So the work I do is 100% remote now. I moved to Southern California because of an industry that has in part moved to remote work. My only requirements are a temperate climate, nature access and hopefully a blue-ish state. Is there a place out there that makes sense financially? I’m hoping to buy a house less then 500k. I don’t need access to large cities as I honestly don’t do anything. The only requirement I can think of is access to solid internet as I stream full screen video for what I do.
I’m currently looking at Michigan and Virginia as options.
Seriously consider Scranton, PA. I live here and most houses go for well under your budget. You get all the seasons, are surrounded by state forest, and multi gigabit internet is available (thru Comcast unfortunately but other ISP’s are moving in soon). Also it’s in a county that remained blue during PA’s 2016 turn to red.
Would you say there’s any downsides to PA? Scranton seems like it may fall on the colder side yearly but not too bad
The Scranton Strangler qualifies as a downside…
I mean yes…but Scranton has made one of those safest cities in the US lists…I think like top 100
It sounds like you want to move to Oregon or Washington. They have way better climates than Michigan.
Oregon is blue, but mostly in the cities where home prices and cost of living are both high. Moving away from the cities give better affordability, but it turns red quickly. So pick your poison.
That’s true anywhere in the country though. Not a lot of blue rednecks.
north of Sacramento and south of Seattle… for that price you’ll have to be inland a few miles.
south of Seattle
Dear god please no. I’ve been here in “South of Seattle” for a good portion of my life, and due to the influx of remote workers, I’m being priced out. Restaurants are shutting down because the workers can’t afford to live in the city anymore.
I know that’s not the fault of the remote workers, it’s the fault of a capitalist system that refuses to budge on pay for work that just a few years ago was deemed “essential” and these people were expected to brave a deadly pandemic to keep things running but are now back to being treated as disposable and replaceable. They’re pretty over it, and many of them are giving up on cities like this because of it.
Eureka is quite nice.
CA north of SAC is definitely not “blue-ish” in the slightest. Towns like Yreka are basically de-industrialized, the locals blame “environmentalists” for that, and now Siskiyou County goes like 70% Trump.
Also, Redding is an absolute shithole.
Would you say that’s a bit cold year round? What are the summers like?
South of Seattle (South King or North Pierce counties, or even further south, closer to Olympia) gets occasional snow in the winter, and occasional 100+ degree days in the summer. Summer is gorgeous FTMP, with temps around 75-80 most days. Oct-Mar can be rough if you’re prone to seasonal depression, from the lack of sunshine. Plan to vacation somewhere sunny for a week some time in January or February, and you’ll do better.
I will say this specific area is pretty rural and red, vs the city centers closer to Seattle and Tacoma.
Michigan gets frigid winters, doesn’t it?
I will say this specific area is pretty rural and red
That’s really farther South or East, really. Olympia is largely “progressive” (of the rich, slightly out of touch, white liberal variety) and that attitude extends to the city suburbs. The only area where that might not be as true is Lacey, which has way more of the JBLM population living there.
Speaking of which, because of JBLM and basically daily accidents on I-5, going anywhere North from the Olympia area is a fucking crapshoot. An accident can shut down I-5 for hours and because of the nature of the area, there’s not a lot of side-roads to offload traffic onto, I-5 is really the main thoroughfare. It’s not as bad going south because there’s less traffic going south, so fewer accidents. But if you want to visit a friend on Tacoma, or catch a flight out of SeaTac, or see a show in Seattle… you pretty much have to add a guesstimated 2-3 hours of travel time depending on how far north you’re going based on how long traffic could be backed up if there’s a severe accident.
The frequency of accidents honestly keeps me off of I-5 because holy fucking shit. I don’t want one of those accidents to involve me. A lot of them are real bad.
Yeah, I was thinking of areas like Enumclaw, Bonney Lake, and Puyallup. You can definitely get a (smaller) house for under 500k in those areas, but I’m not sure if it quite fits OP’s political preference.
but I’m not sure if it quite fits OP’s political preference.
I’m not even sure you could peg a political line on this area other than “meth.” Also, for whatever reason, I always think of them as far southeast of Tacoma.
Although, it can be argued if you want the political climate of those areas to change, people with different politics need to move there.
However, I think that whole area is experiencing a huge influx of remote workers as well, as it is. Rents have been rising all over.
