[quote=paramount]This thread is interesting for me on a personal level as I was almost relocated to Virginia; in fact I recently had to decide whether to stay in San Diego or head to Virginia.
I started by looking in Sterling-which is an area I like and not far at all from DC IMO. Only a few minutes really to Tyson’s Corner. Prices seemed pretty high in Sterling and holding as far as I could tell, so then I started looking in Gainesville.
Gainesville is really very similar to Temecula and I would characterize both as exurbs. Well, there is one difference – Gainesville RE prices did not fall nearly as much from the peak compared to Temecula.
I suspect the reason for the huge difference is that the unemployment rate in NOVA is around 6%, meanwhile the unemployment rate in the IE is north of 15%.
The rest of the country suffers for the benefit of the DC area.[/quote]
Paramount..I hate to encourage you to reconsider going to the D.C. area, but I believe you are in the defense business, specifically one that is off of R.B. I actually had a few buddies there c-level above who were riffed…They ended up moving to Maryland,VA, DC area….Because frankly the “defense” business is consolidating, and while it’s shrinking in CA, in the VA/DC/Maryland…It’s growing considerably…A lot of the work is now related to informatics and early threat detection (thanks to all the looneys) versus traditional “military” type weapontry…
So there are totally looking for highly qualified software professionals. A few of my of my friends who was a directors where being asked to take 2 level down positions in S.D. and were seeing cuts down to $130k, “take it or leave it” attitude in the tight market in SD…But ended up taking offers in DC area for $200k, and with all the relocation expenses paid.
And generally, their quality of life is better (8-6 hours, not the unpaid overtime crap like some three letter defense company subjected people to)….Not to mention that this isn’t going to change soon, because spending while spending on welfare might decrease over the years, such informatics work will be around for a long time….When a defense techie sees this sort of differential between SoCal and Maryland, it’s really time to reconsider giving the white flag for just the sunshine here, imho…
At some of the difference in comps, you could be sending your kids to probably the best private schools that runs circles around any public school in SD…
If you plan on staying tech, and want to stay in S.D., my recommendation is to get out of the defense business as soon as you can. Because I fear it’s going to get a lot worse in SoCal for defense folks.
