Any Advice? Peninsula area.... (Seattle, Port Angeles: fit in, apartments, rentals)
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I live in New York, not city, but in the mountains. I'm thinking of moving out to Washington, the Peninsula area with a friend of mine and my adult son. I love small towns, I live in a "populated area" at 721 people. Okay, I need just a few more people to be happy...and a place with more than one business opportunity.
I'm working toward my Bachelor's in Business Management, my friend has worked at a transgenic rat and mouse farm for seven years, and we're going to need jobs. (I can make a mean espresso, lol, since I work at a coffee house.) We would need pet friendly housing, since we have a 9 year old chihuahua that weighs about 15 pounds. How much money would we need to sustain us for a few months while we actively job search? What is housing like? My friend is an active "outdoorsman," a kayaker and hiker. I just work and study, so I don't mind if the weather is rainy or a bit colder than here. Also, is there adult g.e.d. classes or a college where my son can work toward college credit while getting his high school diploma?
Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated!
Hi. First thing you have to decide is climate: do you want the very rainy side of the Olympic Peninsula, or the somewhat rainy, or the sunny, or the fourth side? Some internet research will give you lots of info from which you can choose.
Second thing: the Olympic Peninsula is a far cry from thriving employment opportunity-land. It's a wonderful place to visit and vacation. Trying to live there would be difficult. The towns are remote, pretty isolated, very small, not economically jumping, and have quite limited resources.
If you click at the upper left-hand corner of every page here, on City-Data.com, then click on Washington (WA), then click on the name of towns that you see on a map of the Olympic Peninsula -- you'll find tons and tons of really useful information aboout that town.
I've gathered here many recent City-Data threads about towns on the Olympic Peninsula, showing local knowledge and opinions. I wish you happy researching!
Okay, based on Sunday's want ads... Jobs: Head Start family educators (Sequim), 911 Dispatch (Port Townsend), Auto Tech (Sequim), Deputy Prosecutor (Port Angeles), Restaurant Cashier (Sequim), Medical Billing (Port Angeles), Pharmacist (Port Angeles), Shipping Supervisor (Port Townsend), Teacher (Forks).
Rentals of houses or apartments will run between $500 to $1500 a month, depending on the size and location. Very few apartments in Sequim, more in Port Angeles.
In Sequim, people who were trying to sell a house are now renting them, which is what we ended up doing with our 2nd house. Count on any of them asking for first and last months payments, plus a damage deposit and another fee for pets.
Average cost of buying a house is between $200,000 to $300,000 for a basic two bedroom house. Again, location and size will make a difference. The biggest pitfall is getting a loan, plus you will need a large down payment.
Thank you for your responses. I am doing my homework and reading the classifieds on line, after following your links.
One question, how much snow does the area get in one drop? Last year, we had six 18 inch drops in the course of two months...and when I'm the one shoveling, it gets pretty irritating.
We were talking about why we wanted to go out West, and we came up with the following, we simply can not afford to live on the East Coast any more. Even though my friend and I are employed, we barely make enough to cover the household expenses. When I earn my bachelor's, there are absolutely NO management opportunities in this area. And finally, the winters are getting pretty fierce here...
Snow: if you choose a town, click on City-Data.com in the upper left-hand corner of every page here, click on Washington (WA), then look for and click on the name of the municipality -- you will see long, wondrous pages of tons of fascinating statistics about that town. That includes many graphs on climate, including annual average snowfall.
There is very little snow on the Olympic Peninsula. In one drop? Maybe as much as a half-inch if the children are very, very lucky. Not usually that much. The half-inch would happen once or twice a year, or holy cow! three times a year now that climate change is happening. Western Washington almost never has snow that doesn't melt and disappear in 24 hours. We don't have shovel-worthy snow here. Well, once in a while we do have that, once a year. When that happens, everything closes down and everyone gets to play.
At higher elevations, from about 500 ft. above sea level and higher, the winter drizzle changes to snow. Therefore, we have great skiing and wonderful snowpacks which melts to become our water supply and which we sell to southern California and such places for their water supplies.
In the center of the peninsula, bisecting the whole peninsula from north to south, is the Olympic Mountains, which includes Mt. Olympus at 7,962 ft. above sea level. The mountains are where snow falls on the Oly Pen, and folks like to go skiing and snowboarding in the Olympic National Park which occupies most of the area of the peninsula, and is home to bears, elk, eagles, deer, marmots, and a host of other wondrous beings.
Costs: Western Washington is not a super-inexpensive place to live. Many people consider many areas to be quite expensive, including Seattle. Some of that expense is the cost of housing. But there are many areas in western Washington that are not so expensive. The thing you have to balance is that the cheaper the housing is, usually the fewer resources there are in that location, including employment, places to live, supermarkets, schools, medical facilities, libraries, and all the other choices in life. One must choose how much one is willing to live without, eh?
