Seatttle Versus Portland Living?

We%26#39;re considering relocating to the Seattle or Portland area to live.

I%26#39;ve looked at the weather charts and Seatle has less rain than Portland and it seems to range from 2-4 degrees cooler month to month. Is the weather generally considered to be better in one place or the other?

Ideally we would like too find a house in a boatable (25 footer), lakeside, riverside or saltwater community within an hours drive or so to the city.

Would really like to hear from anyone who has an opinion on the pros and cons of living in these areas.

Thank you.

Seatttle Versus Portland Living?

Curious why you limited it to Portland and Seattle areas. Do you need to work in the city center?? Or are you retired??

Retired? consider Bellingham. Anacortes, Astoria

The Oreg vs Wash debate goes on. I think the tax stuff is so complicated, hard to know which is best. Unless you are living close to edge of funds not sure I would make that major concern. It can and will change. for example car license fees in wash were close to $1000 while oreg less than $100. wash voted big change in that and now closer to oreg. but wash raised gas taxes, etc

Seatttle Versus Portland Living?

Hi

We lived in Florida for a year before we moved here, to Portland..Boy do we love the weather here! lol

Actually, that is not correct..A lot of people think that Portland is always soaked with rain. In fact, Seattle gets more annual precipitation than Portland does..

Average Temperatures - 33.5 掳 (January); 79.5 (July)

Average Precipitation - 37'; (less than Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston or Seattle - and without that nasty humidity)

You can pretty much count on a warm dry summer, from the beginning of July until late September.

Have you considered houseboats? I have seen some really pretty ones here in Portland..

Have you looked at or heard of Lake Oswego?

http://www.el.com/to/lakeoswego/

I can only talk about Portland, although my son spent a year in Seattle and he could not take the rain. Mtngrl ( a poster here) is from Seattle, she lives in Portland..she will be able to help as will some other locals.

Yes, I have lived in both areas, several times.

I saw the replies on the WA thread also. Mostly good info there, but I should comment on a few things. One is real estate. A poster mentioned that their home appreciated faster in Seattle than here, but the poster was talking about several years ago. Our home in OR has appreciated just over 50% in 2 years.

Rain...it varies so much. I can%26#39;t remember the statistics, but where we lived (just N of Seattle) we had a LOT more rain. We were in the convergence zone and so had a lot of rain, but also got more snow than other areas of the metro area. That area is the Mill Creek/Lynnwood/Snohomish area.

Temperatures...much cooler in Seattle. Where we live now, a SW suburb of Portland, is warmer than Portland even, so between our home here and our home in WA, there is usually about a 10 degree difference. This summer we had several days that we were in the low 90%26#39;s and our old neighbors were in the mid 70%26#39;s.

Ice storms...yes, a Portland thing.

Some houseboats in Portland, quite a few in Seattle.

Seattle is obviously larger, but also has more pro sports teams, and all that go with a larger city.

IMO, Seattle feels more like a big city where Portland feels like a big small town (if that makes any sense, lol!).

Outdoors stuff...we prefer Seattle for that. We were closer to the mountains there, and lots of mountains. We have it here too, but not to the same degree. We had more options for sailing up there too.

Washington coast very different than Oregon. All Oregon coastline is public, not so in WA. OR coast more accessible...WA has some parts that are hard to get to...but if you make the effort (hiking and backpacking) it is beautiful.

Travel...more direct flights from Seattle, especially to Europe if that interests you. Cruise ships leave from Seattle.

I am sure I will think of more, but if you have any questions, just ask.

Phil--Oh geez, yes the license fees! Let me tell you, when we bought one vehicle, it was before the law changed in WA and we paid $950 for one year to license it. The law changed, and after that we paid about $85 a year. The guy behind all that was a classmate of mine from high school, lol! Here we paid $87 for two years for a vehicle, and that is higher than normal since we have special plates. The licensing rates changed every year we lived there, and certain taxes kept getting appealed, rescinded, you name it.

We live on the west coast of Florida now with an average of 300 sunshine days a year. We have significantly more yearly rain in inches than Portland and Seattle but it comes in summer storms rather than a winter drizzle. Our periods of overcast skies are far and few between. We want tp leave beacuse of it being too hot, humid, rainy in summer, hurricanes, crazy real estate tax system and insurance.

So far we like the idea of both the Portland and Seattle areas. My main reservation is the lack of sunshine (66 days average) in those areas and things being wet so much\ of the time.

We would not live in the city there but rather an outlying area somewhere as we like a more rural/suburban setting. Being within an hour or so of the big city is fine.

