Hello, some of your expertise would be greatly appreciated! (Missoula: real estate, rent)

[just55]

Hi everyone, I have been reading some of the posts here comparable to my situation, but wanted to ask myself. I am younger, 21 and am currently living at home in CA, (HATE IT!) way too expensive and the thought that I could never own my own home unless it's $600,000 for a small 1950's crackerbox depresses me, haha. Besides that, people are rude, everything's expensive and it's definitley not worth the hype. I enjoy quiet atmospheres and nature so naturally Montana comes to mind as a place to relocate and study. I have been looking at some of the community colleges they seem intriguing. My ultimate plan is to move and work for a while to establish residency, then go to school. I was thinking Missoula area? Thanks for anyone who responds, it's greatly appreciated.

[happiness is]

Missoula Job Service Home Page

[AT-AT28]

Be ready for a culture and economic shock, both good and bad. Bring lots of money as it will likely take awhile to find any job right now and the collegee students just got back into town and ate up alot of the available real estate

[bongo403]

Missoula doesn't have a community college - it's home to the University of Montana and the UM College of Technology. Both can be very good schools, depending on what you want to study, but will cost quite a bit more than a community college education.

Community colleges aren't like the ones you find in California. There aren't a lot of them, they are very small, and the offerings are usually very limited - although a few have some decent specialty programs. You didn't mention what you're interested in studying, or which community colleges you've been looking at. That would help the people here provide some more specific feedback.

[BigFish2]

Montana job market SUCKS .. if it was good I would have moved there already.

[tidmode]

Flathead Community College is nice, fairly large, supported by the community, friendly. Two of my friends just got degrees there, and both are employed. Lots of programs have distance learning features, so you can get a teaching degree (for example) studying in Kalispell, from a college in Great Falls.

It's a bit cheaper to live in Kalispell, rather than Missoula, because food is cheaper here.

You could probably get a job at Teletech, doing call center support work. They hire lots of young people and are always hiring.

Montanans aren't fond of Californians. But they won't be too harsh on you...

More Montana people left Montana for California during the Great Depression, than Californians have migrated to Montana to buy up cheap real estate. But there sure was a real estate boom here before 2008. It made cost of rent go way up, like double...but jobs don't pay that much more. So, rent is $900 for a two bedroom house, and jobs...well you're lucky if you can get $10/hr.

[magoomafoo]

Of course you hate California and want to move to Montana.