Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Funny thing that I don't mind mice as much as I do cockroaches.
To answer Towanda a bit more, For my wife and I because of how we live as we do not have anyone else to be responsible for except ourselves, and we are not leaving a great job etc, the risk are minimal. We are not strangers to moving to different places and seeing and experiencing new peoples and cultures as a matter of fact, we quite enjoy it as we get to live a life of adventure.
The worst thing that can happen is we don't find the place to be what we had hoped for and then move on,,,no biggie.
Some people want to have all their I's dotted and T's crossed, for others, you do what you can in preparation then throw caution to the wind and enjoy the ride...Nether way is wrong....
I appreciate your caution and thank you for the advice!
Blessings
White Mountain
I am glad you are honing in on a place that you are excited about. It is wonderful to plan, dream about new beginnings, so long as you do your homework!
I have not heard it mentioned yet, but another place not too far away that is a bit larger town, and in a very scenic setting is Las Vegas, NM it is about three hours north I would guess. I interviewed for a teaching job out there last year at Highlands University, and I loved the people, food, well just about everything! It is a largely hispanic town,sitting at the edge of the high plains and mountains about 1 hour northeast of Santa Fe. It has some poverty and such, but also fabulous historic homes and buildings, access to the east shoulder of the Sangre de Cristos, and very affordable real estate. I have the feeling the town is up and coming, and the setting is gorgeous, and I think low key people like yourselves would fit in fine. If I had been offered that job, I would there now!
Not to steer you from Ruidoso, but just to give you another potential gem to check out in your scouting trip.
I love the climate stuff, so here are the stats for Las Vegas:
July temp:83.2/54.0
January temps:45.5/18.3
Annual Precip.: 16.40
Precip. Days: 74
Days above 90 F:8.3
Days below zero F:3.4
Frost Days: 160.6
Snowfall:37.7"
If you are curious, you might want to start another Las Vegas thread. People certainly have mixed feelings about the place, but....well, I loved it, leave it at that and find some more opinions if interested.
Ahhh, I almost forgot a most important question.....Cockroaches...They give me the willies.
One of the MAIN REASONS I chose Ruidoso as my retirement home is because of the absence of MOST insects - especially mosquitoes and cockroaches a good second. Biting flies can be problematic in some areas where the days get hotter than in the forested parts - for example, out in the county's former ranching areas. Most worrisome are the spiders - a good variety. I suffer at least one spider bite a summer. I assume that's what it is but have never seen what bites me. Regular spraying around the outside of the house with one of the brands of "Home Defense" insecticides in the summer months keeps them under control.
Of course there are the usual "critters" who can be troublesome, depending on where you live and what you make available for them. Skunks, racoons, coyotes, an occasional puma, deer (yep, they can be pests), and even the elk if you have an orchard or other attractions for them.
I've mentioned in another thread about mice being a potential problem. I've had two occasions in my 13 years of living here full time when I noticed an "invasion" of them - about five years ago and this fall. Worrisome is the chance of "Hanta Virus" (high human mortality rate) carried by some species of mice. But I don't know if there have been any cases at this elevation - most I've heard of have been in the high plains areas of central NM.
Poison ivy, oak and sumac are something to be aware of when hiking in areas near the creeks and drainages.
When we were first looking into Ruidoso, we were thinking about rentals but at the time, Ruidoso had short term rentals only and sounds like they still do.
Not sure why you reached that conclusion. Certainly there are MANY nightly rentals in Ruidoso, but since I know realtors who deal in rentals, it's my impression there are equally as many who prefer to rent long term. Second home owners trend to renting short-term so that the house is available for their use anytime they choose to use it. Long term rentals are more to be found in apartment or condominium complexes. But I also know of quite a few people who rent homes out on a longer term basis - people who buy houses at a bargain as investment properties, as one example. One man I know does that as a hobby - buys a fixer-upper, renovates it, and then rents it out to long term renters.
Without long-term rentals, most of the people working in the service industries of the area would have nowhere to live since local wages are too low to permit them to qualify for home loans.
Fiddlehead, You are always a great source of information and I greatly appreciate it. As far as Las Vegas, way too flat for me from what I see on the Internet, once we are in NM it won't hurt to check it out though..Thanks for all your information...
jaxart,
I am with you when it comes to insects, so I am happy to see your post, it gives me reason to breath a sigh of relief.
The animals you mentioned, living in Grants Pass Oregon with the Rouge river as our back boundary line of 5 acres, we had our share of sharing the property with skunks, raccoons etc so I am used to them, I know as long as I keep food scraps and things like that out of their reach etc I can keep the problem to a minimum.
As far as long term rentals are concerned, I think you are right, seems like finding a condo won't be a problem.
