…I’m looking forward to this with equal parts excitment and dread. Well, not dread so much as trepidation. You see, this will be the first time for us. We’ve been aparment hunting sure, but that was in Japan and that was just for the two of us. We hope to be starting a family soon so there’s all of those considerations to take into account.
Of course we’ll settle wherever DH gets hired but part of what we’re going to try to do is search out areas we’d want to live in and then apply to those school discricts. (He’s going to be teaching high school.) Here’s where your help comes in. What kind of things do you look for in a city or township? What are good points and bad points? Great bonuses and run-screaming-the-other-way points? Who would you talk to to find out such things?
November 27, 2006 at 5:49 am
Hmmm. Not sure how much help I will be, but here’s what we did…
We moved 1200 miles from the Bay Area when our oldest was only 8 months old. When we started looking, we just checked out towns we thought sounded interesting, on the internet. Look at the chamber of commerce, look at the neighborhood overviews, looked up the community resources, things like parks, theaters, museums, and that kind of thing. Once we settled on an area we liked, and my husband secured a job, we looked closer at individual neighborhoods- schools, parks, commute, proximity to shops, resale potential, that sort of thing.
We actually bought out house, sight unseen, from California (we live in Washington now)- and it has almost doubled in value in 4 years. The neighborhood is nice, and when we are ready for something bigger, we’ll have no trouble selling.
Our realtor was a tremendous help, especially since we conducted the transaction out-of-state- make some calls, when you find a good one, they are usually very willing to help you out.
We weren’t members of the church when we moved, so we didn’t worry about ward boundaries, but now, I would check that out too, and factor that into choosing my house.
Good luck!
November 28, 2006 at 2:23 am
Thank you! ^_^ Chamber of commerce… there’s something I hadn’t thought about. I’d also better get a big map. I can’ look up the town if I don’t know its name or where it is.
December 18, 2006 at 6:20 am
I’ve lived in Arizona, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Washington and now Oregon, so I guess I can say a thing or two about moving.
1) Some people pick WHERE they want to be and then make the best deal they can in order to live there.
2) Other people pick WHAT
December 18, 2006 at 6:35 am
(OOPS – UPLOADED BEFORE i WAS DONE…Aargh!!!
AS I was saying…
2) Other people pick WHAT they want to do and then follow that dream where ever it may take them.
NEITHER choice is all right or all wrong. BOTH choices involve making some sacrifices. It just depends which sacrifices are post potent for YOU.
My husband and I decided early on that we would follow his career. That’s why we’ve lived in so many places. We made our first cross-country move in order to take a job he felt was a good match and then continued to follow that job through a series of corporate mergers which entailed us being repeatedly told “The good news is you still have a job. That bad news is it is not where you live..”
The ADVANTAGE for us to sticking with that career is that in these times of precarious economics I was able to stay home while my kids were young. We were FAR from “well off”… I drove an old car, we didn’t go out or buy fancy things. But in a time when many families are finding it takes two incomes to support one family my husband was able to support TWO families on one income. (He was paying support and frequent plane tickets for the children of his first marriage.)
That was important to us. However, the DOWN side of this was that since we moved at the whims of the corporation my children grew up not knowing their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. THey met them 2-3 times. We tried to keep those relationships as meaningful as we could with visits, letters, phone calls. But the reality is that extended family was not a big part of our children’s growing up experience.
So where family is seems to be one thing to take into consideration. How important is that to you?
Beyond that – there were times when my husband was assigned to a general region but could live anywhere within a large area he wanted so long as he was close to an airport. He had an office in our home so it really didn’t matter what specific town we were in.
That’s when our personal values really came into play.
We thought about things like:
Access to medical care
Good libraries
Community colleges / universities
museums, theaters
cultural diversity
good fishing / camping / outdoor beauty
climate
housing cost
Number of other mormons (we lived in a place where our kids were the ONLY lds kids in their school – primary had 3 children in our small branch. We also lived where everyone and their dog was LDS… learned a lot in both places, but they were very different experiences)
Do any of those factors raise red flags for you? One by one try eliminating them as least important until you know which ones really matter to you a lot. Take your top five and be sure you get those where ever you land. If you can get more, GREAT…but do not compromise on your top five or you will not be happy no matter what kind of deal you can get on your house.
Bottom line, pray A LOT. Heavenly Father sees the big picture. He knows what things are going to be occuring in your family 5, 10 , 20 years down the road. Stay close to the spirit and you’ll do fine – even if that means having some painful, difficult experiences that cause you to second guess if you made the right choice or not.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter WHERE you live. It matters HOW you live.
Best of luck!
December 30, 2006 at 12:16 am
I was all excited to give you some advice (we’re doing the EXACT same thing –although we’re just trying to pick between three different places to live) and then realized I was the one that needed it (after reading what tracy m and belladonna wrote). I hadn’t thought about hospitals! Good luck, PDoE, on your decisions…I’m sure you’ll end up where you are supposed to!
December 30, 2006 at 3:13 am
If either of these are said RUN:
“Now imagine if there was light in here, you would see the lovely claw foot tub.” They were showing the upstairs and the one light bulb had been swiped by a man, who was trapping racoons in the attic.
“This street is a dead end, and too narrow to quickly turn around, so you do not have to worry about drive by shootings.”
Needless to say I did not buy that house.
January 2, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Thank you all for your input and encouragement. You’ve given me a lot to think about!
March 13, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I thought it was very interesting to take a stand for Jehovah’s Witnesses when you are a Mormon. The fact is that when you infringe on the rights of parents to decide the well being of their children you are taking a right that was given to them by God himself. If JW would deliberately be abstaining themselves from any kind of medical help or have a total disregard for their children well being, then the govt would have a justifiable right to step in and take those children away. The only thing that the govt is achieving by taking this stand is to put them in a deteriorating foster program which eventually can lead to their unhappiness. If the world does not agree with the teachings of JW then it is their God given right to not agree but they shouldnt impose what they believe to be the right thing on someone else. Imagine the outcry if the govt would impose upon its citizens the teachings of JW or Mormons or Muslims or Catholics. Take out the constitution and shred it for the rights of people have been taken away. If the govt says it is a free democracy then allow that for every member of your country.
Thank you for your unbias comments