Posted on 07/17/2011 4:11:56 PM PDT by ChocChipCookie
Are you Mormon? Honest question.
Correct on all accounts. I should add that micro climates in the area also vary quite a bit. For example, when Spokane gets 4 inches of snow, CDA may get 10” and my neighborhood - between Spirit Lake and Athol - may get 16”. Winters do vary, and it’s not unusual to see 0 or sub-0 temps for a few days each season. Lowest I’ve seen in my 13 years here is -22 F. Fro our part, when the weather gets severe, we just throw another log in the woodstove and catch up on our indoor work. Most of the time, though, it’s pretty comfortable. But don’t advertise that. The perception of ‘bad winters’ keeps the riff raff out. Most of the time it’s absolutely beautiful here.
The employment scene IS tough. The advice to have a job in hand or plenty of savings is good. Even with decent personal networking, it’s not easy to find decent paying work.
I drive to Spokane every day for not better than mediocre pay. Fuel costs are getting really onerous. But - it’s a steady paycheck. One of my friends worked for an electrical contractor and by all accounts business was and is terrible. His hours shrank and became erratic. He bailed on them and got a job with BNSF - the railway company.
The rule around here is that it’s best to have more than one thing you can do. That’s good advice anywhere, but it really plays well in this area. I have a side business that I operate on weekends and evenings, but by itself, it won’t pay the bills. If you’re a couple, then both of you should have your oars in the water if you get my drift.
For all of that, land and property’s cheap. A lot of folks have bailed and / or walked away from their spreads. We bought our place at the bottom of the curve back in ‘98. It’s still possible to sell it for more than we paid for it, so there’s still some added value there, but nobody with any sense is counting on their equity for anything - we sure don’t. In our neighborhood, you can get a decent place with acreage for $150 - $200K. Sometimes less.
Sad tale. One of my customers bought at the top of the bubble into a very nice house in a toney CDA neighborhood of what was then $600K - $800K homes. All side by side, no acreage. Not my cuppa, but there you go. Now, half their neighborhood is littered with foreclosures and walk-aways. They can’t can’t even get within shouting distance of half of the original $750K they paid for their place. Their alternative was to sink the rest of their savings into a $150K manufactured home on 5 acres out our way and let the bank take their very underwater place. There’s a lot of that going around these days.
If I were to give you any advice, I’d say stay the hell out of congested urban areas for reasons that you probably well understand. Keep your aims modest and you can really score on a nice quiet place in one of the nicest rural areas of the country. Get to know your neighbors and work together to prepare for what’s coming at us all.
Good luck, and if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by.
Pocatello is cold in winter with more than enough snow, hot (as hell, frequently) in summer.
Visit, look around, your choice. Mine was easy. Hope yours is also.
Not sure I understand, you seem to give the impression that Arizona is all desert, and it is far from it. Most everything you say you desire, is right within the state of Arizona, cool mountain country and worlds largest stand of Ponderosa forest for starters.
Surely you have been up on the Mogollon Rim, Payson, Flagstaff, Williams, Prescott, White Mountains, etc. We live on the Colorado River midway between Bullhead and Lake Havasu, but within an hour on the hottest day, can be up in the cool pines of the Hualapai Mountains.
I’m thinking of moving to Phoenix to get away from this Kansas heat and drought.
In my travels I ran across a nice medium sized town in Nevada just south of Carson City called Minden and in that general area. I could live there...
Also close proximity to South Lake Tahoe. Anybody from that area?
Nope, we are not Mormon. Actually, that’s one of my concerns about moving to a heavily Mormon area. I did that once as a single woman, and it was okay, but I noticed in the smaller towns Mormons got preferential treatment and discounts from other Mormons, and there was no real way to compete against them as a business-owner unless there was a decent contingent of non-Mormons. I know they don’t all talk and act in lock-step, but if we’re going to put down some roots, I’d like it to be in a place where we wouldn’t always be outsiders.
ping
I’ve heard a rumour, so take it with a grain of salt, that they have perty good potatoes there!
Winters are very mild in SW Idaho. After last November, we had very little measurable snow for the rest of the winter. Last year was pretty much the same. This winter, we didn't dip below zero ever, and had very few single digit days at all. It's been warmer the last three winters here in Boise than those Kentucky winters I remember as a kid.
This summer is cool also. Here it is, mid-July and we've had fewer than 10 days over 90 degrees so far. My garden is barely putting along.
Cookie, you won't find anyone singing Idaho's praises more than me, but one thing does concern me. Gov. Otter seems bound and determined to lease a huge tract of land south of the Boise Airport and Gowen Field National Guard post to the Chicoms. He's trying to boost the state's GDP, and that's fine. I just can't understand why an otherwise rock-ribbed conservative like Otter isn't trying to get American companies to go into business here. Otherwise, Idaho is the home I have always wanted, only it took me 40 years to get here!
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
ping!
You want cooler, greener and more water? The PERFECT place is Seattle or Portland! :-)
Winter in Boise 2009, picked at random - average low/high 26/37.
Not cold as a whore’s heart, but not warm...to compare, where I live south of Tucson, the same month averages were 42/69. That is a 30 deg difference.
July, 2009: average low/high 64/93. Where I live 78/103
Not hotter than a Dutch lover, but only about 10 deg cooler than where I live.
;)
It’d be tough to change your acclimation. I’d love it, too; but I think central California has ruined me for such winter temperatures.
I was born in Phoenix and know all about Arizona. :o) Flag is too much of a college town and isn’t a place I’d want to live. Prescott is expensive, Prescott Valley is somewhat depressed. The White Mountains are beautiful, but not sure about employment opportunities.
We have a lot of relatives in Texas, the Ft. Worth area, actually, and I know they would love for us to move there. But we are looking for some acreage (probably less than 10) and our own water source. I’d like to live within 60-90 minutes of a larger city.
We moved to Idaho 6 years ago. We live in the woods. It is not for everyone. The nearest town is 1hr away. It snows 6 months of the year, I am talking 6ft plus. The nearest Costco is many hours away.
It is beautiful though. When the snow melts even better. It depends on the type of employment you are looking for.
He said cooler, not kookier. ;-)
And it should be a concern. That attitude is prevelant, sadly. The only thing worse than being a ‘never mormon’ is being an ‘ex-mormon’.
I was talking to someone on here the other day, who said they went to visit a Christian church and got into a discussion about how hard it was for the church to get new doors installed, because all the installers were LDS. Finally they found a non-LDS one who drove several hours to help them.
Job wise, it is also a problem, because LDS hire LDS with few exceptions (even in states like CA). You may want to try WA, OR, mid to East Colorado, or the plains states like No. Dakota, S. Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming (except far west WY). Many of these states have good economies and business tax friendliness and no state income tax. We moved from CA to the plains a couple of years ago and never looked back. We found ‘our people’ - conservative, Christian, gun loving, Bible reading, honest and friendly.
Kookier? Who’s kookier? the word to use is WIERD - Portland is proud of being called weird.
But honestly - it’s gorgeous here. There is Bend, southern Oregon, Portland if you like a smaller city. I work at a Fortune 500 company 15 minutes max from where I live. Saw a deer watching the other night when my dog and I were walking. There are many country areas very close to town. I actually love it here. I can be downtown in 15 minutes, on the coast in 1 1/2 hrs or on Mt Hood in 1 1/2 hrs. We have no sales tax.
Seattle is similar but with traffic. The scenery up there is spectacular with Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, the Cascades and the Olympics. God’s Country. The economy is better up there than Portland. And there’s no income tax.
The one thing is you have to accept that it rains. If you hate rain you can’t make it here. I personally find it comforting, usually.
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