The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
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6/21/2006
I lived in Portland for 7 years, and then returned home to California. There are many great things about Portland. They really lead the pack when it comes to urban planning, transit, and the environment. I found the economy there a inch deep and a mile wide. You better come with some cash because the home prices are more like California, but without the high salaries. In Portland we, my partner and I, were able to have a wonderful lifestyle because we bought a fourplex with our California equity and lived below our means. But I can see with the low salaries there that buying a place would be tough. I couldn't believe how bad the salaries were until I actually saw that fast food places were paying more than most office jobs, and you got a uniform and free french fries. The only reason we returned to California was the recession down there...home prices were actually cheaper than Oregon. We bought a home in Palm Desert, with a guest house, huge swimming pool, half acre in a classy neighborhood for $174k in 1997 after selling our place in Portland for $600k. But now the prices here have gone nuts, so we will stay here and enjoy our debt free lifestyle and we made almost $150k last year and get have three months off in the summer, try doing that in the restaurant business in Oregon. As for all the anti outsider business, I would lavish love on all the outsiders when I worked in Portland restaurants because they wouldn't order a glass of water with lemon and leave a 10% tip. The weather does suck there but we just went with it and hiked or went skiing, and if the fog was laying in the valley you can go to the coast and get some sun. No place is perfect and if you are not a happy person inside chances are wherever you go you will focus on the negative things in life. Like here in the desert it is 108 degrees but since we don't have to work in the summer we head to the mountains which are only 20 minutes away and or to the airport and go to our white trash villa with wheels in the South of France....
Brian | Palm Desert, CA