to compare. So far, I'm finding that CT has a heck of a lot of hidden costs and trying to find what those hidden costs are in CA.

Either way, good luck and I hope your wife gets the job. It's a great place to live and the weather is perfect. Except for winter, the rainy season. I was there one winter (1998 I think..) and it rained every, day 24 hrs a day, for 31 days straight. That season was one of the worst; they had mudslides everywhere.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by jjinla

Kid - we moved from the South Bay in LA, but DH grew up in Sonoma and all of his family still resides there. Most of my friends have since left LA for NorCal because let's face it, most of LA is starting to resemble a 3rd world country.

I do think that prices are still dropping in Danville a little but if something is listing at $350K there, it's not going to be nice at all. An 'average' home there (50's-ish 1600 sq. ft. ranch with not much land) would run about $700K+, I would guess - at least in the nicer areas/higher elevations. Walnut Creek is even more, but closer to BART. Places like Dublin and Livermore are cheaper, but I don't know what the schools are like.

Money being no object, I would choose Tiburon near Marin, but the 101 is a nightmare in the morning with no mass transit options, so any further than that, and you would have a major headache. Some people even commute from Petaluma to SF and I think they are nuts.

OK, two more questions and I promise, I'm done making this thread about me.

What are the property taxes out there on a home worth 400ish? Just a ballpark. Here, that would run about $7500.

Also, what about earthquake insurance? I asked a friend who lives in LA, and she doesn't have it due to huge deductibles and lack of coverage for things like detatched garages, and contents within the home.

Originally Posted by Tetto

Either way, good luck and I hope your wife gets the job. It's a great place to live and the weather is perfect. Except for winter, the rainy season. I was there one winter (1998 I think..) and it rained every, day 24 hrs a day, for 31 days straight. That season was one of the worst; they had mudslides everywhere.

Thanks guy.

[jjinla]

Taxes on a $400Kish house I would guess would be about $5K a year. But be prepared, if your neighbors bought the same house 40 years ago, their's will be about $1K, and it will annoy you to no end (another reason why the state is going broke.)

And yes, it's true, NOBODY has earthquake insurance out there unless they live in a condo, in which case the association requires it and is included in the HOA's. Because it does cost a king's ransom and has ridiculous deductibles. And from what I recall after the '94 Northridge quake, everyone got paid mostly from FEMA for free (thanks, other 49 states) so it was kind of pointless.

As for the rainy season, unless it's an "El Nino" year or a freak occurance, it's still only rainy for CA. This year had a few bad weeks of rain in the winter probably as a result of a really late and cold summer. And unless you live on or near a hill, you never have to worry about mudslides.

And yes, good luck on the job. If she does get it and you need more detailed info., you can always PM me, too.

[ctcommuter82]

My folks' 3 bed 2 bath in Fairfield, CA is worth in the 4's. Property taxes are currently under 3,000. They only have a square stamp for a yard, but you're saving your sweat and blood on maintaining a huge yard like your suburbs have. Kidyankee two things will be more in frisco, assuming you live outside of Stamford and it's demon suburbs. Housing and gas prices. Everything else will be cheaper. If you live in the Stamford vicinity, everything will be cheaper out there.

Make the move! I can't wait to get out of this hole and move back.

[jjinla]

It is impossible to estimate property taxes in CA based on what anyone else is paying because of Prop. 13. Just know it is about 1.1%-1.4% of your purchase price (NOT assessed value) or so depending on city.

Our neighbor paid $1100 a year for a house that was valued at around $900K. Had we bought it, we would have paid over $10K a year. Taxes are based on the purchase price, and then are adjusted upwards every year as much as they are allowed to, which was because the max allowed would almost always less than the appreciation because of such an absurdly low cap (and why the old and young have such a huge discrepancy between tax bills.)

