Where would you move to?

If you were going to / are going to move, where would you move to and why? Realistically , seriously.......
Sherry

HI,
I live in CA zone 9 Bay area. I would love to live in a zone 10 so I could grow more tropicals outdoors year round. I would also like to have more space, like an acre or more. Hawaii would me my dream but my kids live here and there is always the money issue. lol
Linda

The area around Santa Barbara is my favorite place, so that's where I'd go. Or somewhere up on the Sonoma coast...but I think SB is a little less foggy most of the year so I'd probably be happier there! My problem is I want lots of land, but I love the idea of living right by the water, and there's no way I'll ever be able to afford 10 oceanfront acres! Being realistic about what I can afford, I'd say finding a few acres somewhere in the more rural areas of Sonoma county--around the Russian River area but not right in the middle of the resort area. Somewhere like where Western Hills nursery is in Occidental. That would be a much more realistic dream--I could afford that now if I sold this place, but it would be a heck of a commute to my job, and I can't think of where I would work up there, so it'll have to wait until I retire in about 50 years!

ecrane3,
When we left your area 28 years ago all of the areas that you want were the areas we wanted also. They were unaffordable then...still are. I would really like to stay in California, but all of the areas we want would take all that we've got and I don't want to do that. The bluff road that runs from Cazadero to the rhododendron park would suit you...but I haven't seen it in years, perhaps it's developed now.
I think we'd be gone now if we could decide where to. It always looks like it has to be north, but maybe that's because it's familiar.

I moved 4 miles, 10 years ago and it is where I truly want to stay. The East Bay of SF suits me just fine. Not too hot. Not too cold. Outside of commute hours the traffic in town is very tolerable. Small town feel in the neighborhood I am in. 1 hr to Redwoods or the beach. 3 hrs to visit the snow I don't have to shovel. Reasonable transportation via BART and AMTRAK in town. Fishing within a couple of blocks. Nice public schools. A great variety of parks. Any type of shopping or entertainment within a hours drive. I can grow just about anything, even outside.

Cazadero is a suburb of Sea Ranch and has become a very trendy and pretty expensive. Check out http://www.zillow.com/search/Search.htm?addrstrthood=&citystatezip=cazadero%2C+ca&GOButton=GO

With unlimited funds I'd choose Santa Barbara or Mendocino. Not having that, but anticipating retirement health benefits instead when my DH retires, we have decided to stay with the Kaiser HMO system which limits where we can live. They're only in certain states and the senior facilities are even more limited.

We're pretty happy with living in the Oakland hills. Thinking we might move a little more to the El Cerrito-Albany side in a few years. Right now all my side of the family lives there. There's the possibility we might invest with some younger family members: we'd go in together on the property, they'd own it and we'd have lifetime rental rights. Not a perfect solution but definitely doable. Love the weather here, the transportation, the amenities and shopping of big-city life.

I have a large garden right now and definitely won't want to spend my later years doing so much garden work as now. In fact, we bought this property from two elderly sisters who couldn't keep up with things and let it all get run-down. As long as I can grow a Meyer lemon and maybe a Japanese maple somewhere, that'll work for us.

I do not live in California any longer, but would not rule out living there again. However, I would confine my choices to the Northern half.
That being said, my one requirement would be a piece of land with excellent water. That is my current situation (1 1/2 acres, with a very deep well).
I am just a bit east of Seattle, and while I despise the prolonged grey during the winter, rain during the day (it should only do so at night!) & the growing limitations of a cool maritime climate, I have come to appreciate the convenience of having my own water source. The cost of living has increased here, but the real estate market has remained positive, despite what has occured elsewhere. So, it's do-able.
I suppose that whatever slice of land you are blessed with will have its negatives, but after being here for over 20 years, water availability still remains a primary factor.
I sure wouldn't mind winter temps above 40°, though!

