How's living in Santa Rosa? (Oakland, Oceanside: sales, for rent, violent crime)

[raska]

Hi, right now my husband and I are in Ashland, OR. We've crossed the country from Vermont trying to find a nice place to live. For me economy is the most important - I want good job possibilities. So I'm thinking about a city. But my husband likes country, so we have to find a happy middle. BTW, I'm originally from Lithuania, Europe. So what do you think about Santa Rosa? Are the jobs, is housing affordable? Is it nice (clean)? Please, help! Thanks

[fastfilm]

It would be. . . expensive in comparison! Ashland is great, I'm curious what you dislike! Below is a read-out from the Sperling location comparison site, with an arbitrary salary of 50K

To maintain the same standard of living, your salary of $50,000 in Medford-Ashland, Oregon should increase to $87,255 in Santa Rosa, California
Stated another way, it's 74.5% more expensive to live in Santa Rosa, California than Medford-Ashland, Oregon

Cost of Living Indexes Santa Rosa, California verus Medford-Ashland, Oregon versus United States averages
Overall 178.5 101.7 100
Food 120.6 106.5 100
Housing 272.6 101.8 100
Utilities 142.6 72.8 100
Transportation 128.4 103.3 100
Health 168.1 111.1 100
Miscellaneous 110.3 104.8 100

Try looking up Santa Rosa on this City-data.com site itself. It's not just forums. Good luck.

[raska]

Thank you, fastfilm. I do like Ashland, but it's too small for me. I'm a city girl, I need more. And the most important thing is that I don't see much for jobs. If you're not a teacher or a doctor there isn't much to do, unless you work in a restaurant business. I guess I would have to work in Medford which I don't like. But thank you for info

[grimstuff]

I grew up living one hour north of Santa Rosa and had many friends there. Housing is quite expensive there - for renting or buying. The traffic is very bad - that is one of the most congested stretches of 101 in California. My wife and I had briefly considered moving there but decided not to for these reasons.
It is bigger than Ashland or Medford, but I wouldn't say its anymore metropolitan. It will be in about 10-15 years, but not yet. You're still going to be going down to SF for any kind of "city life" activity. The employment is pretty decent - wages are pretty good for any kind of professional work, but then again remember that housing is expensive, so you could be making good money but also paying $2,500 on a mortgage. It all depends on your current financial situation of course.

[Joshdresslove]

Here is a link to a Santa Rosa development forum, it will give you a good idea about growth potential and various high and low rise residential projects that have been approved. Hope this will help you.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=403757

[bayoak]

I live in Oakland, CA and Santa Rosa (at least Rincon Valley where I have family) seems like Utopia. I lived there for one year as a child and it was great: parks full of neighborhood kids, riding my bike everywhere, walking to school, soccer, little league...all the things I never got to do in Oakland.

Honestly, the Hispanic gangbangers tend to commit violent crimes almost exclusively against each other and property crimes almost exclusively against their own people. If you have children, and you are not Hispanic, you don't really have to worry about your kids getting recruited into gangs.

If you're still worried about gangs avoid the South Park and Roseland areas, these are the heavily hispanic areas of Santa Rosa. The outer reaches of Rincon Valley out towards Calistoga Road are an absolutely delightful blend of city and rural.

[zx636]

Hello 4 year old thread..

[Brenda-by-the-sea]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

To maintain the same standard of living, your salary of $50,000 in Medford-Ashland, Oregon should increase to $87,255 in Santa Rosa, California
Stated another way, it's 74.5% more expensive to live in Santa Rosa, California than Medford-Ashland, Oregon

The problem with this analysis is that two cities with a markedly different COL -- Medford (fairly reasonsable) and Ashland (expensive) -- are being combined as a single hyphenated domain. It's a bit like Oceanside-Del Mar or Hayward-Berkeley. A house that sells for $300k in Medford would probably run around $550k in Ashland. So I have to wonder how they're averaging out the COL numbers.

[kayy911]

I currently live in Santa Rosa, it is expensive to live here, a 2 bedroom 1 bath place is like $1000 if you're lucky. We've thought about moving to Oregon because of how much cheaper it is, groceries are expensive, health care is expensive (1 out of every 4 people insured by Kaiser Permanente, they have a monopoly on this area.) Sales tax is 9.25% and jobs are scarce you'd probably have to commute somewhere. Santa Rosa is nice, if you have the money. Its just very expensive.

[Mr5150]

Originally Posted by Brenda-by-the-sea

The problem with this analysis is that two cities with a markedly different COL -- Medford (fairly reasonsable) and Ashland (expensive) -- are being combined as a single hyphenated domain. It's a bit like Oceanside-Del Mar or Hayward-Berkeley. A house that sells for $300k in Medford would probably run around $550k in Ashland. So I have to wonder how they're averaging out the COL numbers.

I had the same thought. Plus, while Ashland is a wonderful place, Medford is actully kinda dumpy. At least it was last October when we were in the area for a few days.

When I was in Ashland I was impressed by the fact that housing costs about the same or slightly less as Santa Rosa. Then if you factor in property taxes, well let's just say that Prop 13 could actually make the total cost of home ownership less in Sant Rosa. And if I am not mistaken, wages are somewhat higher in SR.

For its size, SR is a great place IMO. Too big for me-any town over pop 10K is too big for me.