[JayCT]

I am sorry but to me it is stupid that someone can own a home valued at nearly $1 million and pay only $1,100 in taxes. No wonder the state is such a mess. I know no one wants to pay more than they have to in taxes but don't you think they should be enough to support services needed and used. This is one of the many reasons I would never live in California. Others include too much development, traffic congestion everywhere, ugly landscape away from the shoreline, the chances of earthquakes, the large number of self-absorbed free thinking people and overall high cost of living. JMHO, Jay

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Others include too much development, traffic congestion everywhere, ugly landscape away from the shoreline, the chances of earthquakes, the large number of self-absorbed free thinking people and overall high cost of living. JMHO, Jay

As someone who is the first to speak up when generalizations are made about CT, I don't think it's fair for you to do the same. First of all, traffic is NOT everywhere. Have you been outside of the major cities? Obviously not, because highways are free and clear in the many miles between LA and SF. Also, you think snow-capped mountains are "ugly"? Also, if you compare the size of CA to the east coast, there are many "ugly" places in RI, upstate NY and PA...

Sounds like you haven't been to Fairfield County lately: the capital of self absorbed d-bags.

[JayCT]

The others posting here are generalizing too so I am generalizing my opinions as well. Of course there are not self absorb people everywhere. Of course there is not traffic everywhere but overall the state's development policies encourages sprawl which means more traffic. Yeah there are mountains but in between the mountains and the shore is a lot of brown nothing. The climate is arid. The state is over developed and does not really have enough water to serve the people if it continues to grow. Earthquakes have occurred throughout the state. These are the generalized things I have observed that turns ME off to the state. And sorry but the title of "capital of self absorbed d-bags" goes to LA hands down. Jay

[Tetto]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

As someone who is the first to speak up when generalizations are made about CT, I don't think it's fair for you to do the same. First of all, traffic is NOT everywhere. Have you been outside of the major cities? Obviously not, because highways are free and clear in the many miles between LA and SF. Also, you think snow-capped mountains are "ugly"? Also, if you compare the size of CA to the east coast, there are many "ugly" places in RI, upstate NY and PA...

Sounds like you haven't been to Fairfield County lately: the capital of self absorbed d-bags.

Glastonbury is full of them too...

[jjinla]

I know, paying $1K for a house valued near $1M IS absurd. But the property tax cap limits increases to 2% a year, and we all know that in CA at least, appreciation FAR outpaces that 2% limit, so soon enough you have someone paying way too little in taxes. Plus, they get to take their 'base' with them 1x when they retire and downsize, if that doesn't make you even madder, even if they are filthy rich! But still, CA doesn't have a revenue problem, they have a spending one, just like everyone else. Their spending expoded during the dot.com years and they never pulled back.

However, I have to dispel a rumor about Californians being self-absorbed. My husband is a native. Almost all of my friends are natives. They are completely normal and are as unpretentious as one could imagine. The douchebags are the transplants...the people that fled from places like NY and NJ to escape the winters, or make it rich as an actor, model, screenwriter, or whatever else fantasy career you want to insert there. It takes a certain amount of shallowness in the 1st place to leave everyone and everything behind because you either don't like the cold, or you want to chase a pie in the sky dream.

Because they watch/ed too much of the Hills, OC and 90210 over their years, they act like morons because quite frankly, they think that they have to in order to fit in. We don't spend 1/10 of what people on the east coast do on clothes (and especially shoes!)...jeans and flip flops are basically one's attire. Our houses are much smaller than they are out here. The only thing we are more showy about is our cars because a) - you spend so much more time in it out there with no mass transit and b) it doesn't snow, so it actually stays looking nice for decades.

Yes, the traffic is bad near any major city but it is everywhere you don't have mass transit. The sprawl is due to the earthquakes - it's too expensive to build up. And in my 20+ years out there, I felt many an earthquake, yet not one was strong enough to knock one item off of anything in my house. Unless you are near the epicenter or the 'big one' hits, they really aren't a big deal. Many times, you won't even notice anything below a 5 or 6. And yes, the water supply sucks because of some hippies up north that don't want to let more water flow because of some stupid smelt or something.

And as for beauty, while CT can indeed be beautiful in the spring and fall, for much of the past 5 months, I've looked at nothing but sticks everywhere. My backyard in CA had year-round roses, fruit trees, palm trees, etc. and gorgeous mountains in the background. Like the other person said, you can't compare the ugly inland areas of CA to nice places in CT. OK, off my soapbox!