Albany/North Albany/Corvallis (Bend, Lebanon: for sale, real estate, lease)

[Atomicdoug]

Hello all,
currently living in MA, but putting my house up for sale. Both my kids are at OSU in Corvallis, one has 2 years left the other is on the staff. I am in a consulting job where I can work from home, so considering moving to that area.

Looking at real estate, Corvallis seems expensive and dense, there also doesn't seem to be that much inventory of homes. I have a shepherd dog and need a sizable yard, so was thinking Albany or North Albany (nicer?) as a place to look. Does anyone know the areas? Looking for 1/2-1 acre modern home in the <500k price range?

I do a fair amount of biking, also my dog likes to hike so areas near nice roads to ride or trails are a plus. I liked the McDonald Forest area of Corvallis but seems like not many homes for sale in that area.

[texasdiver]

Albany is more blue collar, downscale, and insular. Corvallis is more white collar professional. That is why the price difference.

If it were me, I'd say that life is too short to live in Albany when you don't have to, and I would just try to make Corvallis work. But that's just me.

What you are looking for is actually going to be extremely hard to find anywhere in Oregon. Land use planning laws have restricted residential development on rural acreages since the 1970s. So you are mostly going to find older pre-1970s homes on larger acreages or new modern homes on smaller lots in defined subdivisions. Oregon is not like say Texas where large lot exurban subdivisions are super common.

[Atomicdoug]

Yeah I noticed that, anything modern or new is built on small, postage stamp size lots. Is there any difference between North Albany and Corvallis in terms of proximity to mountain/gravel biking or outdoor activities (hiking for example)? Like if there's no trails in Albany and I have to drive with my dog 20 minutes to reach a trailhead, I won't be happy with that.

[Silverfall]

Originally Posted by Atomicdoug

Hello all,
currently living in MA, but putting my house up for sale. Both my kids are at OSU in Corvallis, one has 2 years left the other is on the staff. I am in a consulting job where I can work from home, so considering moving to that area.

Looking at real estate, Corvallis seems expensive and dense, there also doesn't seem to be that much inventory of homes. I have a shepherd dog and need a sizable yard, so was thinking Albany or North Albany (nicer?) as a place to look. Does anyone know the areas? Looking for 1/2-1 acre modern home in the <500k price range?

I do a fair amount of biking, also my dog likes to hike so areas near nice roads to ride or trails are a plus. I liked the McDonald Forest area of Corvallis but seems like not many homes for sale in that area.

In Oregon, every city has an urban growth boundary which is why ALL of our cities are dense. There is inside the UGB which is dense or outside the UGB are mostly farm and forestland with generally minimum parcels of 2 acres. We don't have .5-1 acre lots here for the most part. Most of those have been split along the way.

Albany has a 500-acre state park right by it that has one 8 mile trail on it right now. They just started the restoration of those lands last year so it is an in development.

Your price point won't work for what you want. The UGB law was passed in 1975 so pre-1975 will have larger lots for the most part. So you are likely looking at a 50's or 60's ranch on a lot that hasn't been split yet. The other option is to buy a new build in Albany/Millersburg which has homes on larger lots.

[Larry Caldwell]

Expand your range to rural properties. If you don't have to commute for work, being a few miles out of town is not an issue. I lived outside Jefferson and worked in Corvallis, and the commute was not that bad. Lebanon to the east is a possibility, and there is a back road from Brownsville right into Corvallis. 99W runs through Corvallis, so you could be looking at Suver or even Monmouth/Independence to the north, Kings Valley to the West, or Monroe to the south. Philomath/Wren is on the road to the coast just outside of town.

It's a psychological brain freeze that people think "acreage" stops at 5 acres. I bought 90 acres, and when comparing prices, the extra 85 acres cost me about $5,000. I don't have to go anywhere to walk the dogs.

Get used to it taking 20 minutes to half an hour to get anywhere. It's usually country roads with pleasant scenery, so consider it an amenity.

[Silverfall]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Expand your range to rural properties. If you don't have to commute for work, being a few miles out of town is not an issue. I lived outside Jefferson and worked in Corvallis, and the commute was not that bad. Lebanon to the east is a possibility, and there is a back road from Brownsville right into Corvallis. 99W runs through Corvallis, so you could be looking at Suver or even Monmouth/Independence to the north, Kings Valley to the West, or Monroe to the south. Philomath/Wren is on the road to the coast just outside of town.