Water availability is figuring strongly in our decisions

Interesting topic gypsy, and I already know that you love where I live so I don't need to advertise it. But we do have a problem with water. And when I was looking at the area it was a huge consideration. When the rest of California decided to import water Cambria opted out. When there's a drought we have to conserve. But the plus side of it is that, because there is only so much water to be had, there is no growth. There's been a moratorium on building for 20 years here. Sure, you can build, but it has to be on a lot that already has water rights. With the instability of the weather patterns I don't know that anyone anywhere is assured of water forever. I like being somewhere that has a fair chance of not turning into a huge ticky-tacky housing tract. Plus the combo of the Monetery Pines and ocean is a winner for me.

Our retired neighbors born & raised in Iowa - never lived anywhere else in their lives-coutry folk.

Are moving to the Dominican Republic . . . for the weather . . economical . . . and other reasons (political) I don't quite understand.

They already gave me two reasons I wouldn't want to move there . . very few choices on zip lock baggies and paper toweling is high priced. LOL Plus I wouldn't want to be that far from our children in So Cal.

TwinLakesChef, no doubt they are just joining an increasing movement of seniors living in foreign countries. There are many development enclaves specifically set up for Americans and Europeans who wish to retire in tropical areas. I know some folks who moved to Costa Rica from California.

The cost of living is half, the medical facilities are actually quite good. You are living in what is usually gated communities, especially if you don't speak the language. This can make you feel very safe, but also increases the isolation from the native culture and can be a target for considerable resentment.

Your downside is that Medicare does not cover you; if you elect out and then eventually try to return, you will pay the 10% per year penalty that Medicare assesses.

I was born in Palo Alto and have lived there, Encino, Menlo Park, Sacramento and now Phoenix (which I like alot). I'd love to live in Chiavari Italy or Mendocino, Fort Bragg/Willits. The idea of a smaller town is appealing but I KNOW I'd go crazy with the bordom and gossip. Good luck gypsy. I suspect you'll find that by comparison you'll stay where you are.

Well, we never intended staying here this long and to many our area is wonderful, but we will stay here only if indecision rules. It's so easy when you're from somewhere else to go back, or if you have friends and family elsewhere that lead you to that area. If nothing else, I don't think we want the boredom of thinking we would stay here the rest of our lives.
How odd...to move to another country, not speaking the language and live in a gated community of other Americans. The DH is from Iowa and we were living there around '73-'74 when numbers of people were heading for Belize. People we knew sold their farm, gathered all their belongings and headed for land they were buying in Belize. Apparently got there one day late, didn't get the land, didn't get their money back and had one heck of a time trying to come back through Mexico. I don't think I'd feel comfortable not having the protections that we're used to here.
After years here, I'd just started feeling attached to our property. My trees are getting large now and that makes all of the difference to me. I love our property and I love my house, but with the other factors, this thing with the fires is enough to tip the scales. To burn here twice in 4 years is not good. I don't want to live my life waiting to see if we'll have to evacuate again and going through all of that again. I'm not interested in cutting all of my trees and other vegetation to be fire safe or limiting the number of animals to be sure you can get them all out.

The other thing I think about doing someday in the future is moving back to Cleveland to be closer to my family--I know it's not an especially exciting place, but pretty much my whole family is there and it would be nice to be closer to them! And I could buy myself a nice house on Lake Erie or a country estate for less that what I paid for my house here!

That's what I'm missing, Liz. The feeling of wanting to go back 'home' and be close to the family. I think we get that way in older years. Almost all of our family is gone and a lot of close friends gone also. See, I wish I were from,say, Ohio, so that I coud go back home. Dh is from Iowa and I'd go back if our friends were still there. I think Ohio sounds like a wonderful place and if that were where I was from, I'd probably go back there. We almost bought our first home in Iowa many years ago, but at the last moment I was afraid I would miss the ocean too much and thought it sounded like giving up the West Coast forever and just couldn't do it. All areas of the Northern Californai coast are familiar to us and that's why it would be so comfortable for us to move back north. I don't know about inland as much. We were in Washington for 3 years, but didn't get ovet to the mainland much to be familiar with areas there that we might like.