Wife is a medical professional and can work anywhere where there is a hospital. I am early retired and don%26#39;t know what I%26#39;m going to do with myself there,

I am a motrocyclist. Can ride 9 months out of the year here but it%26#39;s boring. Have been on my motorcycle there in the summer and it was glorious. But realistically it looks like a four month motorcycle season there but maybe that%26#39;s ok if everything else clicks. We are also boaters and have a 25 footer now, lakes rivers or saltwater is fine.

Big decision for us.

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken time to comment on this thread, please keep the comments coming.

We have lived in Florida as well (retired military...so been pretty much everywhere) so can see why a change would be nice for you.

You mentioned wanting to live in an outlying area...that is what we prefer also, and why we chose our home here in OR as well as our home in WA.

Not based on statistics, just our actual experience here...but we had more gray days in WA and have more sunny days here. But in WA there are way more lakes and such for boating. Many of our friends up there have boats, and we used to sail up there as well.

As far as the medical field, there are some larger facilities in WA with the Seattle area being larger than the Portland area.

I don%26#39;t know anything about motorcycles except that you see them in both places. I think they learn to live with the rain:) Which, as you said, our rain is very different than in FL. There you get the 4pm downpour and then it clears up. Here is is more like a constant drizzle for months at a time. I personally love it, lol!

Can anyone comment on what a nice/very nice lakeside 3 bedroom, 2 bath 3000 sq. ft. home might cost in Oregon or Washingtron within an hour drive or so to Portland or Seattle?

Thank you.

A long vacation here at the worst time of year would help you with the decision making. We visited twice, for 10 days each time, but in summer and Sept..beautiful dry sunny days. Then we moved here in Aug..having been warned about the rain, it was not a surprise, but the constant grey and lack of sun, is and can be depressing. My husband was bothered by it more than I but you really never know how it is going to affect you until you go through it.

I like the rain here better than elsewhere, rarely do we get downpours, none of those flooding rains that you can not see where you are going, but it can and does rain just a little, like a heavy mist, for days and days and ......

But then, it is rarely freezing cold, everything is amazingly green and grows bigger and prettier and while this past summer has had 100 degree days, we have been told they are few and far between.

But having done what you are considering , just recently, the best advice I can give you is come here a few times for as long as you can and see for yourself...Good Luck~

I%26#39;m not a boater, and have never lived in Seattle, so I stayed away from this thread... Having said that, I think you%26#39;re much more likely to find what you%26#39;re looking for in the Seattle area than here in Portland.

I%26#39;ve got a couple friends with boats, and my sense from them is that a 25-footer is big for around here. I can%26#39;t think of a lake within an hour of Portland where I%26#39;ve seen boats of that size, and what you see on the Willamette River is all ski-boats and smallish sailboats. So my guess is that the Columbia River might be your only real option. Having a brother who used to own a sailboat that he moored on the Columbia, I further think that those with boats on the Columbia would much prefer they were in Seattle.

As for weather, the Portland area%26#39;s is generally the same within an hour of the city, no matter which direction. But I don%26#39;t know if the same is true of Seattle. The east side of the Olympic peninsula is in a rain shadow, so it might be somewhat drier. That%26#39;s probably more than an hour from Seattle, though, unless it%26#39;s by boat.

After college (in OR) I moved to Pdx then for a short period lived in Seattle / Bellevue (both). Then I moved back to Pdx. My family is in OR and a good majority of my friends so it was more comfortable for me. Now that I%26#39;m married to a native Portlander, it%26#39;s unlikely we%26#39;ll leave although there are days when politics and economics cause us to consider Seattle (more business-friendly), San Francisco or Boston.

Boating is much bigger in Washington.

The tax structure in Washington is much healthier for the state than Oregon%26#39;s. We have various caps, etc that prevent increases in certain taxes which then in turn limit our schools, public safety, mental health services, etc. You may not think this affects you if you don%26#39;t have children in school or need various public services but it does. If our kids aren%26#39;t educated, companies don%26#39;t want to locate here. If our jails aren%26#39;t funded, we have to release criminals. And so on. We desperately need a sales tax here but it seems unlikely to pass. Our current system is one that rises and falls with economy, unfortunately, putting us in a bad spot because as tax revenue falls, the needs of our citizens rise, etc.

Portland is much greener (meaning in city parks, trees, etc) than Seattle. This was something that was hard for me when I lived in Seattle.

In a coastal post, someone posted a website rmls or something?? for real estate that you might find useful. Maybe someone else remembers the site? It would be useful with real estate prices, etc. for you.

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