z-d-g
Recycles dryer sheets
I AM - 36, FIRE, male, atheist, married, one child (9 yr old DD), currently living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
OUR SITUATION - We sold our business in December (2011) and are currently looking for a place that suits our needs to move to. I am/was completely in love with NYC but it turns out that we simply can't afford to live here forever with the money I got from the sale. Let me rephrase: we could afford to live here, but not the way I want to or was used to when I owned a big, successful business.
SCHOOL REQUIREMENTS - Our daughter is currently in a wildly expensive (oy!) private school in Manhattan that we absolutely love for all the reasons any parent would - complete lack of bullying (mental or physical) by students or teachers, great academics, fast track to the best HS's and colleges, involved parents, happy students. School for our daughter is our primary concern at this point. I want to be clear that I don't care if she goes to an Ivy League university or not (I really don't), but I like that she's currently on a track where it's the "base line" and she can always choose to go to a lesser rated school if that's what she wants. (For example, in the HS I went to, there was 1 student out of 752 that went to an Ivy League school and only because his parents both did; in the school system my daughter is currently in, more than 50% of the students go Ivy League). Again, it isn't that I feel Ivy League is end-all-be-all so much as I like that she's in a system where high-achievement is the normal culture. Note: religious schools (of any flavor) will not be considered.
WHY WE ARE LEAVING NYC: - For all the reasons everyone does. It's too damn cold in the winter and too damn hot in the summer. We're tired of living in a shoebox that we can't even fit an exercise bike in to, let alone an exercise bike AND a treadmill. It costs money just to leave our apartment. We're tired of the lack of first world climate control (no central a/c in most buildings and the BANGBANGBANG radiators in the winter that literally leave your bedroom boiling). I never thought I'd miss having a car, but after 3 years, we miss having a car; it sure would be nice to be able to take a short road trip on the weekends again. We've had enough of the dog crap-and-piss minefields just to walk down the block. Worst of all, the change in our budget has meant that all the fun stuff we used to do here, we can no longer afford to do and it's depressing sitting here on the couch Friday night instead of eating a 3-Star meal and going to a jazz show.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR - I want to make this abundantly clear - I AM NOT LOOKING TO REPLICATE NEW YORK CITY, so please do not post how "City/Town X" is nothing like NYC. I know. We're perfectly happy moving to a much slower place at this point. In this order, we want a place that has/is:
PLACES TO LOOK AT THAT ARE ON OUR VERY EARLY LIST - Sonoma, CA; Napa, CA; Marin County, CA; San Diego, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; Eugene, OR; Portland, OR; Victoria, BC (assuming we can find a way in). As a last resort, and going completely against my no-swamp-summers is a move back to Austin, TX. Even though this list is entirely West Coast, we are happy to look at any part of the country. While we'd love to move overseas, it doesn't make sense as we both have parents that we'll be taking care of soon here in the States. Any thoughts on the towns/cities above would be very much appreciated. Any additions to the list (and why) would be even more appreciated. My advance thanks to everyone on this forum; I know I don't post much, but I'm really, really glad this forum exists.
OUR SITUATION - We sold our business in December (2011) and are currently looking for a place that suits our needs to move to. I am/was completely in love with NYC but it turns out that we simply can't afford to live here forever with the money I got from the sale. Let me rephrase: we could afford to live here, but not the way I want to or was used to when I owned a big, successful business.
SCHOOL REQUIREMENTS - Our daughter is currently in a wildly expensive (oy!) private school in Manhattan that we absolutely love for all the reasons any parent would - complete lack of bullying (mental or physical) by students or teachers, great academics, fast track to the best HS's and colleges, involved parents, happy students. School for our daughter is our primary concern at this point. I want to be clear that I don't care if she goes to an Ivy League university or not (I really don't), but I like that she's currently on a track where it's the "base line" and she can always choose to go to a lesser rated school if that's what she wants. (For example, in the HS I went to, there was 1 student out of 752 that went to an Ivy League school and only because his parents both did; in the school system my daughter is currently in, more than 50% of the students go Ivy League). Again, it isn't that I feel Ivy League is end-all-be-all so much as I like that she's in a system where high-achievement is the normal culture. Note: religious schools (of any flavor) will not be considered.
WHY WE ARE LEAVING NYC: - For all the reasons everyone does. It's too damn cold in the winter and too damn hot in the summer. We're tired of living in a shoebox that we can't even fit an exercise bike in to, let alone an exercise bike AND a treadmill. It costs money just to leave our apartment. We're tired of the lack of first world climate control (no central a/c in most buildings and the BANGBANGBANG radiators in the winter that literally leave your bedroom boiling). I never thought I'd miss having a car, but after 3 years, we miss having a car; it sure would be nice to be able to take a short road trip on the weekends again. We've had enough of the dog crap-and-piss minefields just to walk down the block. Worst of all, the change in our budget has meant that all the fun stuff we used to do here, we can no longer afford to do and it's depressing sitting here on the couch Friday night instead of eating a 3-Star meal and going to a jazz show.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR - I want to make this abundantly clear - I AM NOT LOOKING TO REPLICATE NEW YORK CITY, so please do not post how "City/Town X" is nothing like NYC. I know. We're perfectly happy moving to a much slower place at this point. In this order, we want a place that has/is:
- A progressive K-8 or K-12 school for our daughter where children are respected and bullying is not tolerated (think Montessori or Waldorf). As I said above, we will not consider religious schools.
- Has better weather than NYC (I know that's not saying much). We can tolerate a few snow days a year, but no more 6-months-of-winter. Also, we have no interest in hot, humid summers. Like I said, we lived in Texas for 33 years and I'm not signing up for 6-month-of-swamp-summer either. I'm not saying we need San Diego weather, just a place where it's basically between 45 and 85 most of the year without unbearable humidity.
- Relative proximity to an airport with international flights would be nice, but not critical. Let's say we'd like to be at least within 90 minutes.
- MUST have food and shopping selections beyond crappy national chain fast-ish food. If Outback Steahouse is the best restaurant in the city/town, we're not interested, thanks. We don't need hundreds of foodie joints, just 5-10 would be fine.
- Housing can't be outrageously expensive (or we'd just stay in NYC). We can easily afford a house in the $500k-$750k range and could stretch that to $1.1m or so for a perfect house in a perfect city/town. We need at least a 3/2 with a garage and prefer a pool. We do not want a giant house like we used to have in Texas, something in the 2500-3000 sf range would be more than enough.
PLACES TO LOOK AT THAT ARE ON OUR VERY EARLY LIST - Sonoma, CA; Napa, CA; Marin County, CA; San Diego, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; Eugene, OR; Portland, OR; Victoria, BC (assuming we can find a way in). As a last resort, and going completely against my no-swamp-summers is a move back to Austin, TX. Even though this list is entirely West Coast, we are happy to look at any part of the country. While we'd love to move overseas, it doesn't make sense as we both have parents that we'll be taking care of soon here in the States. Any thoughts on the towns/cities above would be very much appreciated. Any additions to the list (and why) would be even more appreciated. My advance thanks to everyone on this forum; I know I don't post much, but I'm really, really glad this forum exists.