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Possible move to portland
Hello, my husband and I are considering a possible move to Portland. We currently live in Tri Cities, Wa, and we totally dislike it. We moved here 2 years ago from Orlando, Florida. We wanted to move to Portland since the beginning, but at the time there were no openings. We are pretty much deciding between Portland and Pittsburgh, I know totally different coasts.I am a SAHM mom to a 3 year old and a 7 month old, so we want to be in a really great community with great schools and lots to do.
How are the taxes there, we have no income tax here so that is a major factor with relocating there. Any info you all can provide to me would be great. We have also considered Vancouver as well, my husbands office is based out of Seattle so it does not really matter if we live in either place.
The housing there is rather high, in comparison to where we live, but we would probably rent until we found the best location and home. We are traveling there next weekend just to see what we think, we are staying in Beaverton.
Any info you all can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!
Re: Possible move to portland
Well, I love Portland!! : )
Beaverton is a great area to raise kids in, I grew up there and loved it. The Portland Metro area is expensive, high cost of living, and very small amount of jobs. We do have income tax, but have no sales tax, so I would assume it's probably about equal. Housing costs are VERY expensive here, but renting will get you a far bigger house than buying.
I would suggest just get in your car and drive around. The areas that I would reccomend are Beaverton, Tanasbourne, Rock Creek area, Aloha, Glencoe High School area, and then on the "East side" I would reccomend you look at Milwaukie, Oregon City, West Linn, Clackamas, and Happy Valley. Those are all relatively affordable neighborhoods, with decent schools and lower crime rates than other areas.
I don't like Vancouver at all, just my opinion. I call it "Vantucky" : )
"How are the taxes there, we have no income tax here so that is a major factor with relocating there. "
We have taxes here. Taxes help pay for our infrastructure (barely these days, if you haven't heard we have a bridge that has a rating of 2 on a scale of 1 to 100 and there's no money to fix it despite it being one of the 2 most crossed bridges in the state), our schools (which still have one of the shortest school years in the nation because of lack of funds) and social services (things like jails and help for the mentally ill, etc -- important stuff you don't want to go away). If you're more worried about paying taxes than you are about benefiting from the things taxes fund, well, you get what you pay for. No one likes taxes but they pay for many of the things that makes Oregon what it is.
Our income tax is currently 9%. We also have property taxes.
Housing costs tend to be higher here in comparison to wages. The Portland area has a high number of people moving here and relatively few jobs. That makes housing prices that are relatively high and jobs that don't pay as much as you might get elsewhere. Supply and demand.
There's a moving bio you might check out. It probably goes into some of the things you are asking about more in-depth.
Well, we just relocated to Richland, WA from Portland, OR so I can give you a little insight.
Despite the fact that I love Portland and I really miss it, Dh and I have a much better standard of living in the tri-cities area than we did in Portland. Our sales tax in WA is 8.3% and that is only on certain items (not groceries, etc). What we paid in income tax in Oregon far exceeds what we pay here in sales tax.
When I did research on tri-cities I *belive* that housing prices here were 40-50% cheaper than Portand. That combined with longer commutes/more traffic which equal more $ spent on gas, etc.
DH and I are both actually recieved significant pay increases and had a much easier time finding jobs in tri-cities area as well.
Also, from the research I have done the schools here score high above Portland schools, have more funding etc. If you google it you can find more information. (we don't have children so I didn't look too far into this)
With all that said, Dh and I have a much better standard of living here than we did in Portland. However, I miss the great restaurants, diversity, culture, airport, large stores, family and friends from the Portland area. I also miss all the various other things you can't find in a "smaller town". We still own a townhome there and may move back someday
There are a lot of things to consider when making a big move! Just do your reasearch and find what works best for you and your family.
Good luck! Let me know if you have questions!
Thank you all for your input, you all have been very helpful!!! I totally understand that it is way more to live in Portland, but my husbands heart is set on moving us there, we would definetely have to downsize in our home as well as other luxuries that we have here.
CoffeegirlJ- We live in Richland as well in Horn Rapids, thanks so much for your perspective on this.
Oh cool...we looked a lot in Horn Rapids.
We are building with New Tradition in South Richaland....off of Keene Road. Our foundation is almost done and building should be complete in Dec. or Jan.
We've only been here since July so we are just getting more familar with the area. Haven't found too many other nesties that live in tri-cities.
That's not entirely true; WA residents who work in OR still pay OR income tax--not as much as OR residents, but plenty. And the commute is a serious, serious problem--such that it can become a quality of life issue. Think carefully about that.
Zelda is right.
WA residents who work in OR do pay OR income tax (as they should since they are using our roads and services).
The commute is becoming more difficult with population growth (the population of the Portland Metro area is growing exponentially faster than was anticipated back in the days of planning and quite frankly, our infrastructure was never meant to accomodate the current population projections). There is a plan for a new bridge but it is mired in political disagreement (about who will pay, how much and what it will entail), not to mention that none of the parties who might pay (Fed, OR or WA) have the money to do so (WA probably has more than OR simply because they have more companies/jobs and a sales tax but everyone is hurting but if this is anything like the last bridge talks with WA, they won't pony up). Last I heard, the idea was scrapped although I don't know how accurate that was as it was just cocktail chatter.