Moving to North Platte!!! (Omaha, Lincoln: real estate, rentals, home)

[bbfan11]

Yeah I got confused there....here's the short story
Looks like my wife and I and our 7 month old will be moving from the Seattle, Wa area to La Platte. I'm curious to hear what anyone has to say about the town. Shopping, eating and housing costs. Links to anything would be great. How is the weather? Thanks!

[kosnebbear]

Weather Link for Nebraska and other areas that you might like.

Nebraska Weather and Climate

North Platte city link.

City of North Platte, Nebraska

North Platte newspaper link.

North Platte Telegraph - News - Area News (broken link)

North Platte Nebraska's favorite newspaper - The North Platte Bulletin

North Platte airport link.

North Platte Regional Airport - Welcome to the North Platte Regional Airport Lee Bird Field (LBF) Web Site

North Platte Chamber of Commerce

North Platte area Chamber of Commerce

Lincoln County Nebraska link.

Welcome to Lincoln County, Nebraska

Information about the history of North Platte and Lincoln County Nebraska.

North Platte, Nebraska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History of North Platte

Lincoln County, Nebraska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lincoln County Nebraska | Local History | Lincoln County People (http://lincoln.wathenadesigns.com/lincoln_county_people.html - broken link)

Enjoy the links.

[Earniefan]

You can look at real estate on realtor.com. Or go online and put in North Platte NE realtors to get links directly to them. They may have more listings on their own sites. I'm thinking you're going to be pretty happy about the low cost of housing and the sunny skies.

[bbfan11]

Great! Thanks for the responses! We are looking forward to getting out of this rat race here in the Seattle area. Too many people!! And the general cost of living seems pretty high. We have only been here over 6 months and are ready to head on out.

[coloradoboots]

Don"t do it!!! North platte is a dump!!

[Off Pavement]

We were in North Platte yesterday and visited Buffalo Bills ranch. It is an interesting place and well worth the time to visit. The barn probably interested me as much as anything... the roof rafters are all trimmed to look like rifle stocks, and Annie Oakley's trademark Ace of Spades with a bullet hole in it logo is used as an end cap on the roof peak. Great info on Wm F Cody and his traveling Wild West Show.

You will likely be thrilled with housing prices compared to Seattle. The sun shines a lot more than in Seattle. The wind blows a lot more than in Seattle. Both get fog. You won't find anybody throwing fish in the market I'm sure. There are a lot of places to eat, but finding good ones is another story in our opinion.

If you like college football... you are moving to the right state! The Cornhuskers rule sports in this state, followed by high school sports of every kind!

You very will may find that shopping on the internet is fun! Western Nebraska has it's limitations when it comes to availability of various products. If you are looking for amateur radio equipment, you won't find it in North Platte. If you want ag products of any kind, you found the motherlode. Towns in western NE are a ways apart compared to what you are used to in the Pacific NW! Head out of North Platte to the south, and the first town of size is 67 miles away in McCook.

The railroad is big business in North Platte! Union Pacific says that over 10,000 rail cars a day go through North Platte, and I believe it. The largest railroad classification yard in the world in at North Platte.

Nebraska, while mostly private land, has some nice state wildlife and recreation areas beside the state park system. Lakes are numerous, and Nebraska is the only state that exports more water than enters it. Upland game hunters find Pheasant, Turkey and Quail hunting, while the big game hunters have more deer available than wanted... by a long shot. Fishermen are lucky with many stocked lakes. For example, Harry Strunk Lake south of North Plate about 80 miles is stocked with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish every year. Boating and fishing is big during summer months.

Keep in mind that you are moving from a liberal area politically, to a very conservative one. Some of folks in these parts are pretty vocal about their political views... agree or not at your own peril.

We moved to Nebraska from Colorado to get away from the rat race and succeeded! Hope your move is as rewarding as ours has been.

[stargazer17]

Uh oh. Did you say North Platte, or LaPlatte? They are two different towns and will have quite a different feel.

North Platte is in rural farm and ranch country in the middle of the state. LaPlatte is just south of Omaha/Bellevue on the Missouri river. I'm not saying either is better or worse, but they aren't the same.

[denimflyz]

I live in North Platte, and was born and raised here. It is not that great, but you will have to make the best of it as you can or make your decision to move here.
Rents are very over inflated for the area, also the rentals are generally dumps as I live in a trailer park where the owner is a slum lord. The better rentals are managed by realtors but the rents are very high. But I am sure that they are much cheaper than Seattle.
You will run into cultures of many kinds, from the druggy, alcoholic, to the uppity, I'm better than you and I have more money than you type. North Platte has a huge drug problem, both in use and in distribution. You will run into many people wanting to sell you dope, even in a coffee shop. Shopping is limited from what you are used to in Seattle, we have mostly fast food, and dumpy processed food. There is an estabilished Farmer's market that runs until Oct.
So, you will have to take it however you can. I moved away to work in several urban areas when I was young for the corporate jobs I worked, but I couldn't take the cost, and the fight to keep your job and the traffic, but I was raised here and was used to the crap I put up with when I left. You will find that new people are insulted and pushed away, sometimes for many years, until people around you feel you are worthy, sometimes that never comes, but I do not know what else to tell you. It can and will be crappy here. I am not sure if you are religious, but a good church home can be ok, but some of the churches here are the same way, insulting, as you are not from here.
So good luck. You will need it.