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First and foremost, thank you so much to all of you who regularly contribute here, particularly to the endless stream of "I'm moving to Oregon" threads. I have been perusing 100s of posts and feel as if I've been helped so much already ...
Have done a short driving tour through PNW portion of Oregon in the fall and fell in love with the land. Are planning a trip for the end of the month to more thoroughly scope out the target communities and get a feel for the space in the gloomy winter months. Hoping for some insight to narrow our focus down to a few communities to visit! Thanks in advance.
As for our general aspirations and wants.
We are a family of four and one greyhound dog. However our parents and a sibling or two are considering making the move with us. Looking to really put down roots and make a new family stomping ground in PNW!
We are an active family who love low-key, outdoor activities: hikes, taking walks, bike riding, boating, fishing, soccer in the yard, playing in the sand at the beach. Hiking is a big one for us. Would love to be near some great nature trails...
One of our biggest considerations is a place that has the Potential for buying a good bit of acreage right outside of town over the next 5-10 years.
The "plan" is to rent for the next 2-3 years, buy about 10-20 acres initially at about $450,000, build a house (my husband plans to build the house himself), and then over time increase the land holdings to as much as 200 acres if possible. Would hope to build a small second home for my parents on our property. My husband grew up on a farm and would like to have some small crops, farm animals, river or pond for fishing, hunting, etc. I would LOVE to do a little gardening and have a small orchard ... but again, these are long term plans. However, wed like to start considering and understanding some of the things thrown out on this forum such as flood zones, land use laws, buildability and other such issues. If you can point me towards some resources, that'd be much appreciated.
I personally was very drawn to the Willamette valley area, with a particular love for the western side near the coastal range. My husband loved the eastern side near mount hood such as Sandy ... but we're both very open to wherever.
Weather-wise, we both love gloomy rainy weather. Have spent quite a bit of time in Seattle and had an affinity for that. Appreciate the four seasons thing but REALLY just want to get rid of the Frigid winter weather we experience here in the north midwest... could take or leave a little snow, just are done with unending ice and 5 degree weather that feels like -17 with windchill.
Now for the reality,
Heres our contributing external factors/background info:
Kids ages: 8 and 6, will be attending public school
Income: combined upwards of 90k+ although we are on track to be about double that in approx 3 years...
Job situation: i work for Southwest Airlines and will need to commute to PDX (more on commute below). My husband just landed a great job with Peace Health that allows him to work from Vancouver WA, Portland, or Salem... the former two will probably make the most sense for us considering my job
Commute: I currently commute about 1 hr to work and don't mind that at all, especially since my shift tends to be at off-peak hours (4:30am/2:30pm/11pm and the like) So traffic of course matters but perhaps less than for some. Especially since I usually set up my schedule to make the drive only about 3 times a week... that will often have to be on the weekends however (again, I wouldn't anticipate too much traffic at 4:30am on Sunday morning???). In about a year I will be In a position where I will need to make the drive only once a week so would consider even commuting more than hour for the right community. My husband will start off at a 5 day a week commute but is anticipated to be able to work from home or drive to other surrounding communities 2-3 days a week.
The type of community we are looking for:
Small, fairly rural town... near country land but within a short driving distance, 15-20 min, to a larger metro area (such as Hillsboro) for activities like gymnastics,etc.
Bikability/walkability would be a plus
Cute downtown, mom and pop type stores preferred.
International cuisine within short driving range a bonus.
We both grew up in a midwestern small rural, college town, population about 7000. We are looking for something somewhat similar, but maybe a bit larger, in that it feels much more quaint/rural than large city/suburb but with a good mix of well educated and active town community events such as farmers markets/festivals and the like.
A small college in town would be a plus in our book as we both have worked for higher education and would maybe look to do so again in the future ...
We prefer a community that is at least a little diverse, both racially, socially, and politically. We consider ourselves just a bit liberal but are very comfortable with conservative thinking and much of our family would prefer conservative as well. Something moderate or balanced would be perfect. We just really would prefer to avoid an all white community with some of the close-minded mentality we've run into a lot here in the Midwest.
