Relocating to Kansas from New England (Wichita, Kansas City: section 8, apartment, rental)

[Sweens65]

Hey, I'm just looking for advice on moving to Kansas. My girlfriend and I along with two friends are looking towards getting jobs and possibly renting a home in Kansas. We currently live in Massachusetts, but I spent time in Kansas a few years ago, staying with family in Junction City for about a year. I didn't mind the area, and I noticed some homes for rent in Milford, that are extremely cheap (compared to here.)
Where I live right now a 1 bedroom apartment is easily at least $1200 plus all utilities. I know cost of living is drastically different and we'd make alot less then we do here, but we have a decent amount saved. We're pretty frugal and make alot of our own things along with growing vegetables to try and minimize cost, plus we just like it
Any advice would be helpful, my time spent in Kansas was mostly in Junction City/Manhattan (and the surrounding small towns) but I did go to Salina, Wichita, and Topeka as well.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by Sweens65

Hey, I'm just looking for advice on moving to Kansas. My girlfriend and I along with two friends are looking towards getting jobs and possibly renting a home in Kansas. We currently live in Massachusetts, but I spent time in Kansas a few years ago, staying with family in Junction City for about a year. I didn't mind the area, and I noticed some homes for rent in Milford, that are extremely cheap (compared to here.)
Where I live right now a 1 bedroom apartment is easily at least $1200 plus all utilities. I know cost of living is drastically different and we'd make alot less then we do here, but we have a decent amount saved. We're pretty frugal and make alot of our own things along with growing vegetables to try and minimize cost, plus we just like it
Any advice would be helpful, my time spent in Kansas was mostly in Junction City/Manhattan (and the surrounding small towns) but I did go to Salina, Wichita, and Topeka as well.

Pick a town, you shouldn't have any trouble meeting your needs.

Cheap housing and growing veggies however is a given pretty much anywhere outside of Johnson County so perhaps indicate some more of your wants and needs?

[thriftylefty]

I would peruse the Bureau of Labor Statistic info on Kansas and see what area of the state matches your job prospects first.

[Sweens65]

Thanks for the advice. As far as our "needs" we're not very needy. Mostly we're just looking for a slower pace,friendlier people,cheap housing, and low crime. Here, everyone seems like they're in a hurry, we need a change from that.

For Employment, I'm currently a restaurant manager, but I've also done landscaping for a few years so labor is nothing new too me. My girlfriend is a Massage Therapist, we know it could be difficult finding a job in rural Kansas with her doing that. My two other friends currently both work for a company installing in ground pools.

[thriftylefty]

Southeast Ks is supposed to have great soil for vegetable gardening due to its unique geography. It's a fairly derepressed area so I imagine housing is cheap. It sounds like you might do okay in an area that has a mixture of leisure, older population and some recreation activities.

In places like Pittsburg Kansas cheap houses are cheap to buy but expensive to rent, the housing stock is so run down you can buy a house for under $20,000 but if you have to rent the same house you might be out $600.00 per month. The casino is scheduled to open in the spring so there maybe some job opportunities there.

Farmland in Kansas is on the decline so you might find an old farm house somewhere that you can rent. I would look for towns with; universities, regional hospitals, state facilities or large multi-county social service agencies, that way you can at least stay laterally mobile. Small towns within 60 miles of larger cities are not going to be cheap.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by Sweens65

Hey, I'm just looking for advice on moving to Kansas. My girlfriend and I along with two friends are looking towards getting jobs and possibly renting a home in Kansas. We currently live in Massachusetts, but I spent time in Kansas a few years ago, staying with family in Junction City for about a year. I didn't mind the area, and I noticed some homes for rent in Milford, that are extremely cheap (compared to here.)
Where I live right now a 1 bedroom apartment is easily at least $1200 plus all utilities. I know cost of living is drastically different and we'd make alot less then we do here, but we have a decent amount saved. We're pretty frugal and make alot of our own things along with growing vegetables to try and minimize cost, plus we just like it
Any advice would be helpful, my time spent in Kansas was mostly in Junction City/Manhattan (and the surrounding small towns) but I did go to Salina, Wichita, and Topeka as well.

I think you would be happy in one of the towns in the Manhattan area. You'd have access to two state lakes, a good quality of life, the Konza Prarie, the Tallgrass Prarie, and the area isn't horribly far from Wichita, Lawrence, Salina, Topeka, and Kansas City for pretty much anything you'd ever want to do. I love Manhattan... Junction has some issues with crime and the residents not upkeeping properties, but the town has a lot of potential and has some beautiful architecture downtown. I can't imagine Topeka would be that expensive since most of the upper class people who work there commute from Lawrence or rural Shawnee County.

[augentier]

You guys might like McPherson.

[cattalk1]

Wichita is VERY economically depressed area for city. Many only stay a year so only rent.

KC is booming tech area for state and has plentiful employment. Would definitely choose to live on outskirts as the cheaper areas near the drinking establishments are home to a lot more poor hustle than I wanted to deal with while living alone. Entertainment areas and poorer sections are not a fun place to live alone as you may get pestered badly by the single males and REPEAT retaliatory stuff happens a lot without any interest from police. Outskirts in Johnson County are close to lots of tech start-ups and manufacturing and other good housing is Bonner Springs or Lees Summit.

Junction City is large Section 8 area. Would not choose to move there alone as the situation will be the same with the 'hook up' pressures on females living alone can get violent. Can also get harassed so badly at work by moochers, you get fired to land you for relationship. Area is manageable when living as a couple. Though, Manhattan has a much better financial situation, crime rate and job availability/start up atmosphere.

Salina and Topeka are kind of trashed communities. Has less crime than Wichita or KC, cheaper rents but fewer jobs. Topeka has a lot more gang problems and runs a lot like KC, cheap rent means a lot of BS/drama to deal with...even nicer areas of Topeka are not very respectful of residents either and drugs flow freely.

I really cannot recommend any part of Kansas until you actually rent there for a while. Would recommend you ditch most of your belongings and just replace when you arrive, even sleeping on blow up mattress and using camping chairs. Need to know even some of the smallest town landlords are running rental situations where they keep the most aggressive, looney people and just let these keep harming/running away the stable older workers. The landlords try to get annual leases on these places so I would actually try to get month-to-month lease before you rent or just do detached houses/duplexes after talking to neighbors and walking around neighborhood to see if anyone is visibly nutty or drug dealing before you sign lease. Should be illegal to try to rent out property no one has been able to occupy, but is totally legal. Cops, even small town ones, usually just let this kind of abuse situation run until the nut hurts someone bad enough to get a felony. ...

[Sweens65]

Thanks again for all the input! We plan on driving out at the end of April too check out a few areas

[thriftylefty]

Kansas is generally divided into 11 regions and I think you could easily get to two or three a day and stop and look around in perhaps the largest city in each region. The most physiographic diversity is driving east to west on the southern half of the state. I think the physiography played a part into which refugee and immigrant groups settled the region based on what you could do with the land.