I love returning to San Francisco and Northern California to visit friends and be a tourist. I see so much more of the area as a visitor than I did as a resident. Plus I can stay in great hotels in the City and eat out, tour and see friends. From Phoenix its only 1:45 hour and I'm there for just $180 and a $300 a night hotel LOL. Its a wonderful vacation.

The $300 a night hotel would bother me for sure...lol...

jk
that's a good point about the Medicare; I'll mention that to them.

I would always stay within the US; I am too patriotic not to. I am not into politics; they can take care of themselves.

Being originally from Iowa, I lived in CA 26 yrs, and then came back home. Was very surprised to find how narrow minded people in my area are; clicky; and after having been away, I have nothing in common with them.

That's the reason we pretty much stay on the West Coast....the mentality doesn't seem to suit me elsewhere. My DBIL lives in Dubuque, wouldn't live anywhere else, hates California. But then, he's always lived in Iowa, it's probably just all in what we are used to. But I admit to being one of the West Coast 'flakes'.

I remember when I was first moving here (was living in Cincinnati at the time), a few of my friends from work were joking that CA was the land of the fruits, nuts, and flakes...so I asked them which one they thought I was! Nobody answered that one!

We get along ok in our community and do participate in some of the social functions on our lake, support the sailing association etc. Have made a few friends and have good neighbors nearby but most of the things they do for "fun" don't interest us.

And I suppose being away from here for 26 years . . . I have changed a lot.

Mostly, they don't like "change" and I am all about "change".

My husband and I think about moving a lot lately. We have lived in the same house for over 30 years. I have plants I have had for over 30 years so it is hard to leave them. One is a huge bougainvillea that is truly spectacular. But.................. we recently have 2 new neighbors that are so challenging to live next to, so we are really thinking of leaving. My husband has wanted to move for years but I held on because of the perfect weather. I can't take it cold or hot. We also go out to eat every week once and often twice a week in San Francisco. We love our trips to Monterey, Napa area, Mendocino etc. An hour + and we get a total change of scenery. Hard to leave that! We also so enjoy the diverse types of food you can get here. If I had to give up authentic Thai, Vietnamese, great sushi, etc, what fun would that be?

I often play online looking at real estate. Another friend sent me links to homes for sale in Oklahoma, where she lives. I could buy a so huge house with 5 acres of property for about half of what my tacky house is worth. I couldn't believe it when I saw the homes they just give away. Here it would go for millions with no land included. I was thinking for the price, we could live like kings and have enough money to enclose an acre in a huge greenhouse.
Here is one I saw for about $400,000 for I as I recall 5 acres!
http://www.mlsgateway.com/Searches/propphotos.aspx?photocount=10&uid=338179

Anyway, if I can tear myself away from the bay area I have been looking online at Cambria and around Santa Cruz. If I move I want to move with a view of water and also a decent yard size. Though I am getting old so maybe I do no longer need the large yard I so wanted 10 years ago.

I may not need to garden as much in another place. I'm thinking trees and riding my lawn mower. I do need big trees and then I'm okay and taking care of the 1 1/2 acres that we've been on for a long time is not as much fun anymore. My cousin who thought she could never leave California again bought a 5,000 square foot house in Oklahoma City with an indoor pool for $375,000 about 3 years ago and they love it there. BUT, what's the tradeoff for tornadoes? The Bay Area is really hard to leave. We lived in Martinez 28 years ago before going to Washington and I loved everything about it then. We spent a couple of days in Santa Cruz for the Cabrillo College sale in May and S.C. is wonderful, but, once again,a lot more crowded than it was 25 years ago. When we were younger it didn't faze us a bit to just move off to some place we didn't know, etc., it seems harder now. I don't think I can go east at all. I can go away from the ocen for awhile, but not knowing I'd never live close again.