Michigan definitely gets cold if you’re north. Places like Holland, MI seem a bit warmer
Shitload of snow too though, but that is all of Michigan
I don’t mind a bit of snow, especially considering I don’t commute or go anywhere
Lol it can be a lot some times but if you’re working from home you kinda get to choose to go out in it so not nearly as painful. Michigan is awesome.
North of Sacramento? Not cold at all, and there are lots of great places to get out in nature. I can’t speak to Seattle much, it will get colder than Sacramento but the nature is probably even better. Summer near Sac can be very warm and get over 100, but that’s becoming more common more places
I’ll check it out, thanks!
NM has what you’re looking for; cost of living is very low, you can kind of pick the climate you want. We’re also blue as a twitter check-mark. We’re not super-diverse though; mostly white and Mexican descent depending on where you hang your hat.
fwiw you should probably add walkability and public transport to that list, it’s one of the most significant improvements you can make to your general physical and mental health, as well as saving a disgusting amount of money on not needing a car to buy groceries.
A lot of people in Michigan are expecting the state population to boom in the coming decades. No earthquakes or hurricanes, minimal wildfires and tornadoes. Lots of access to fresh water.
We passed a ballot initiative in 2018 that made an independent committee draw up congressional districts and wouldn’t you know it, the state suddenly went blue when no one could gerrymander anymore! Legal recreational weed, legal abortion, free school lunches, the progressives are moving fast with the new majority.
What area all depends on how much winter you can take. Detroit-Ann Arbor area is probably the mildest, followed by Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo (great cities, lake effect snow storms), Up North (even worse snow) and da UP (Marquette is amazing but if you don’t like snow sports you’ll go insane).
$500k will but you a great house in some suburbs or a decent house in a hot market.
The Upper Peninsula is actually one of the places that is likely to be least affected by Climate Change. Expect an influx of climate refugees as time goes on.
If I had to up and move, it’s definitely an area I would consider. I fell in love with Marquette while watching Joe Pera Talks With You which was set in and shot in Marquette.
And to consider another looming environmental catastrophe: the currently rising water scarcity can’t scare you too much if you live next to one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.
Another way of looking at it: if the entire world becomes really desperate for the resource in your backyard, your backyard is about to be ruined
I mean, I guess that depends. History is littered with countries that got destroyed because they got suddenly wealthy, like what happened to Nauru; but also of countries that thrived and are still thriving on a well-protected, sustainably obtained natural resource. I’d be more worried if the situation was more sudden and taking people with their pants down, but it’s been a very slow burn over decades.
What would you say are the downsides to southern Michigan? I’m seriously considering MI and just curious what the downsides would be. I don’t mind some snow.
If you’ve never experienced upper Midwest winters, you’ll be in for an interesting experience.
Also, not much in the way of topology, contrasting with SoCal.
I grew up in Chicago and got out of the entire area as soon as possible, due to (in no particular order) allergies, weather, and seasonal affective disorder.
I live in SoCal now and love it here, but climate change will probably force us elsewhere within 20 years. We already spend most of the summer somewhere else to escape the heat.
It’s really flat here compared to California, you can’t just drive a couple hours to get what you call hills and we call mountains. The Great Lakes are great but they’re not an ocean.
Flights from DTW are more expensive than from big cities. It’s funny that Detroit is 2,000 miles closer to Europe than SFO, but flights to Europe from SFO are cheaper.
We started getting wildfire smoke from Canada this year, but I imagine we’re still doing better than SoCal.
California is still more progressive than Michigan, but we also don’t have as much craziness around ballot initiatives.
I adore Detroit, but it’s no LA or SF. Chicago is about 4 hours away.
Regarding Detroit, when I step back and look at the country from a climate perspective, it looks great. From what I’ve been exposed to media wise, it sounds scary and crime ridden. I live on the outskirts of LA county, so I’m no stranger to a large city next door. Why wouldn’t I want to be looking at a town 30 minutes or so from Detroit? It seems like a logical option from my perspective.
There are some incredibly rich and affluent communities with very safe neighborhoods in some of the “suburbs of Detroit”. Metro Detroit is a much larger area than Detroit itself and there are many types of communities to choose from.
Random interesting trivia…but the city of Dearborn in that area is home to some of the largest number of Arabic speaking individuals. There will even be signs in the downtain area written in Arabic instead of English. It’s not a city I would recommend to live in due to safety, but it’s a random interesting blub I wanted to word vomit out lol.