We currently drive about 35-40 min for kid activities such as gymnastics and are a bit tired of that. Don't need that in the immediate community but would hope to be able to access amenities such as this with a short 10-20 min drive.
Whew! That was a lot I know!!! I feel like I already have a few communities in mind that fit the bill but just don't know enough about the surrounding land to know which fits both our short term and long term plans.
Also open to living in WA side if you have some suggestions for that! Just know less about that side currently and from my small explorations it seems less culturally/racially diverse and/or has more expensive acreage ....
Thank you for any response...
Last edited by Peachytiff; 02-20-2018 at 06:08 PM..
Reason: Typos :)
If you work for SW Air look in Vancouver, WA. or Camas, WA. That should work for your husband as well. Vancouver has a community college and a branch of Washington State University.
A 10-20 minute drive to gymnastics programs from a large subdividable property...??? Tough order. I know because my grandson is an aspiring gymnast. Clubs are located where there is enough density to attract enough students to offer a viable program. There is at least one gymnastics club in Vancouver, they participated in a competition in Portland Saturday.
Diversity is a tough order because in this area it is basically economic. Live anywhere.. if you can afford the housing. Frankly there isn't a lot of 'diversity' in the way you will find in the South or Los Angeles.
Thanks for responding!
Yeah, the 10-20 min drive to gymnastics would be from the in town rental over the next few years and just for beginning gymnastics, or whatever the new activity of the year is lol. Once we transition (hopefully) to land, we would of course expect to be more isolated and have further commute time to activities!
Vancouver, camas area is definitely a newer idea to us! Looking forward to explore this area more ....
To be clear tho, while of course commuting matters, it is much further down the list of priorities than the right community/land ...
By diversity, I mean more than I have here now ... it's probably 95% white with a very small black and Hispanic population. I know I probably won't get as much as I like but am hoping to have better than what I've got currently!
Somewhere between Damascus, Sandy and Gresham would fit the bill. There is also land near Battle Ground and Washougal that would work for you. You aren't going to find much diversity in this part of the world...
Camas resident here. You should take a second look at the WA side of the river. Much more buildable acreage over there (here) and you'll get more for your money all around. Cheaper land, cheaper housing, and better schools for the same equivalent priced house as WA schools are generally better funded than OR schools.
Setting aside the acreage issue for the moment, the place that meets nearly every other criteria of yours is Camas. It has the most walkable cute downtown area of any of the towns on the WA side of the river with lots of street festivals, farmers market, a great library, lots of ethnic and non-ethnic restaurants, and lots of local mom and pop shops. Plus a gymnastics academy: Vancouver Elite Gymnastics Academy I don't know anything about it. My kids are into swimming and soccer. But I do know that just this week Camas HS won it's first 4A State Championship in Gymnastics, beating the perennial powerhouse teams from the Seattle suburbs https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/...s-state-title/ so there must be support for youth gymnastics in the community.
Camas is going to be too suburban/urban to meet your acreage criteria unless you move out to the unincorporated areas NE of the town proper that are still in the Camas school district. There are a lot of small acreage places out there where you can probably build. In terms of commuting, we live in Camas proper in a regular subdivision on the west side of Camas (closest to Portland). From our house it is 15 minutes door to door to PDX airport. At really off hours you might shave a minute or too off that time. During morning rush hour maybe add 5 or 10 minutes. From our house to Peace Health Hospital in Vancouver it would be a 15-20 minute drive that would be pretty unaffected by traffic because you don't have to cross the bridge. If you want to live in the more rural parts of Camas you would need to add 10-15 minutes to those times. But understand most of the more rural land NE of Camas is going to be more wooded as you are getting into the foothills of the Cascades. This 5 acre lot will give you an example of what the landscape looks like in rural Camas: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal.../23311061_zpid Forget about 200 acres anywhere within an hour of PDX unless you have millions to spend. Simply not going to happen. You would need to move hours away to Eastern Oregon for something like that.
