Moving to Oregon (Eugene, Salem, Medford: crime rates, cheap house, buying)

[Cornerguy1]

You want semi-seclusion with reasonable access to a decent-sized urban center, you want mountains, you want snow, you want access to skiing.

The snow part eliminates a fair amount of territory west of the Cascades unless you locate in the mountains themselves. Real estate prices west of the Cascades in the Medford-Ashland area are steep.

Might I suggest you consider some of the smaller spots east of the Cascades and east of Klamath Falls? Bly, Bonanza and Beatty come to mind.


Those spots (and individual housing lots along Rte 140) are within a 45 minute drive to Klamath Falls. They receive a reasonable amount of snow in winter and are close to or in mountainous terrain. You can still get a decent house for $150K.

Klamath Falls (pop 35,000) offers a good hospital, a wide variety of shopping and restaurants, cultural activities at the Ross Ragland Theatre, and numerous elementary and high schools.

For the machinist, there are always opportunities in smaller fabrication businesses, but Ben-Fab, an offshoot of Jeld-Wen, has a large manufacturing plant in Klamath Falls.

Remarkably, access to skiing might be the hardest criteria to meet in southern Oregon, but Mt. Ashland would be within an 1 1/2 hour drive while Mt. Batchelor would be roughly 2 hours away.


Good luck with your plan to escape the wonders of lake effect snow. LOL

[cyb419]

cornerguy,
thanx for the info, i was already looking at klamath falls area once, maybe ill give it another look, any ideas on something a little closer to a ski hill thats not so exspensive, i looked at bend area too, but have heard it is very expensive.

thanx again

[Clear2land]

You could always live in Redmond work in Bend and ski Mr. Bachelor. Prineville is 7 miles from Redmond too. Sunriver is not to far South of Bend as is La Pine.

You can start your search of those cities here:

//www.city-data.com/city/Oregon.html

Good Luck!

Dan

[kimyart]

thanks for all the tips everybody.

[DavePautsch]

Kimyart,
Just a quick note. I saw a truck in my neighborhood yesterday with a logo on the side...it was a faux finishing business (nice looking woman in her - I'm guessing - 40's driving). I live in Albany in the SW corner (nice neighborhood...mostly 200-300K homes).
There is room for businesses like that...I also saw a similar business at the Linn County Home Show last fall.

Dave

[kimyart]

wow, houses for $200 ?? that in itself is wonderful news. But I once moved to Dallas, Texas because someone told me you could buy a big house for $40,000 there. It turned out that was true, but the wages were bare miminum (that is if you were used to oc and la wages) , so you still couldn't get ahead there. If you brought money from LA and bought a house there, then you would be set.
For instance, I easily make $500.00 a bedroom just for wall glazing here.And I'm cheap. Some charge $2000. a room. I wonder what the artists make up there?

[tdekany]

Hi everyone. We were very happy to find this message board.

Hopefully some of you can assist us.

We'll try to keep this short and to the point.

In April at some point we will fly out to Portland and start looking for our new "home".

We love love love green nature. (biking, hiking) Especially lakes & mountains.
We are friendly but we like our privacy at the same time.
We don't have kids.
Not into the trendy lifestyle.
We eat mostly organic.

As for the weather, extreme rain or desert heat is out.

I have a mobile auto detailing business, so we need to be close to a fairly large enough population.

We are selling our home here and buying one once we find our dream area.

Once in Portland in April we will have a rental car for about 10 days.

Where should we start looking? I love to drive so covering lots of asphalt is no problem.

Thank you very much for any insight that you may provide.

Sincerely - Thomas & Holly

[DocOregon]

If extreme rain is a concern, the Portland, Oregon, area, may not be your best choice. If air pollution is your concern, I wouldn't worry unless you have an unusually sensitive respiratory system, in which case I would avoid any major metropolitan area, regardless of the state it's in. I have to question the "third worst" statistic and would love to know the specific source of that information. If you go to the web site of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, you will find a great resource on air pollution.

The following link is to the EPA's most recent assessment of air pollutants around the nation. You'll see from comparing metropolitan areas that the Portland area is pretty comparable to other metropolitan areas around the nation in terms of the concentrations of air pollutants.

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata1999/nsata99.html

It's true that certain areas of southern Oregon, especially the Grants Pass area, are effectively surrounded by mountains on all sides and have had problems with pollution during the winter months. As for open field burning, it is heavily regulated and pretty limited. It takes place mostly in July and August, and is almost exclusively in the southern half of the Willamette Valley (miles away from the Portland area). The Oregon Department of Agriculture regulates open field burning, and has been focused on trying to reduce the amount of burning that takes place each year. ODA also limits burning to rural areas. According to the most recently available statistics, only about 50,000 acres were burned in 2003, compared to 74,000 in 1993, and to 208,000 in 1983.

I have lived in several places around Oregon in the 25 years I have been here, and have never had any problems with air pollution. I cannot say the same about Southern California, where I lived for nearly 12 years. My in-laws still live in Southern California, and I visit there every couple years or so. Southern California is still far worse than anywhere in Oregon's Willamette Valley. I also have traveled to a number of places around the country, and have seen plenty of areas that are worse than Portland in terms of air pollution.

Back to rain: The Willamette Valley gets a lot of rain during the period from about October through April. It starts to taper off in May, and June through August tend to be dry, warm and absolutely beautiful. I have never seen a more beautiful place than Oregon in summer.

But we don't let the rain get us down. The true Oregonians go out and enjoy life, pretty much regardless of the rain. We walk in the rain, golf in the rain, play soccer in the rain, ride bikes in the rain, etc. It's just something you have to get used to if you live in western Oregon. Central and Eastern Oregon are much drier, but they are also hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.

I hope this has been helpful. Best of luck!

[tdekany]

your post is very helpful.

Rain: Detailng for a living, so I need plenty of dry days.

[Waterlily]

If you want less rain then you may want to head to southern Oregon. They get a fair amount of rain in Portland but it all depends on what you consider a lot of rain.
Medford is fairly large and will get less rain. You could live in one of the smaller towns around there if you don't want to be in the city. Eugene is another good place to consider. It's got a large population.

I'd suggest just heading south on the i-5 and check out the cities along the way. 10 days would give you plenty of time to see a lot of Oregon. Enjoy your trip!