It's a psychological brain freeze that people think "acreage" stops at 5 acres. I bought 90 acres, and when comparing prices, the extra 85 acres cost me about $5,000. I don't have to go anywhere to walk the dogs.

Get used to it taking 20 minutes to half an hour to get anywhere. It's usually country roads with pleasant scenery, so consider it an amenity.

Most people that work from home need good wi-fi access.

[Atomicdoug]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Expand your range to rural properties. If you don't have to commute for work, being a few miles out of town is not an issue. I lived outside Jefferson and worked in Corvallis, and the commute was not that bad. Lebanon to the east is a possibility, and there is a back road from Brownsville right into Corvallis. 99W runs through Corvallis, so you could be looking at Suver or even Monmouth/Independence to the north, Kings Valley to the West, or Monroe to the south. Philomath/Wren is on the road to the coast just outside of town.

It's a psychological brain freeze that people think "acreage" stops at 5 acres. I bought 90 acres, and when comparing prices, the extra 85 acres cost me about $5,000. I don't have to go anywhere to walk the dogs.

Get used to it taking 20 minutes to half an hour to get anywhere. It's usually country roads with pleasant scenery, so consider it an amenity.

Thanks, I did not consider this possibility. I do not have to commute to a job. However, I do need to go to doctors appointments, restaurants, the gym (if I join one) or meet up with other people in Corvallis for mountain bike or road bike rides.

In the east coast, a hobby farm might be 5-10 acres. Any more than that and you could end up with a heft assessment, and in order to maintain a farm assessment you have to actually farm and show farm income. Thus you would need to either actually farm or lease your land to someone who wants to farm.

As someone else mentioned I would also need to have high speed internet. If there is no high speed internet that's a problem for my work

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Atomicdoug

Yeah I noticed that, anything modern or new is built on small, postage stamp size lots. Is there any difference between North Albany and Corvallis in terms of proximity to mountain/gravel biking or outdoor activities (hiking for example)? Like if there's no trails in Albany and I have to drive with my dog 20 minutes to reach a trailhead, I won't be happy with that.

Albany is closer to the Cascades and larger mountains for skiing and such.
Corvallis is closer to the coast range and the ocean. It is probably the closest city in the Willamette valley to the ocean, just a straight shot out to Newport. And if you live west of Corvallis it is even closer.

Both the Cascades and Coast Range have plenty of trails, and especially gravel forest service roads for mountain biking. Corvallis is probably going to be a bit closer to that I suspect.

Just a guess on my part but I suspect you will find more urban/suburban trails for hiking and dog walking in Corvallis. The community is more oriented that direction. But I could be wrong about that.

[DKM]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Albany is closer to the Cascades and larger mountains for skiing and such.
Corvallis is closer to the coast range and the ocean. It is probably the closest city in the Willamette valley to the ocean, just a straight shot out to Newport. And if you live west of Corvallis it is even closer.

Both the Cascades and Coast Range have plenty of trails, and especially gravel forest service roads for mountain biking. Corvallis is probably going to be a bit closer to that I suspect.

Just a guess on my part but I suspect you will find more urban/suburban trails for hiking and dog walking in Corvallis. The community is more oriented that direction. But I could be wrong about that.

No, you aren't wrong about that at all. If you're looking for out the door biking, Corvallis has probably every city in Oregon beat. You can live in the city center and ride all the way to McDonald Forest no problem. Philomath too. And many more directions...

[Atomicdoug]

Originally Posted by DKM

No, you aren't wrong about that at all. If you're looking for out the door biking, Corvallis has probably every city in Oregon beat. You can live in the city center and ride all the way to McDonald Forest no problem. Philomath too. And many more directions...

People in Bend might argue that?

Yes, I am definitely looking for "out the door biking." That is a big plus to me. For people who only ride once in a while it's not a big deal to load up bikes and drive to the trailhead. But the more you ride the more you begin to realize that driving somewhere to ride your bike eats up time on both ends and you typically need to carry a change of clothes if you don't want your car to smell like a locker room.

With the new gravel bikes, you can ride on the roads to get to the trailhead. I saw people both Mountain biking and gravel biking at McDonald.

I do ski in the winter, both XC, Backcountry and Alpine. Are there any back country options in the coastal range in the winter? We hiked up Marys Peak in November and it was cold as hell up there. I'd imagine that'd get snow in the winter?

What about road biking in the area? I stayed at an air BNB in North Albany seems like that area had nice 2 lane roads for cycling