Another reason I like my move is that I got to keep my Prop 13 property taxes by staying in the same county. If you are 55 or older, Proposition 90 also allows you to keep your old property taxes if you buy in Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Ventura. [Contra Costa, Inyo, Kern, Riverside, Modoc, Monterey, and Marin have dropped out of the Prop 90 program.] If you buy before you sell, the new home can not cost more than the old one sold for. If you buy within 1 year after the sale the new home can be up to 105% of the old home. If you buy within 1-2 years after the sale the new home can be up to 110% of the old home.

Just call me crazy, but I kind of like living in a $1,000,000 home with $1,000 a year taxes instead of $10,000 a year taxes.

Yeah, Prop 13 is a biggie to take into consideration when moving elsewhere. If we can manage to hang onto it. We have to keep fighting the same battle over and over to keep it and I wonder if we may lose it in the next few years when the voting majorities change.

If the real estate market continues how it is now, Prop 13 may not be as big a deal in the future as it has been. I'm considering asking them to reassess my house right now because I don't think it's worth the amount that I'm being taxed on. And while I think the market will go back up again, I'm not sure we're going to see values skyrocket like they have in the past.

But I don't think anyone would get rid of Prop 13--if property values do start going up considerably again and you get rid of Prop 13, you're going to collapse the real estate market because nobody will be able to afford to stay in their houses anymore, so you'll wind up in a situation sort of like we have now where lots of people are foreclosing, either that or they'll move out of state.

I think there may be a lot more people soon who do not own and think they're not getting any benefits from prop 13 and would rather see people owning taxed more and don't give a hoot about collapsing the market. We have to fight to keepProp 13 as it is. I think it's possible that those of us fighting may be out voted in the near future. Maybe not.

I'm happy here and hope that I can stay here. The weather is perfect, my garden is enough of a challenge just the size it is. Boring answer I know. :-)

Ah, the joys of boredom!

Oh, I'm only hoping for someone to come up with a where and why that I haven't thought of. I do know others who say they'll never leave wherever they are. I'd been thinking that maybe we'd convince ourselves that we want to stay here forever, it is nice, but not the place I 'd say I'll never leave. And I want to do it while I can still enjoy wherever we move to.

It gets more conflicting living in two places like we do; Living here on a lake in the country it is very beautiful and peaceful. But everything seems to be about the weather - we don't like the extreme cold in the winter-it is actually very mild here - but occasionally it gets down to zero or below and that is bitter.

Our summers are very tropical-like - mid 70's most of the time. Occasionally it gets close to 90. But in the summer we hate all the flies and mosquitoes. And the wild electrical storms can tear up the garden as well as the threat of tornados..having grown up here I have only seen one in my life and never been hit by one. Not the case for those folks in Missouri, Oklahoma etc. Also, living in the country is dirtier - more dirt sifting into the house than the house in CA.

But living here makes us appreciate Orange County. The 26 years we lived there full time we took the weather for granted. Now when we get there, the first thing we do is go sit on the patio and enjoy that it is warm and NO bugs as well as no wind (of course there is the occasional Santa Anna). But for the most part there is no wind.

Food - well here we don't eat out - we can cook better things at home than we can get in the restaurants around here. It's nice in OC to go to nice restaurants but when there we still do a lot of our own cooking. If you are not into cooking you would starve or be bored in Iowa.

No matter which location we are at, it seems most of our time is spent on upkeep of the houses and maybe we like that.

Friends - we have a few here but not much of a social life; we work constantly but my DH has a very strong work ethic so that's OK too. In OC we have our old friends who we enjoy more and have more in common with.

Family - as soon as I moved back to Iowa, my mother died, then the next year my father; my brother and sisters are no longer close due to that. But I do have cousins and a couple of aunts I see once a year or so.