If you have kids, do not be tempted by Battle Ground. Lots of acreage all over the place in the Battle Ground school district but they just failed to pass a bond measure for the 2nd or 3rd time so the schools are very overcrowded and aging and getting worse. Unless you want your kids going spending their school career in 35-40 student classes in old portable classrooms. I don't know what they are going to do out there. I know teachers in the Battle Ground district and most are looking to escape elsewhere. Lots of frustrations with the working conditions in that district and teachers are demoralized, especially after the last bond failure a week or two ago.
For more rural farmland type of community with a small cute downtown and good schools look to Ridgefield. Like Camas, they pass school bonds with a big margin to spare so the community is much more supporting of education. Ridgefield is about 20 years behind Camas in development so you'll be driving a lot more to shopping, dining, gymnastics, that sort of thing. It does have a quaint old downtown area along the Columbia that is kind of a hidden secret with a brew pub and a couple of restaurants but no real shopping. For that you'd be driving 15 minutes to the Salmon Creek area of North Vancouver where there are all the big box stores, groceries, Costco, and suburban restaurants you find everywhere. Compared to Camas, Ridgefield is lower rolling farmland rather than forest edge. The area used to be mostly large dairy farms but it is now scattered subdivisions and small acreages and things like nurseries, horse farms, vinyards, that sort of thing. But there is still a lot of semi-rural farmland out there.
Another place to look would be Hockinson which is north of Camas and east of Battle Ground. The schools are in better shape and there are lots of 5 acre type lots around there for building. But there is no real downtown area, just a small country store and flashing red stop sign in the center of what is Hockinson so you'd be driving into Vancouver or Camas for pretty much everything.
My advice? If you are considering the WA side of the river, rent a place in Camas or East Vancouver (Evergreen School District) near I-205 that will put you close to PDX and Peace Health and spend the next year exploring the area to find your perfect place. You will have to hunt hard to find what you are looking for. In the mean time you might as well live some place convenient to work with good schools and convenient shopping and kids activities nearby. Then spend your weekends driving around checking out all the more rural areas on the weekends until you find what you are looking for.
BTW, all the places you are talking about in Oregon in the Willamette Valley, especially those in Washington County to the west of Portland such as Hillsboro will give you absolutely horrific commutes to PDX. Just absolutely horrific. Pretty much anywhere in the greater Vancouver area would be better. PDX is the first exit as you cross the river from Vancouver on 205. During the morning rush hour between say 6:30 am and 8 am 205 South in Vancouver can get quite backed up and stop and go traffic, sometimes all the way back to Padden Parkway which is about 10 miles of backup. I know because I drive the reverse commute every day and see all the cars creeping along on 205. If you are driving during any time other then morning rush hour than traffic is no big deal and usually moves fast. It doesn't really get congested until you get further into Portland. It is even better commuting from Camas because you are driving in on US-14 instead of 205 and you only get onto 205 right at the bridge so it is a better commute with less congestion although 14 is starting to get congested too at the exit to 205.
As for diversity. Pretty much anywhere in the greater Portland metro area the diversity of the community is going to be inversely proportional to how rural it is. The further you get out into the county the more white and conservative it is going to be. The one exception is Woodburn (halfway between Portland and Salem) which is heavily Hispanic.
Last edited by texasdiver; 02-20-2018 at 09:06 PM..
Some excellent suggestions and advice texasdiver. Thank you for such a thoughtful and thorough response ....
Can definitely be happy with less than 200 acres. That would sort of be the dream if it worked out. But in about 10 years we are going to sell a couple hundred acres here in the Midwest and will probably have a pretty good chunk of change from which we can hopefully purchase some land here in pdx area and have a farm.... but that's aways down the road so who knows...
I looked at Camas much earlier and it did have a lot of what I was looking for (PLUS the better commute), but ruled it out as farmland 0seemed much more expensive when I'd looked. I can occasionally find 80+ acres in the western WV for around 400,000 here or there ... so I thought it was much more likely to find larger parcels in our price range in that area. Still hard finding it at that range, but doable. Considering I will only be commuting to pdx once a week in about a year, I figured affordable land was a higher priority than commute time....
