Relocating and looking for some advice

[Hotfeet]

Originally Posted by Pyewackette

I believe part of the problem is all the casinos and their horrible but generally cheapish buffets. As bad as the food is around and about town, it is way way worse at the casinos.
....

Its just the desert thing that gets under my skin, mostly.

I don't understand your thought process. The casinos are aimed at folks on vacation, not people like you who moved here. Why would anyone go to a casino buffet and believe they are getting outstanding food? That's not the goal of folks that belly up to a buffet for a 10 dollar dinner.

And if the desert thing gets under your skin, why the heck are you here?? It was fairly obvious to me and most everyone else that it was a desert long before I arrived, so why would you move here?

[MayMoveInFuture]

I know housing cost is relative and that's why, to me, the costs are high in Reno. Here, in Western NY, that type of money would buy a very nice house. On the other hand, we more than make up for it in taxes.

For example, we pay over $3000/year for school + property taxes and our house was built in 1949 and is just over 1000 sq ft.

[Nn2036]

As I said before, it is supply and demand. Land is limited and builders can earn better profit building more luxury home than entry level. The Californianew can afford it easily since they sell their California homes and pay cash.

Tax and weather are why your western NY is affordable. There is too much snow. It make people hesitate to move there. I lived in Michigan for 4 years and I swear I wouldnever go back to the Midwest.

When I lived in Dallas 10 year ago, real estate was quite affordable ( no longer the case), you can buy 2500sqft house for 150-180k, you can get 3500sqft house for 250k.

My tax on my 175k house is 5500/ year and my HOA fee is 1000/ year. You basically pay for another house with 30 years of tax and fee. My electricity in summer is 400/ month and we set the temp quite high to save electricity. My neighbors is 700/ month.

[Nn2036]

Originally Posted by Pyewackette

I'm in the Cold Springs area, technically in "Stead", off of Stead Blvd near the airport.

Frankly I hate Nevada - because it is a desert. And it's a culinary wasteland here in Reno. The only decent restaurants are all Thai and they are VERY good, but pretty much everything else is at best blah to horrible. There are one or two Chinese restaurants that are OK. I believe part of the problem is all the casinos and their horrible but generally cheapish buffets. As bad as the food is around and about town, it is way way worse at the casinos.

You must not be on Reno often. There are tons of new high quality restaurant.

I just ate at 101 Taipei restaurant today. This restaurant opened only a few months ago a few blocks west Downtown. The place is unbelievably packed with Asians despite the rain.

I got the braised beef noodle for $7.89 and it is really good. My friend told me it is authentic too. So don't say there is no good food on Reno, you just don't know where to look.

[Cyberspacey]

I'd really consider renting for 6 mos to a year so you can get a feel for the area. Or AirBnB or HomeAway. It would suck to choose a location and find out it wasn't what you were hoping for. You can always try to negotiate for a less expensive longer term "rental" with AirBnB and Home Away. Most people don't think about that.

Also, it would give you time to join some Meetup.com groups and get more perspectives and find people who like the things you like. There are definitely more Meetup groups in Reno proper than anywhere else in the area.

I live in Minden/Gardnerville area. Moved here 4 years ago. Love it!

[Pyewackette]

Originally Posted by Hotfeet

I don't understand your thought process. The casinos are aimed at folks on vacation, not people like you who moved here. Why would anyone go to a casino buffet and believe they are getting outstanding food? That's not the goal of folks that belly up to a buffet for a 10 dollar dinner.

And if the desert thing gets under your skin, why the heck are you here?? It was fairly obvious to me and most everyone else that it was a desert long before I arrived, so why would you move here?

I'm here because my son insisted on bringing me here. Now he is gone and I'm still stuck here. Looking forward to getting out.

I don't frequent the casinos but when my son came up here for his look-see visit after accepting a job here, they put us up in a local casino. He had to go out several times while we were here and do something job related and I was left in the casino. I did not yet have my driver's license back yet (it expired while I was sick) so I was pretty much stuck with eating whatever was available in the casino. All the restaurants were either WAY overpriced or ... just absolutely execrable buffet food.

