<p>Last summer during July, my husband and I decided to move from Seattle’s Eastside to Portland, OR. It took until now to complete the move. We rented a small house in Portland (unaffectionately nicknamed “the hovel”) and lived there part of the time and in our house part of the time while we prepared the house for sale (cleaning, minor repairs, painting, packing stuff up and moving it into storage, etc.). We wanted the house perfect before we went on the market. It took months to get the house ready. </p>
<p>We saw 45 houses in our price range and were lucky enough to be able to buy the only house that both my husband and I liked enough to put at the top of our list (we actually had to compete with another buyer). We sold our Seattle-area house in just about 70 days on the market. (Yes, we lost money. Oh well.) </p>
<p>The best part about the house from my perspective: amazing garden (you should see my tomatoes). From my husband’s perspective: a finished basement with enough space for his pool table. We both like the view from the patio.</p>
<p>LongPrime: we decided to make the move for a lot of small reasons (slightly better weather, lower cost of living, better restaurants, etc.) and one big reason: our business, located in Portland since 2003, has grown to the point where long-distance management wasn’t working anymore.</p>
<p>I am envious- I would love to live in Portland- but my D isn’t even ready to have me visit. ( she just moved to a new place- slightly less handy, used to live a block off Hawthorne)
Now that my quaint blue collar neighborhood, is the " Seattle neighborhood of the minute", it is getting less affordable and liveable every week and because the school district is also a PITA, several of my neighbors are moving away ( but they are going to try to rent instead of sell)
However- I have put so much energy into my yard ( taking out all the sod- front-back-side) and installing new plantings and beds, that I couldn’t imagine moving away from it- not for a w.hile anyway</p>
<p>LongPrime, if the trend continues, Seattle will go to the dogs, literally. I work in the city and commute through the downtown, and it is depressing to see how badly our beautiful city is being mismanaged.</p>
<p>dmd, you should see my tomatoes this year - they are HUGE and thriving. Congrats on your move! Enjoy OR and Portland.</p>
<p>I do like the no sales tax- however- one of the perks of living in the " hot neighborhood" is many good restaurants just a few blocks away.
Plus even if Pearl Jam hardly ever * plays* in Seattle, they do still * live* here.
I do appreciate Portlands lack of blocks of single family housing that has been turned over to condos, in comparison to Seattle-
But the bicyclists in Portland are either brazen or clueless, even more than Seattle I see them riding without lights, without helmets and without stopping for traffic signs/lights.
Scary.</p>
<p>I guess Oregon has now a population net gain of 1, and Seattle a net loss of 1.
DS moved Seattle in Ap. and we/he are still trans-shipping as his job settles in and he becomes more familiar with Seattle.</p>
<p>EK, every time I walk across the Fremont bridge I end up yelling at a jerk on two wheels who thinks he has the right of way on the sidewalk (!) while ignoring the dedicated bike lane. Our bicyclists can beat the dust out of OR bicyclists!</p>
<p>Hey, I bike on the sidewalk. I don’t like the odds against a car going 60 or the mirrors on a Freightliner. I don’t think a pedestrian has been killed by a bicyclist in Oregon, But I know that at least one bicyclist a year is kill in PDX.</p>
<p>Of course I forgot to mention a huge draw for me in Portland: Powell’s bookstore.</p>
<p>As for restaurants, we lived in the distant suburbs of Seattle. Good restaurants were a long drive; now they are close. We briefly contemplated moving into Seattle, but felt that if we were going to move at all, it made more sense to move to Portland. We chose to live in the city itself, and we have gone from a walkscore of 17 to a walkscore of 58. (That’s a low walkscore for Portland, and mostly reflects the fact that we live fairly distantly from the elementary school. We are however quite close to things important to us: a good coffee shop, a grocery store, several good restaurants, and a plant nursery (bonus!).)</p>
<p>I was startled to realize that, in choosing the house, I had not visited the local schools. I still don’t know which elementary school zone we’re in. That’s the first time I’ve not been to the schools since my daughter was 4.</p>