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Hello, good to meet you and thanks for taking the time to read.
My husband and I vacation with family every year to Bandon, Oregon , a great seaside town that I am sure most of you are familiar with. About a year ago, when we were planning our wedding, we started to really debate on if we wanted to stay in the DC metro area and raise a family (we're in NOVA AKA Northern Virginia). As NOVA kids, we agreed there were good things about being raise in the NOVA area (good public schools, lots of diversity, good job market), and bad (snotty kids, an exaggerated sense of self entitlement, expensive housing costs, over competitiveness on having the best possessions / job positions) about area. And for the longest time we thought we'd stay here, but I really want my kid to be a kid, not some mini adult, and we want to be able to afford a nice house without having to commute an hour or more in traffic. And cleaner air, dear God the air here stinks. I don't know anyone who doesn't have allergies here.
So we're thinking Oregon, because it's an area that we've been to, we've liked what we have seen (although the experiences you have on vacation are vastly different from living there). his parents would continue to vacation in Bandon, and they said they would pack up and move near us if we moved. So some sort of family would be near us to help us with the family if we needed it.
So what town / city would probably suite us? We like smaller communities but being within driving distance of a major city is good. We want a close airport, and if it's an international airport that's a plus (Dulles is in our backyard). I was born with a congenital heart defect, and while I am fine now, being near a top-notch medical facility is a plus (I don't like being treated by a doctor who is completely bewildered by my condition). Although I'd fly home 2X year to see my heart doctor.
As for weather, the husband likes snow, so being near some should make him happy. I actually like temps in the 50's-80's most of the time, and tend not to like the cold but I'll tolerate it. I hate in DC/NOVA we get 10 really nice days in the year and the rest of the year it's either cold but no snow and super dry winters, or summers are so hot and so humid that it's just gross. And those nice days always fall on a work day :P
so with the rain, does it drizzle/rain for a few hours in a day, a few days a week? or is it straight up rain, day in and out for several days a week? we go to Oregon in August and since we're on the coast I know the weather is much different than the coast.
I imagine when we sell our condo, we should be able to afford 20% of a $250-275K home, $300k if our condo value booms (which is possible in NOVA.) Is it possible to get a nice home for that amount in Oregon? here's the catch: master bedroom, kid's room (singular kid hopefully), room for a joint office, guest room, and room for my woodshop. I have a small business as a wood worker, and I need some space to carry out my woodworking business.
So probably like a 4 bedroom with some sort of basement would be perfect. but i dunno if we can get that in a decent neighborhood in Portland, Eugene, Ashland, ect. In a well rounded middle class neighborhood.
And jobs... I am betting that in another 2 years (that's when we're thinking of moving) my job will offer me telecommuting. In two years, I will have been here at the company just short of 10 years and they have offered telecommuting to individuals with less time than that. So i imagine I'd still have my job, but my husband would have to find something in video production, or may be able to telecommute for his job. so not sure what city would be best for video production, probably portland?
Ok i totally wrote a book. Sorry! But him and I have about 2 years to figure this out, but we'd like to make a trip to check out towns / cities based on suggestions here. We visit Oregon in August again. It seems so far away
Your criteria puts you in Portland Metro. Your husband's job should dictate where you live. Your housing budget is modest so that may be a challenge but you don't want to spend the money you save in housing on gas. For example, if you buy a house in Camas and he finds a job in Hillsboro life will not be fun. This website often goes for months without updating but it does have useful information: Portland Housing Blog
Every single person I know in Video Production in Portland has a real job on the side. It's not that there isn't work, it's just that there are a ton of people who do it as a side job. And those who do it full time are firmly anchored in a large company, backed with years of experience.
Basements exist, but are going to be harder to find. You're going to be looking at older neighborhoods like Montavilla and Tabor. Possibly in places like Alberta although you'll be on the low end for houses there. Belmont and Hawthorne areas are possibilities too, but I don't know what $300k is going to get you in those neighborhoods.
Rain isn't that big of a deal, it's the days or weeks on end of overcast days that most people have issues with.
Agreed on the PDX recommendation. You'll have the best shot at finding something (though I'm not too sure ab't video production). Most of the west side (Beaverton/Hillsboro) is tech-oriented due to Intel and all the associated semiconductor corps.
For about $300k, you'll definitely want to stay out of downtown, and likely out of places such as West Linn and many of the southern suburbs. IMHO (and little more), your best bet would be the western or eastern parts. Home prices have come down a lot over the last couple of years (duh, right? ), which puts a lot of places well within that range.
We're in a unique type of video production. I do medical videos and my husband does a lot of "how to..." videos that are featured on youtube, monkeysee, ect, so we're not involved in the typical studio production that most people think of when doing video work.
anyways, so the west and east suburbs of portland are considered nice middle class areas, correct? and the south side (west linn and lake oswego) are for the more well off, wealthy folk. that's good to hear. so we should just stay out of portland metro because any area that's considered good, is way out of our price range, correct? Is there a suburb we should stay out of?