East vs. west: I spent the first 30 years of my life in NYC and a farm in CT. I haven't been back in 25 years. Here there's a well-educated culture, no racial tension, no confrontational culture, very little competitiveness, very little superficiality, low humidity, pretty clean air, and a gentleness in both the land, the air (cleansed by ancient forests), and the people that I would not trade for anything. Not inexpensive for the wallet, and deeply enriching for the spirit. Even in the cities.
Jobs: I have a few degrees, none of which I specifically used here for employment. The studying and the degrees pleased me; eventually, that was enough for my happiness. Employers here look very favorably on people with a college degree. I've done a lot of hiring here and I can tell you that the specific degree doesn't matter too much; even Art History is fine because it's the discipline and achievement that matter most. Consider being an advertising copywriter; consider many different types of fields. If both of you spread the wings of your imaginations, you can fit into many, many types of industries. If you choose to live near employment opportunities...
Last edited by allforcats; 08-04-2009 at 12:21 PM..
One question, how much snow does the area get in one drop? Last year, we had six 18 inch drops in the course of two months...and when I'm the one shoveling, it gets pretty irritating.
Depends a lot where on the peninsula you are. It's a big place! It can vary from a skiff, to an inch or two, to several feet at a time. If you break out your map of the Olympic Peninsula you'll notice those big mountains right smack in the middle of the peninsula. Starting from pretty much anywhere along the coast line of the peninsula you'll get anything from little to none to less than 6" of snow at a time. The latter typically melts down fairly quickly rather than accumulating as it does for you in upstate NY. The farther you work your way "in" on your map towards those mountains, the more snow you will get (and retain througout the winter). Even in PA (Port Angeles) where I have a home, simply driving "uphill" a mile or two in town can result in a lot more snow at any given time than the "lower elevations" have.
So... long story short- it can vary a lot depending upon location which generally means elevation. FWIW, snow on the peninsula is generally not the tough part about winter here. Rather it's the rainfall (which is also area dependant) and the extended day-in day-out gray weather with accompanying short days- which means that what daylight hours you do have during the winter months are often gray and cloudy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by deborah12470
We were talking about why we wanted to go out West, and we came up with the following, we simply can not afford to live on the East Coast any more. Even though my friend and I are employed, we barely make enough to cover the household expenses. When I earn my bachelor's, there are absolutely NO management opportunities in this area. And finally, the winters are getting pretty fierce here...
Affordability: Many areas in WA are/can be equally expensive as the east coast.
Employment: Best summed up by Cats:
Quote:
Originally Posted by allforcats
Second thing: the Olympic Peninsula is a far cry from thriving employment opportunity-land. It's a wonderful place to visit and vacation. Trying to live there would be difficult. The towns are remote, pretty isolated, very small, not economically jumping, and have quite limited resources.
Read this part of her post at least three times! As stated, it may be very difficult to find a management job on the peninsula. That's not to say that it might not happen for you eventually but would you be willing to accept something else for a year or two until a better job turned up? (Walmart greeter, flipping burgers on the graveyard shift at the Jack-in-the-Box etc.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in general, the politics of the peninsula are conservative (more or less) and blue collar. Many of the small towns here are populated by very hard working people affiliated with the logging industry.
Weather: You may be trading months on end of winter snow for winter gray rain that seemingly lasts for months on end as well-
Dendrite, every time I try to rep you it tells me I must spread it around...
Deborah, Dendrite is an expert on the Oly Pen. What we are both trying to tell you is that there's virtually nothing to manage there, except your schedule for reading by the fireplace, and almost nothing to work at.
There are lots and lots of small towns in western WA (cool and drizzly) and in eastern WA (hot and cold) within reasonable distance, by car or public transportation, of employment possibilities with far more variety. You could broaden your lives by broadening your vistas.
Thank you for your advice! We've been talking extensively about your posts...and we've all agreed that we really would need to broaden our lives completely. We know we're not going to make 50K right off the top, that would be silly for us even to consider! Please understand where we currently live, the only place to work HERE is either the coffee shop where I am or a camp ground. My friend travels 35 miles to work one way. I'd be happy to help manage a movie theater, because it would be a step up from waitressing. We are in no way money oriented, we just want someplace to be happy. Jay wants a place where he can kayak and hike, I would love a place where I can just go about my business with some friendly faces. Money helps keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies LOL.
I am probably more interested in the snow levels than I am about anything else. I have the job of shoveling the snow and to be honest at my age (I'm 47) it's getting a bit tougher every year. We are all hard working folk in this family, as mixed up as it is, and I guess what it all boils down to is we desperately are all in need of change. It's very easy to get caught up in the day to day and not appreciate anything here in NY since we've been struggling here for quite a few years.
Thank you again for your responses...they are truly appreciated. We will continue to do our homework and maybe, hopefully, one day we'll pass each other on the street somewhere so I can give you proper thanks and buy you a cup of coffee!
My brother lives here and he says Port Angeles has taken a terrible hit from the slow economy; stores are sitting vacant. Its a very depressing little town as there is hardly any sun, which makes for sleep disorders in many. (Sleep disorders flourish the further away you get from the equator). He said everyone wants out of Port Angeles, practically. Its way too far away from good medical care, too.
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