I was very happy as we were looking at places to buy out there, as we found that there are some very nice places that are going for less than 150k, so for a guy like me that has always wanted my own home and wanted one at a price that I can have paid off by the time I retire, I am pretty thrilled at the prospects.
Hope all is well for everyone!
Blessings
White Mountain.
I live in Alto (small northern "suburb" of Ruidoso) at 7300ft. There are no cockroaches at all... no snakes... no ants... very few mosquitoes and only briefly. A rare spider will crawl in the house and soon starve if I don't catch it and take it outside, because there is nothing to eat.
Plenty of skunks though. The deer are all over town... which is cool at first... until you hit one with your car. There are two dead ones laying out on the highway by our mailbox right now.
I've dealt with two realtors. Joe Zagone gets a major thumbs down. Frank Reed gets a big thumbs up. He might not be as knowledgeable as some (he owns Casa Decor also, so this is his second job) but he is honest and will truly look out for your interests. Stacy Hamilton is another that my wife knows and would give a high character reference.
The north end of town is the nicest and is farthest from the commercial stuff and associated crime and traffic.
IMO the biggest bargain in RE here is the low price of land that is within ~1/2hr of town. 10 acres with paved roads and all utilities can be had for $80k or so. That likely won't be tall pine tree land, but will have mostly pinion and juniper. Affordability of this is one of the big reasons we moved here. I've been all over the west but don't know any place that has all the amenities of living here, with a fairly low land cost. Here are some photos of the piece we bought: Things are not always as they seem… » Blog Archive » Land!… again…
Based on when we were looking for houses a couple years ago, the <$150 price range will involve some compromises... >$200k is pretty good though. There are nice lots in town for ~$30k also.
High Mesa and Barbara Mader are golden. I'm so glad they are close by! My wife is teaching massage classes there right now.
If you research things thoroughly I don't think you'll have many surprises. This is general a conservative resort town for wealthy west Texans (oil money), which might not be the particular social group you identify with... but there is also a good mix of pretty much everything and high tolerance. I'd been through here before but not really stayed. Our plan when we loaded up the truck was to settle in Silver City, but it isn't a good place for massage (the downside of a more progressive town is that everyone has a massage degree!), and the price of RE is higher there and not as nice. I'm not sorry at all that we came here instead. But the thing you really need to ask yourself is what sort of entertainment, social events, and shopping you and your wife need. It will be a big change from where you are from and you need to be prepared for it.
Wow, thanks for some great info rruff....Nice blog BTW and that looks like a real nice piece of land you bought,,very nice...
My wife before being a Medical Assistant was a Massage Therapist as a matter of fact she still works at the resort in Napa PT. Does your wife get much work? It has been kind of cool as she (my wife) has massaged people like the King of Jordon, various actors, actresses, musicians, sports figures etc.
When it comes to entertainment, my wife and I are not huge into big large crowd social gatherings, small town events suits us just fine.
Here's the deal; I am going to an online college to get my Web Design BS degree, and at the same time my business partner and I are pretty much in the building stage of our business, so I am on the computer almost all the time as I have tons of work to do. So I do not need to be entertained to stay busy and occupied.
For me Ruidoso is kind of a place I will be traveling from as my partner and I are working on planning business seminars in Texas, AR, and NM, hoping that as it grows we will go even further. So the trail will be hot going into and out of Ruidoso.
So with everything we have planned, there is no worries about find ourselves bored!
As we are just a start up doing this together, though my partner has been successful for 8 years already in this business, I am not in a huge hurry to buy a place. I fully expect my income to grow within a few years, which will afford us the monies to buy a nice place in Ruidoso, and maybe even like you, to buy some nice property to build a nice place on in the future.
As I am thinking about it; How is the Internet connections out there? Is there High Speed Internet connections? Who is the provider? Who is your cable provider out there? Are their folks that use dish for TV?
I am a big Bay Area sports fan so I am hoping I can still hear/watch my teams via a dish network or something like that.
Baja Broadband is one provider of high speed internet and cable TV.
I can't tolerate watching TV so I am very happy with my DSL connection via the local telephone provider - Windstream.
Both satellite and fiber optic is feasible within the immediate Ruidoso area. Not sure about out in the county (Ranches of Sonterra, etc.). Satellite, of course, is available - just not sure about fiber optic line, and DISH is one of the companies serving customers, along with others such as BAJA.
jaxart, thanks for the Windstream info, I edited the zip code to Ruidoso, so now I can look at the daily weather/temperature also the local news!
Piece by piece, some advice from different folks, and I am getting a well rounded look at Ruidoso..Very nice
Much appreciated.
White Mountain
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
also the local news!
