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Moving to Portland (And a car thread!)
Aphostile
San Francisco, CARegistered User regular
San Francisco, CARegistered User regular
Hello H&A,
I've grown sick of living in California. Everything is too expensive, the people suck and the fun things to do are generally not worth the hassle of putting up with everything else.
Current plan is to live downtown for a year, then move into a house when I've gotten settled with a job and the g/f completes plans with her particular work and goals.
I've looked into apartments in the Pearl District, but don't really know much about things there. I'm going in three weeks with the g/f who knows the areas and will be able to tell me more but I'm always open to suggestions. Rent in California is far beyond what I'm seeing in Portland. Plus, I'll be sharing rent, rather than handling it all myself.
With that out of the way, I also fancy the idea of the skiing and hiking in the nearby areas. We've got a cabin up there on Mt. Hood and would love to be able to go up when we like. This brings me to the car thread portion. I currently drive a Cayenne S. It's a lovely car, but I'm planning on getting into something more sensible. Was looking into 4 door sedans, but need to think about the 4wd and snow as well. Thinking on the Audi wagons, but again, no idea to their ability to handle in the harsher climate. I've lived in Vegas and northern CA for most of my life, so my experience with weather is rather... limited.
Questions/Answers/Suggestions/Mentions of my stupidity?
I've grown sick of living in California. Everything is too expensive, the people suck and the fun things to do are generally not worth the hassle of putting up with everything else.
Current plan is to live downtown for a year, then move into a house when I've gotten settled with a job and the g/f completes plans with her particular work and goals.
I've looked into apartments in the Pearl District, but don't really know much about things there. I'm going in three weeks with the g/f who knows the areas and will be able to tell me more but I'm always open to suggestions. Rent in California is far beyond what I'm seeing in Portland. Plus, I'll be sharing rent, rather than handling it all myself.
With that out of the way, I also fancy the idea of the skiing and hiking in the nearby areas. We've got a cabin up there on Mt. Hood and would love to be able to go up when we like. This brings me to the car thread portion. I currently drive a Cayenne S. It's a lovely car, but I'm planning on getting into something more sensible. Was looking into 4 door sedans, but need to think about the 4wd and snow as well. Thinking on the Audi wagons, but again, no idea to their ability to handle in the harsher climate. I've lived in Vegas and northern CA for most of my life, so my experience with weather is rather... limited.
Questions/Answers/Suggestions/Mentions of my stupidity?
Nothing. Matters.
Aphostile on
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As far as 4dr sedans go I like the Camry. I worked for a car rental company in 07/08. The Camry was heads above any of the other 4dr sedans.
edit - its front wheel drive so it'll handle fairly well with snow
As far as cars go, the NW is Subaru central, and for a reason - All wheel drive. Check out the Impreza or Legacy.
True. However, I'm not particularly worried about the snow in the city, just the snow outside when we go skiing.
roads to ski hills are cleared quite regularly, cause not everybody drives a 4wd. Chains are cheap too. $20 for nice ones that are easy to put on and take off.
Yes. But not for a long period of time. The g/f is from Portland (Hillsboro actually) and loves it, as does everyone from there.
I'm currently spending roughly 1500 on rent in CA. I can not really justify spending more, as we are living well within our means in our space, so spending much more seems like a waste.
"Inner southeast and inner southwest are similarly centrally located"
What are these areas called?
You can have a really nice place for way less than that in Portland. If you WANT to waste that much and live with a bunch of yuppies in the Pearl, be my guest, but you're just throwing your money away. With all the mass transit in Portland, nothing is far away from anything. This isn't LA, you don't have to drive anywhere. Living downtown so you can be close to everything is just dumb. I live in SE Portland and can be downtown in less than 10 minutes on the bus which comes by every 12 minutes. We pay $800 TOTAL for a pretty nice 2 bedroom with lots of built ins, working fireplace, giant private porch, free laundry, etc...
Are you obsessed with living in brand new housing or are you ok with something older and with more character?
I grew up in Santa Clara County, too, and I think one of the things you'll find about Portland is that everything is a lot closer and more sensible. If you live anywhere close to the river, you'll rarely need to drive more than 20 minutes to get anywhere else inside Portland. The 'burbs and other destinations ... yeah, they might take a little bit longer, but still nothing like having to drag ass across San Jose for just about anything.
As the poster correctly stated above, Portland is Subaru central, because of the AWD. For about 3-4 months every year, you can't really leave the Portland area without chains or AWD, and preferably AWD and spiked tires. Inside the city it's not too important, snow sticks on the ground only a few days every 2-3 years, but kind of anything past 10 miles outside the city, and there's guaranteed a few times every year it will be covered in snow.
