Everything is cheaper: $4.05/gal gas, $3/gal milk, big homes in the nicest areas w/ great schools are in the $300k range, & the neighborhood I live in is awesome w/ tree lined streets, every house is different (no tract homes). Our neighborhood feels like an well established suburban area, and yet we drop down the hill 10 minutes & we’re in the middle of a clean downtown (where I work). It really is pretty great. But just like everywhere else it has it good & bad. It’s like 95% caucasian, so my kids are not exposed to much diversity, and we lose a lot of the culture of the bigger cities. While we have amazing forests & lakes w/ lot of great outdoor activities (boating, skiing, etc), we all still manage to miss the beach at times. But generally speaking, the people seem friendlier, & in just over a year, we’ve all made a lot more friends than we had back home in SD. We know most of our neighbors here, and there is a great sense of community.
All that said, my wife & I still imagine moving back to SD when the kids are college age (about ten years). San Diego is just a tough act to follow. And with prices still dropping down there as they seem to be, maybe we’ll be able to afford a little place by the beach by then. The market up here is slowing a bit. It reminds me of the first bad stage in San Diego. Prices are not dropping, but inventory is taking longer to sell. That was the phase in the SD cycle when I discovered Rich’s site. Things didn’t spike up as crazy as they did down there, but I still suspect we’ll lose a good 10-20% in values in the next few years. Which would suck, but in my opinion, that’s what we really need to get people buying again & get this economy moving again. The construction outfits will finally move inventory, the banks will start getting current payments on all those delinquent construction loans & we’ll be back to liquidity.