But I'm now thinking I really need to give that city and the surrounding area another look! Coming from my current commute, 10-15 min seems like a dream!
And I didn't know they had a gymnastics team at the high school! That's kind of exciting! My kids are super into soccer and gymnastics but I figured soccer would be more ubiquitous. I've just assumed we'd end up having to drive a bit for gymnastics. Camas is sounding even more appealing...
Since you live in that area, do you have any knowledge or resources to point me towards in terms of building on land? ... as in what challenges I might expect from certain areas etc so I can adjust my expectations and prepare for the reality in terms of building on land in that area of the country? It's just very different from what we have here so I'm trying to wrap my mind around the different types of restrictions. Where we are now, you can do almost anything you want on your own land. So things like water rights and land use laws are very foreign to us.
Much much thanks.
Definitely planning to rent and further investigate the area... just hoping to have a few cities of interest to explore this month to prepare for the move in a few months.
Last edited by Peachytiff; 02-20-2018 at 09:53 PM..
Oh, and texasdiver (or whomever!), do you have any advice/suggestions about things to consider when renting in Camas?
Thanks
Not really. Whatever you can find that you can accept. Rents are very tight all over the greater Portland area, Camas is no exception. There aren't really any bad areas of Camas. Some of the downtown area near the mill is more blue collar with smaller older houses but that is quickly changing. It's pretty much what you see is what you get.
Ok, so ive got Camas/Washougal on the radar.
Any OR city recommendations?
I really expect at least an hour commute as I think I'm just not going to find the land/community I want without that. So dont hold back! What great little communities with walkable downtowns do you recommend?
You need to read up on rural land use laws in Oregon. There are very strict laws about subdividing rural agricultural land or developing it into anything but agricultural uses. What that means is the following:
1. You are unlikely to find a nice small acreage rural lot in Oregon that is legally buildable. Especially within an hour of PDX. You might find 5 acres someplace but if it is currently undeveloped and outside the Portland urban growth boundary, it is extremely unlikely that you can do anything with it other than grow hay or other crops. What that means is if you want 5 acres in the country you'd best find a plot that has an existing house on it. But that is going to be tough because subdividing large farms into 5 acre lots is illegal in most cases. So there aren't many.
2. In Oregon you can pretty much forget about building a second house on your rural property. That is perceived to be tantamount to subdividing the land. The law is very tilted against sprawl in rural areas and towards protecting agricultural and forest uses.
3. The areas you are talking about in Washington and Yamhill Counties (Northern Willamette Valley between Portland and the Coast) are some of the most prime agricultural lands in the country that are in high demand for vinyards and that sort of thing. So land prices are going to be extremely high.
The land use laws are more relaxed in Washington which is why you will likely find more options for what you want to do in Clark County. But also why urban sprawl is much more pervasive in Clark County and why it no longer looks as picturesque as the landscapes in Oregon in say Yamhill County. Much of Clark County was once bucolic and rural but 30 years of lightly regulated sprawl had put an end to much of that.
To answer your question. Smaller Oregon towns with nice downtowns that are on the edge or just outside of your 1 hour commute to PDX during off peak hours would include McMinnville, Newberg, Canby, Silverton and lots of smaller towns. But again, they all have urban growth boundaries so it will be possible to buy houses in regular subdivisions in all those towns. Not so easy to find rural acreage that can be legally developed. Of those that I listed, Silverton would be my first choice. Prettiest downtown area of all of them and good schools. And compared to McMinnville, it will be easier to get to PDX. Your husband commuting to Peace Health would have a very easy drive from Silverton to Salem if there are Peace Health jobs there. I'm not sure where there are Peace Health facilities in Portland or Salem. I thought the only Peace Health hospitals in the region were in Vancouver and Eugene.
If your dream is buying some rural land and building it into your own rural homestead in your image then you are really looking at the wrong state. You should be looking at some place like Texas where that kind of thing is more common and much easier to do.
Last edited by texasdiver; 02-21-2018 at 10:17 AM..
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