Winters in Michigan can be absolutely gorgeous when there is a fresh snow…but unfortunately much of winter is just freezing, brown, ugly, and incredibly dark and depressing (less sunlight hours in Northern winters due to the position on the globe). Subjectively, winter seems to last around 5 months out of the year. It starts late October to early November and lasts until mid April.
Thanks for the info!
Detroit has some great suburbs (check out areas like Ferndale and Plymouth/Canton), but don’t write off Detroit based on what you’ve read in the media. A lot of people in Michigan are in the same boat as you and are missing out on what Detroit has to offer because of what they think Detroit is.
I’m from Kalamazoo. Lived in the sf bay now for the past 12+ years and many other places in between.
Winter is no joke, and drags on for a very long time. Diversity is much less than elsewhere I’ve lived (esp compared to the east bay), as a mixed race person my experience growing up was so much different than my kids’ experience in Berkeley. Kzoo is halfway between Chicago and Detroit so not horrible but any big name concerts or museum shows or whatever require a few hours of travel. Like another poster said, also car culture - nobody walks anywhere nor can you feasibly do so (not just because of winter but also due to the influence of Detroit) and outside of AA public transportation is non-existent. And the job market in general isn’t great (if you are working remote maybe it doesn’t matter, but at least in tech the salaries are significantly less even in Ann Arbor or Chicagoland area vs California, and the number of opportunities way fewer).
Thanks for the info! I don’t care about access to anything significant. I’m currently in SoCal and quite honestly don’t leave my house much do to being remote and many personal issues. Looking to just make ends meet doing my remote job where my money and sanity can go the longest. Enjoy nature, seclusion and a temperate climate.
Moved to Kalamazoo in 2015 for school and haven’t left, really love it here and it sounds like a good fit for OP maybe. From my experience, pretty good remote/wfh options.
How “temperate” are we talking here? Michigan will for sure have actual winter. Is temperate comparable to SoCal, or just not absolutely miserable winters?
Come to Manitoba lmao
Saskatchewan and Manitoba 😭
Awwwww hell naw. Pretty sure everyone there is suicidal and desperately trying to escape. Not to mention that 98% of the population is all concentrated in Winnipeg since the rest is an Arctic tundra and impenetrable pine forests.
If you love the outdoors, I recommend Montana and the Wyoming/Idaho border (Teton counties).
I would agree from an outdoors perspective but there’s no part of those states that really fit “blueish”. I keep hoping as a neighborhood state, but Wyoming continues to disappoint as does Montana.
Yeah, I was thinking the Teton counties because they are blue, but the state governments are indeed a fascist clown show.
Denver is a super nice city and, while it’s NOT cheap, there are cheaper areas near by. Closer to the mountains it’s all gentrified, but out on the plains, especially north east and south east of the city you can still find pretty affordable areas.
Ashland, OR.
I can’t recommend Kentucky enough. It ain’t blue, but it meets your other criteria. House prices are very reasonable. We live just outside Fort Knox and when the Army is done with my wife we’re moving back
Wha… what exactly are they doing to her??
I laughed.
They’re working her too hard and paint her too little. In seven years she’ll be at 30 years and it will be time to be done.
What do you like about it so much? I’ve never lived in a place I wanted to live in. All my choices have been because of family or career. I really just don’t want be be too hot (Southern California here) or have to carry inflated prices because I live near ‘all this cool shit’ that I couldn’t care less about.
It’s beautiful.
From where we live a bunch of interesting places are within an easy drive. Nashville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati are all three hours or less away.
The people are mostly kind and mostly polite.
The cost of living is relatively low.
The pace of life feels slower.
Connecticut is always good. An hour to the shore, close to Boston and NYC. Bradley is a great airport and there are lots of remote jobs if yours doesn’t work out long term. Plus the best pizza in the world.
Italy has angrily entered the chat.
You can do ok for 500k here in Rhode Island. No mountain wilderness, but the beaches and islands are gorgeous, and there’s lots of nature to the western part of the state.
The waterfires more than make up for it though!
Thanks will check it out!
You may want to stay in the same time zone as work, or a close one.
I lived in EST and liaised with a team in delhi. Yeah.
So I got up super early so the gap wasn’t bad. It was a regular schedule that didn’t fluctuate and while it sucked to become an early bird, it was a great job so it was okay.
Central New Jersey.