In CA we have our daughters, grandaughters etc. We are very close and probably talk on the phone 3-4 times a week plus email. There is something to be said for NOT living a mile from the kids-we revolved around them so much when in OC and here we are free to have our own lifestyle.
They come here at least once a year as it is.

It was hard on them at first when I first went back to Iowa but they are 36 & 37 years old - time not to be so emotionally dependent on mom and dad.


When I come out in January for my daughter's birthday, we are going to LA for dinner and then on to see "Wicked". In Iowa we can go to Des Moines for productions but rarely do. My DH doesn't care to go because when you put him in a dark place sitting for too long he falls asleep. He loves "Phantom of the Opera" but has fallen asleep both times we went.

Maybe this explains why we live in two places . . . we just don't know where we want to be. But I do know that as we get older, larger is not better.

I envy that. I would really like living in 2 places..you get the best of both and don't have to be there all the time year round. I could really appreciate that. We'd like to have a house in the northwest and be here for the winters. Winters in SoCal are pretty darned good, but we don't like the summers. And I miss Fall. And I love the northwest,but it's good to be able to leave for a couple of months during the rains. I'm sorry that we stayed here for so long because then you become rooted and it's harder to make that choice if you don't have something drawing you to another place. 'To' is easier than 'away from'.

It may sound good but . . there is constant upkeep whether you are there or not.

I have fought with Sears all summer about a refrigerator repair and they finally came out last week to replace the compressor . . . AGAIN!

Had to schedule the repair when my grandaughter would be there to let them in etc. Crossing fingers now that it is finally ok. If it happens again . . they will give me a new refrig.

But that doesn't make up for the inconvenience to my children or my mental angst! Can't tell you how many times they have had to clean it and throw out rotten food.

I thought about the upkeep thing. As we're getting older we're not as thrilled with upkeep. Next house is going to take much less, for sure, we've decided that.
It seems as though most new appliances, machinery, etc. has problems and are not made as they should be. What else is new? I dread having to replace anything. I don't care for most of the new designs and can never find what I want even in something as simple as a toaster. Bought an Amana stove and the oven never could be made right, they finally took it back. I hear from friends that there are problems with high end refrigerators and dishwashers also. Bosch being one of those names,surprisingly.

Sure makes you think twice about what to buy next. Sears repairmen were nice . . but Sears is horrible.

Along with medical facilities, also consider the accessibility of the home, if it is for retirement. When we made our move to this home, it was a real fixer upper. We had just had 3 deaths in the family and learned first hand how difficult it is to care for someone that only has tub shower and narrow doorways. Inheritance helped us to modify the home to what we wanted. A wheel chair accessible shower. All doorways at 3' wide. Lever door handles. One level. The side door has a big landing and shallow steps, very easy to modify to wheelchair access. We don't need any of those things now, but the time for them keeps drawing near.

We've done that in the studio apartment we built for my Dad, though we can't get him to come down here yet. At least I got the extra refrigerator that I'd been wanting. We have the energy for maybe remodeling one more house left in us, though we don't look forward to it. Don't want to build again and I see our life getting a lot simpler than it is now.

Simple is good.

Yes, at a certain point clutter becomes a heavy burden. Especially if you stay in one place for 25 years...lol...

I just downsized and I love it. 2600 sf to 1400 sf. Just me and my Standard Poodle. Good friends and lovely houseguests.
Remodeling my little house just like I want it. Doing the small-ish yard just like I want. For the long term. This is it. A very nice neighborhood, smaller house, quite managable.
Good hospitals, healthcare, entertainment, perfect weather 7-8 months out of the year. Horrid weather for 3-4 months. You've heard of our heat. The heat brings monsoon, though, and I love that dramatic time of year.

I was born and raised in Palo Alto, lived as an adult in Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Sacramento. Love the Bay Area-- the way it used to be. Quite a few people here from that area.