Sandy, Utah (Salt Lake City, South Jordan, Cottonwood Heights: sales, apartments, city hall)

[MichelleSquibb1985]

I have been doing a lot of reading on here and the threads are really helpful. People have answered my questions with positive and negative feedback. I am looking to relocate from Orange County CA to Utah with my husband and our small dog. At this point I am most interested in Sandy, UT. Sadly I haven't been able to find many pictures of this area. I have been to Midvale UT before and besides it being cold I liked the area. Does anyone have detailed information or pictures about Sandy UT? What are the people like? What is the health care like? What is the average weather in Sandy UT? How hard or easy is it to find jobs in that area? What is the unemployment level like? How are the crime rates? Any natural disasters? And most importantly, what do the average jobs pay or what does the average person in Sandy UT make annually? This is a random question but how are the children generally behaved? Here in the OC in CA the kids are spoiled and rotten. I cant stand how rude they are, especially in public. There is no respect.
My husband is 30 and Im 25. We are white, christian, and republican. Orange County CA is safe, upkept, beautiful, and has the perfect weather. We want to leave based on, lack of jobs, jobs not paying enough compared to how overpriced and expensive everything is, how unreasonably priced the homes are to buy. Utah seems beautiful and more affordable and from what I have seen and heard so far Sandy UT seems to have what we need from a super walmart to a mall. Im a sales consultant with lots of manager experience (with no degree) and my husband has a degree in computer security from ITT Tech but currently works at wal mart because there are no good paying computer jobs available here. The main thing we are considering with this move is saving more money by moving, be able to afford to buy a home, it being more affordable to rent an apartment in the meantime, and being able to find better work or more work opportunities. The homes and apartments seem very affordable but that would do us no good if jobs are scarce or if they didnt pay very much. As much info as your workforce there as possible would be of a great help. We just want to live in an area where we can make enough money to buy a nice home within 2 to 5 years and save money for retirement. Here you barely make your bills and no money is ever left over to be saved because its so expensive. We would be willing to leave our perfect weather behind if it means we could work and have a better life there by being able to save some money and still afford a home. Here a 4 or 5 bedroom home can cost a million dollars or more and the rent on a 1 bedroom house is $1100/month to $1600/month depending on how nice you want the place to be. Our place is $1100 and we have cockroaches and the place is falling apart. A decent 1 bedroom is at least $1200 to $1400. I make $15/hour plus 3% commission at my job and my husband makes $9/hr at his job. Do you think we would be able to make more then this in Utah or at least the same amounts? Thanks in advance for all the help!

[Katzpur]

Well, you could make it here at least as well as you're making it in California. I think it would be worth a try for you. Besides Sandy, you might want to consider Cottonwood Heights.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Sandy is no different from the rest of the greater metro area in terms of salaries and jobs. Salaries are lower than in most other states and housing was expensive to me when I moved here from New Orleans.

Use the "search this forum" tool to look at other peoples' questions and the answers they have received.

[MrAnderson]

Sandy is right in the middle of the Salt Lake metro, so you would have a decent amount of area you could cover in terms of looking for jobs. It's a nice place ... overall conservative, and relatively safe. Natural disasters would be the same as anywhere in Utah - earthquakes.

[InSandy]

You have a lot of concerns. There are many transplanted Californians living here. Many of them made a killing on their homes there, bought homes here driving up our prices. That is just a stereotype, but we do have neighbors who were able to buy bigger and newer home here, paid $50k more than they should have and thought they were making a deal.

As the others have said Sandy is part of the greater Salt Lake City area and the answers to most all of your questions will be the same if you substituted SLC instead of Sandy.

As far as pictures I googled Sandy Utah, selected images and got quite a few. You might also look over the official city website: Sandy City: Home
The heart of new Sandy is the city hall and SouthTowne Shopping center.

It is a sprawling city, once not too long ago a small farming community but now more like a suburb. It is a nice town. I would rate it very similar to other southern valley towns, like Riverton or South Jordan. They have a nice Fourth of July celebration, annual Sandy Pride days to clean up, good city recreation programs, an active arts council and outdoor amphitheater with good summer music programs, lots of gyms, good shopping, restaurants are kind of bland, but there are a few gems if you look.

Wages would be about the same, though it sounds like rent would be cheaper. Jobs are scarce right now, and lots of people out there looking, so I wouldn't recommend moving here without a job.