Early retirement with schoolaged kids - Where to live?

Hi friendly Oregonians! I hope that%26#39;s what you call yourselves....

Thinking of moving our family to the Pacific NW and like what I%26#39;ve read about Portland. We%26#39;re middle aged and contemplating early retirement but still have to think of our children%26#39;s opportunities wherever we move (prefer Catholic schools). Not quite ready for assisted living but definitely off the fast track. Not interested in home maintenance chores anymore, but need space for the kids bikes, etc.

Can you steer us toward some neighborhoods that are on mass transit lines yet offer new townhome or attached home type accomodations so I can at least begin to see if this would be a possibility for us? We%26#39;d hope to pay less than 500K.

Thanks!

Early retirement with schoolaged kids - Where to live?

I suggest you find a realtor. Those are kinds of questions they answer well, though you may get more mail than you want for awhile.

Have you looked enough to know Portland west, south or east suburbs or Vancouver

Orenco Station sounds like it may fit your interest ,but with short post hard to know what you really want.

Why do you need transit, want to work?? anyway just think realtor can help you

Early retirement with schoolaged kids - Where to live?

Our kids went to St Thomas Moore, school(west hills)and we had a wonderful view house where they walked to school and we could take a bus to town(downtown Portland).There are parks within walking distance as well%26gt;It is not a cheap place to live,but it was a nice place and we liked the higher elevation abd views.Townhomes??,they are available in the west hills,but like the previous poster said,you should get a realtor who will steer you in the right directikon.You will get more for the money in some Eastside areas,(across the river) as well as some of rhe suburbs.

We moved to Calif.....Oregon weather got to us eventualy,,,but we can not compare our home value here vs.Portland.Its better in Oregon easily but they will catch up soon

Hi

http://joanneforman.com/oaragency.html

this lady has been SO helpful to us in our search. We live in the Pearl District of Portland, and we are house/condo hunting .. prices are pretty high here, still.

If you want a townhouse though, look on that site, you will see a few that are being built now, look in the area of Johns Landing.

Be prepared for high prices and not a lot of square footage if you want to be in town. You can find some nice houses in the suburbs nearby for around $3-400k..

Hi budr, nice to see you :)

Hello Mary,

We are moving to Portland on the 14th!

Spent months online looking at Catholic High Schools. if you look online at Portland private schools you will see quite a lot. also by looking at their websites.

we narrowed in down to our favorites

St. Mary%26#39;s Academy (all girls) downtown Portlandj

La Salle High School Milwaukee

St. Thomas Moore

We visited Portland in December and loved St. Mary%26#39;s, so we never toured any other school. La Salle was 2nd choice due to location and travel time. Have heard wonderful things about St Thomas Moore, but was too far for us.

they were all quick to send out information packages which was helpful.

You said Catholic schools but did not catch age of your kids.

We chose to send our kids to public school when in hindsight may not have been best choice. We have good 1-8 catholic school here in Tigard, St Anthony%26#39;s At least it was good. but there are many catholic grade schools in Portland area. I have no measure of best.

One daughter did go to Central catholic HS for a time, though I preferred St Marys, but the all- girl thing made her choose CC

.

Our older daughter went to all girls HS so I%26#39;m glad to see they have that in Portland! Our next oldest will be a fifth grade girl and a boy going into 3rd grade, so hope they have all boy schools there too! Preferably near each other so we can minimize hassles.

Anyway, I grew up in Chicago taking trains and buses, husband in Brooklyn doing the same thing, so we think a city with good mass transit is a great thing. Loved our recent Amtrak trip last summer, passing through Oregon on our way from Seattle to Denver. We loved the mountains in Oregon - much prettier than those in Colorado!

I don%26#39;t know even enough to fill out the realtor forms that I see online, so was just hoping to get a few informed leads to start out with.

Don%26#39;t know much about the future re: employment but presume there%26#39;s plenty of jobs out there in a big city like yours. Having the typical midlife crisis I suppose. Want to simplify our lives to spend more quality tiem with the kiddies before they grow up. You%26#39;ve heard it all before....

%26lt;%26lt; so we think a city with good mass transit is a great thing. %26gt;%26gt;

TriMet here is good..you just want to find a place to live near enough , of course, as in Chicago and anywhere else, the closer you are to downtown, the more expensive, although there are suburbs that are pricey, like Lake Oswego.

%26lt;%26lt;I don%26#39;t know even enough to fill out the realtor forms that I see online, so was just hoping to get a few informed leads to start out with.%26gt;%26gt;

What do you mean by informed leads?

If you cannot use the realtor sites online, I cannot imagine how you will be able to look from wherever you are..even if you contact a realtor, they wil send you houses to look at online. You have to know where you want to live, and that is something only you can know.

You ask about neighborhoods with townhomes etc, they are everywhere, for all sorts of incomes etc. It is impossible for us to know which ones might be for you.

%26lt;%26lt;Don%26#39;t know much about the future re: employment but presume there%26#39;s plenty of jobs out there in a big city like yours. %26gt;%26gt;

That is not alway a given. There have been lay-offs here from huge companies, with over 1,000 people finding themselves unemployed, it depends on your skills, area of expertise -if you would be easily employable.

We heard so much good about Portland and came here for a 10 day vacation 2 years ago, then decided to move here last year..we sold our home and did it but with plenty of knowledge of what was waiting for us, we were here for 10 days just househunting..

We decided to rent when we got here, to be sure of what we were getting in to..we do not work, so we have been spared that complication.

You really have to come here and do this yourself.

If you need help figuring out how to fill out the realtors form, just ask, but when you look for areas, you want Portland then either west or east. Then put in the amount you want to spend..get a map out while you do it.

That is the way most of us newbies managed to research before we made our big move..Good luck.

Best of luck to you! Where do you live now?

I believe St. Mary%26#39;s is the only single gender school in Portland, and the state of Oregon. my daugher is already wondering who she will ask to the prom since there are no boy schools to go along with St. Mary%26#39;s.... yikes....im really looking forward to that! Ugh! they grow way tooooo fast!