If you have more questions about specific areas or specific questions, I'm happy to tell you what I know. I can't really quote rents, because the last apartment I got was about a year and a half ago, so I'm not quite sure where it's ended up at this point.
portland driving in winter:
The weather like this is VERY rare in Portland. But it seems to be happening more often. I love that it shuts down the city.
Not attached to the idea of brand new housing at all. The building I live in now is 15 years old (with renovations) and I've got no issues with it. I'd love a house with some character or even an apartment building with some quirks. There is literally nothing exciting about my current place aside from the tenants, and the only thing I've witnessed is a 4 year old that said, 'What up' to me as I walked to my car one day.
Talked with the g/f about her ideas and she likes the idea of the southern area of Portland moreso than the Northern. We'd love views of the river but that's just a throwaway idea as well.
Well, I guess I could ask about the SE area. What's it like? Lots of neighborhoods? Or is it lots of apartment complexes? I know that the northern area gets a bad rap for it's crime but how is the SE? Reveal your secrets!
I suppose I could have more questions after I visit in a couple of weeks, mind if I PM you at that time (or even bump the thread, though that's the less favorable thing on the forum).
Yeah well, my friend was paying over $2k for a one bedroom here before the prices came down. Talk about ridiculous, eh?
And that video was pretty funny, why did that first person keep accelerating? They'd already lost control of their car. I'm well aware of stupid people in their cars in bad weather though, so that's probably the least of my worries. I was more concerned about my ability to get up to the cabin than anything else.
I don't know what it is about Vegas but people see flooding water and go hmm, I'd really love to drive my car into that.
Each little neighborhood generally has its own little identity -- I live in the Brooklyn neighborhood, I lived in Sellwood before. I miss Sellwood. There's Ladd's Addition, and the general Hawthorne and Belmont areas. I've heard people joke about FoPo, where Foster and Powell meet, and there's Woodstock and Moreland over by Sellwood as well. These places are generally defined by a little strip of shops, or a park, or a connecting theme in the age and style of the homes, or something. I think there's a name for the area around Division Street, but I'm forgetting right now, oh and Clinton Street which is great. My favorite part of living out here is having easy access to the bike trail which runs the length of the east side of the river, all the way from Steel Bridge in the North to the border of Portland and Milwaukie, so I can easily ride into the heart of the city whenever I need.
Hawthorne is a good street to orient yourself around -- there's a pretty big Safeway on 27th and Hawthorne, a big Fred Meyer on 39th and Hawthorne, and tons of shops and places to eat in-between. (On 25th and Hawthorne is my favorite comic shop, where BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS HIMSELF goes to buy his funny books! and besides that it's a great shop.)
The SE is kind of hipster central in Portland, if that makes any difference to you, although there is the ever-gentrifying slow march to the NE occurring as the underemployed youth move in search of cheaper rent.
Don't overlook the NE, either. I have two friends who bought houses near Alberta Street, and that's a really great, developing neighborhood. Alberta is full of great shops, and has started its own Last Thursday shindig in order to highlight more alternative, non-studio represented and stuffy artists of all the galleries in downtown Pearl area. It's a little bit farther from downtown than most places in the SE, but you'll find less reason to need to head there when you're living in the NE. N Portland is nice, too, cheap, and you can find places with good access to downtown as well.
I'm not positive what secrets you might want, save for my rent, which I won't trouble you with, because I rent from a kinda weird old guy so it's a little bit below market value. You'll have to do looking on your own, but I would expect you to be able to find a 2BR for anywhere between $800-1200 depending on where you're looking. Not sure what else to cover ... I got sick of the night life in downtown because all the suburbanites head there when they go to drink, so there's only a few bars where you can hide out and get a proper Portland vibe. I stick to Burnside and Sandy these days when getting my drink on, although I still have lots of sweetheart bars in the SE I like to visit from time to time. Sellwood park is my favorite park in the city, along with having the greatest swing set in the world, and a nice pier upon which to shoot off fireworks, and a great old roller rink next to the rundown old amusement park, all of which is directly adjacent to the bike trail. HUB Brewery on Powell is my favorite non-big time Portland brewer. New Seasons is my favorite grocery store, locally run hippie type thing, with free samples every day, and there's one in Sellwood, one on Division, one near Alberta, all of which makes me like those places more. Hollywood is maybe my least favorite neighborhood, because of the mess of Sandy and the freeway colliding, although I did just discover the Hollywood Burger Bar, which is a run-down old greasy spoon, which are my favorites.
Anyway...