BTW, I suffered a bedbug attack in that casino, and I was seriously offended at the way we were treated when we reported it. They at first told me I was a liar - because I told them I felt the thing crawling on me. I was told that is impossible. My son had to get pushy to make them come up and check. Sure enough it was a bedbug, and I am HIGHLY allergic to them, come to find out. It looked like I had been hit by a blowtorch, that's how severe the reaction was to those bites. And they didn't even tell us what to do to make sure we didn't take any of them home with us, I had to google that for myself. So - not impressed by the second rate casinos here, either.

There are no restaurants of note in the Stead area except the Hometown Cafe. There are some really good Thai restaurants and a couple of good Indian restaurants in Sparks/Reno. There are a couple of ok Chinese restaurants.

There is an absolutely terrible Korean restaurant and a relatively new Korean BBQ that is OK, but limited to BBQ. I got a good laugh reading the yelp reviews on that one that claimed it was MORE than just BBQ - apparently people here don't understand what banchan is. But at least it's OK, and probably pretty good if you like the limited menu.

Everywhere else that I've eaten has been somewhere on the scale of awful to merely bland. You can't rely on Yelp reviews from the locals, either. They will praise some horrible restaurant to the skies.

One place I went, I ordered the escargot and it was clearly canned. Tasted like the tin it came out of. Probably most escargot is actually canned, but that's the first time I ever had any that tasted like it came out of a can. I also ordered an eggplant sandwich there and it came open-faced. This is not a sandwich and it was not noted on the menu. It was also bland and tasteless. Dinner there cost us $100, for bland boring food.

Went to a supposedly upscale Italian restaurant and I kept coming across slivers of something or other that I at first thought must be slivered almonds. Nope. It was garlic. Garlic that tasted of NOTHING, let alone garlic flavor. Highly rated on Yelp, that place. Also expensive.

There's some burger place here that I can't remember the name of, but people seem to have an unreasoning attachment to some weird fries with cheese that aren't even on the actual menu. I think they're cut into dinosaur shapes. Maybe not. But whatever, it wasn't that good, the burgers weren't that good, and the place was crowded. Neither of us ever had any desire to go back to the place.

Went to a "Mexican" place strongly recommended by locals. It was mediocre chain-food style "Mexican". Not Taco Bell style, but mediocre psuedo-Mexican. Haven't gone back there again either.

I have never lived anywhere with so few decent choices for eating out. I'm not counting the places that cost the Earth, by and large I've not been to any but the 2 mentioned above, and they were not impressive. I blame it on the cheap buffets at the casinos and the consequent dumbing down of people's taste buds. If you're used to thinking of that stuff as edible, it wouldn't take much to impress, LOL!

At this point I'm really looking forward to relocating somewhere that isn't a desert. I'm actually pretty good with the handful of restaurants I actually like here, but I do wish there was a good Greek restaurant (and I don't mean gyros and souvlaki) and a good Italian restaurant.

So that's why I'm here. Much against my will to begin with. Reno residents are fine, I just don't like the fact that the area is both a culinary and a geographic desert.

[teoreticar]

Originally Posted by Cyberspacey

I live in Minden/Gardnerville area. Moved here 4 years ago. Love it!

Actually that is probably the best area around. Crime rate is very low. Nice green landscape year round but the view is just wow. Close to Lake Tahoe. I guess Gardnerville/Minden will be crazy good in few years.

[Gatopescado]

Douglas county is awesome!

[Digger 68]

Originally Posted by Vic Romano

That's why I'm waffling a bit between Oregon and Nevada. I looked up some hospital ratings from US News:

Best Hospitals in the U.S. | Hospital Rankings | US News Health

My wife had some care with Providence Health System in Portland and she thought it was great. Honestly, it is very difficult to thoroughly evaluate healthcare quality.

I have visited all the cities I've mentioned except Newberg. My wife has lived in Oregon and the Sacramento foothills. I go up to Oregon a few times a year as my in-laws are up there.

I can remember when John Hopkins was number #1 on almost all those lists. Sorry. I am wandering.

I like to bounce around on different city data forums around the country from time to time.