See i've been looking at realtor.com to get an idea of what's affordable in the area. In the DC area, the west side is the more well off area, and most suburbs west of DC is well to do. It's the east side of DC that tends to be rougher. So I didn't know where those boundaries fall in Portland. So when i was looking as homes in portland i saw a bunch of homes in the $250-300K range but i didn't know if these were good areas, or areas we should stay out of. Looks like a majority of the places i like are on the east / west side.
What does the east side have over the west side, and vice versa?
we probably could afford more than $300k, but we'd rather pay off a bigger chunk of the home upfront, and have a smaller monthly mortgage.
and how long does it really take to get from the suburbs to portland metro? According to google maps, to get from Milwaukie, to Portland, it suppose to take 15 minutes. In the DC area, going to Fairfax to DC is only suppose to take 20-30 minutes, but can take 1-2 hours depending on how horrible the traffic is.
As far as neighborhoods to avoid on the east side, I'm not too sure, so I'll defer to others.
Westside? Aloha, Cornelius, and parts of Hillsboro should be avoided at all costs (mostly due to gang activity, vandalism, etc). Most of B-town is okay, with few exceptions. Forest Grove (mind the commute) would be a decent place as well, though this last bit is mostly second-hand info.
Me, I'm moving to the coast.
Edit/add: commute times from the west side? Most of it will be via Hwy 26, so roughly...
Forest Grove -> PDX (downtown): 35 mintues avg, up to 45 mintues+ during rush.
Hillsboro -> PDX: Around 30-35 minutes average. Can get ugly during certain times of day, but usually not too bad
Beaverton -> PDX: About 20-30 minutes, depending.
Any of that in reverse during rush hour? Add around 15 minutes to it for a top-end.
Anything south of Beaverton (Tigard, etc) will sometimes require using Hwy 217, which can really clog up, and at unpredictable times. We're talking about ' maybe you should've taken I-5 instead' kind of clogged up.
Last edited by Random_Walk; 02-07-2012 at 02:34 PM..
Reason: added info for commutes
Westside? Aloha, Cornelius, and parts of Hillsboro should be avoided at all costs (mostly due to gang activity, vandalism, etc). Most of B-town is okay, with few exceptions. Forest Grove (mind the commute) would be a decent place as well, though this last bit is mostly second-hand info.
There is not a single place in all of Oregon that should be "avoided at all costs" due to gang activity and vandalism. And certainly not Aloha, Cornelius or Hillsboro. Maybe, possibly, by some infinitesimal amount, a few streets in North Portland.
If you're REALLY that worried about gangs, then perhaps you should be looking out at small towns in Eastern Oregon that have 10 or less population and everyone know everyone else's name (and their entire family history.)
I'm not saying there isn't any gang activity, but it's so limited that you're just not going to see it or be affected by it.
There is not a single place in all of Oregon that should be "avoided at all costs" due to gang activity and vandalism. And certainly not Aloha, Cornelius or Hillsboro. Maybe, possibly, by some infinitesimal amount, a few streets in North Portland.
If you're REALLY that worried about gangs, then perhaps you should be looking out at small towns in Eastern Oregon that have 10 or less population and everyone know everyone else's name (and their entire family history.)
I'm not saying there isn't any gang activity, but it's so limited that you're just not going to see it or be affected by it.
Exactly correct. This is ESPECIALLY true given the OP's current location. Any/all seedy neighborhoods in Oregon will be a cake walk and seem almost pleasant when comparing life back east.
I moved out here from Baltimore and I can tell you for a fact there isn't ONE area, block, etc. that comes remotely close to the grittiness, rawness, dangerousness, etc. of 60% of that city and/or DC. (Every visit to Portland I attempt to find the 'bad' parts of town - I literally go around asking people, researching the internet for statistics, etc. - and I can't seem to find an area that that comes close to my east coast definition of 'bad' or 'seedy')
That said, will there be places you won't want to live? Of course, but that's true everywhere. Based on the details the OP has given, their price range will exclude any possibility of running into 'seediness,' even as we define it in Oregon.
I can easily agree that it is *overall* much milder here than it would be in, say, Baltimore or LA.
OTOH, if you're looking for the criminal activity? I can provide some quick examples:
Take a trip to 25th st. in Hillsboro, or anything north of Adair St (esp. around 10th, near the tracks) in Cornelius, nearly half of Aloha, centered around 170th or so (not counting the recent bit of gunfire, which turned out to be a custody case gone bad and not gang-related), Farmington and 158th or so in B-Town, etc.
I'm certainly not saying that whole towns (well, outside of Aloha) on the west side are total war zones, but some areas should be avoided as potential living areas (unless of course you enjoy having your property tagged, like hearing the sound of occasional gunfire, and in general like living in areas where the Washington County Sheriff deputies spend a lot more time than normal.)
As for PDX itself? It has its areas as well, but I don't have to point them out: I'll let the local TV news sites pick those out for me.
Sorry folks, but I'm not so worried about my home resale value that I'm going to paint some pollyanna picture of a crime-free paradise to lure folks in.
Be honest now: PDX Metro gets its fair share of criminal activity, and there are areas which are far worse than others. When the evening news trots out a violent fatality nearly each night (what else did you expect in an area with ~2 million people in it?), trying to claim otherwise is sheer naivete.
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I have a small business as a wood worker, and I need some space to carry out my woodworking business.
), which puts a lot of places well within that range.
