After 2 years of research, we moved from Portland to Spokane recently and are very happy we did. Many people are moving to Spokane from Seattle, Portland, California and beyond. We researched other towns and cities in the Pacific Northwest, where we wanted to stay, but loved Spokane best. Why? Affordable housing, sane traffic, a smaller city (with less congestion) yet many amenities such as an airport, good health care, good symphony, art galleries, beautiful parks, beautiful terrain in general with mountains, lakes and rivers, and many trails (check out the Centennial Trail). There are so many interesting places to go on day trips in every direction we'll never get bored. There's a vibrant, attractive & clean downtown right on Riverfront Park, also vibrant art and culinary scenes. We love the fact there are many large universities in Spokane including a new medical school. It's also greener than Bend or Boise for example. We live on the South Hill and can get most anywhere we want to go in 10-15 minutes. A friend just visited from Bend. She was very impressed commenting Bend isn't big enough to support even just the parks we have. Another friend moved here, after checking out many other places, for the affordable skiing among other things. It's true Spokane is known to have high property crime but it's mostly theft from cars. Yes, there are drugs and a homeless issue like any city these days, sadly. (Portland is worse.) We were careful to buy in a safe neighborhood. We feel safe around town, even downtown, in the parks and on trails. We asked a police officer whether we should be concerned about walking on near empty trails. He said no; Spokane isn't known for muggings or anything like that. Once, while on one of those near empty trails in Spokane, we encountered a woman walking along with her baby in a stroller. We asked her as well. She'd lived near the trail for years walking it every day and said it was totally safe. You can look up crime maps for most any town and compare not only towns but neighborhoods. (This was an eye opener for me, including looking at where we used to live.) One last but not least thing that was important to us was to move somewhere relatively safe from natural disasters (such as the Cascadia earthquake threat).
We don't have kids so I can't comment on that but I've overheard comments about the schools being good in Spokane. Mead, north of Spokane, has been mentioned for their schools.....
We were also scared of Spokane before we visited due to the negative reviews but I'm glad we investigated for ourselves. It seems many others are doing the same based on how many people we've met who have moved here from other places and the fact that homes sell within a day or two of being listed often with a bidding war. Also many people who were originally from Spokane but moved away are coming back. There are a lot of good things going on in Spokane, lots of positive energy, despite the reviews online. You might need to visit! If you're also interested in Idaho, Coeur d'Alene is only about 30 minutes from Spokane.
If I were in your shoes, I would consider the following:
1. Weather - any place west of the Cascades is going to be very rainy. Look up average rainfall. Olympia is extremely rainy at 50" a year! East of the Cascades, whether Oregon or Washington, will be drier, sunnier but also colder in winter. Much of eastern OR & WA is desert/prairie. (Spokane is in a transition area between prairie & the Rocky Mountain foothills. It's green with water everywhere.) Personally I'm happy to be away from the gray skies, mud, and abundant slugs!
2. Cost of living, taxes and amenities that are important to you. You have a much higher budget than we did but if you want a home on the water, somewhere around Spokane might be good. Lake Pend Oreille is gorgeous. Also Lake Coeur d'Alene and Liberty Lake. You can set up multiple real estate searches on Trulia or Zillow and start comparing what's available for what price in different places.
3. How close you want to be to the airport, good hospitals, etc.
4. Visit places you're interested in. You can tell a lot being there in person. You might just have an emotional reaction yay or nay like we did in the many places we checked out. Also contact visitor information centers. I know Spokane provides a free relocation packet with a lot of useful and interesting information.
I don't know why there's so much vitriol about Spokane on the internet. Possibly happy people don't write reviews? Maybe they don't want others moving here? All I can report is that everywhere I go here, people seem very happy and relaxed. People of all ages are out walking in the parks, having picnics, hiking, kayaking, bicycling, going to restaurants, shopping, etc. A realtor told us we would find that people in Spokane are very friendly and love the outdoors. She was right.
aro55 |
Warren, OR |
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