Leaving DC for a lower COL area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"3. Most people seem to have their set friendships from when they were younger, in college, etc. Hard for transplants to break into social scene. Most of my friends are not from the city I now live in (all transplants like me). "

This is the hardest thing my sisters or I have found about leaving this area for another new one. We always took for granted new people coming in or out of a social scene, in our native Northern VA. We have not found it to be so in (the various other places any of us have lived): Chicago (mostly everyone is from SOMEwhere in the Midwest); Indianapolis; Philly/S. Jersey; Greenville, SC. One of us has lived off and on in London, though; we found that equally easy to meet new people who were OPEN to meeting new people.

+1. When you move to a smaller area where everyone has lived all their lives, it can be tough. My friend just moved to a medium-sized midwestern city for work. They are finding it hard to break into social circles because everyone is born and raised in the area, and there are few transplants from other places.

This is part of why I prefer larger cities with lots of transplants--there are more opportunities for getting to know people when everyone's from somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I moved 7 years ago when my kids were 3 & 5. Small city in PA.
Advantages:
1. Lower cost of living. There is NO WAY I could afford the home I have now in DC. Or near DC. Or even not so near to DC. 4000 sq ft SFH, ½ acre backing to forest, in ground heated pool in a very nice neighborhood for under $400k.
2. Very little traffic. Parking is not an issue.
3. Activities for the kids are not hyper competitive.
4. DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia all 90 min – 2 hr drive. Can take train to NYC.
Disadvantages:
1. Not as many things to do ( I guess this can be an advantage – slower pace of life – but it takes time to get used to)
2. Not as many great restaurants. There are still diverse restraunts, so chances are whatever ethnic cuisine you want, you can find… but just not that many “wow!” restaurants.
3. Most people seem to have their set friendships from when they were younger, in college, etc. Hard for transplants to break into social scene. Most of my friends are not from the city I now live in (all transplants like me).

I’m in IT, go in with the federal government. Started as an 11 (foot in door), quickly picked up a 13 (based on previous experience, not TIG), now a 14.
The neighborhood I live in reminds me of my childhood – kids running around the neighborhood, no need for playdates – just walk outside. A lot of the kids in the neighborhood are on the same teams / clubs, so it’s very easy to carpool. Often, it’s now even planned –“hey, I can take Travis home if you want…”
The small city I am in does have a lot of ethnic diversity. It’s not a liberal bastion, but not conservative either – its moderate; HRC won in my district. It’s always very close in elections.
Is it perfect? No. It really took time to get used to small city mentality. The first couple years we traveled to DC and Baltimore and Philadelphia a lot. But as I embraced the slower pace of life, we stopped traveling to the cities as often. That and soccer season taking up the weekends (lol).
It is nice not to sit in traffic for hours. And to be able to buy a home instead of rent a townhome.

Scranton?

Sounds more like Harrisburg to me.

Harrisburg

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Perhaps upstate NY truly is cheaper, but be careful about assuming YOUR costs will be cheaper. I come from a western state that ostensibly is cheaper, but when I look at houses (neighborhoods) I would want to live in, the home cost is the same as here. Restaurants (decent, nothing fancy) are more expensive. Property taxes are less. Etc. We will probably retire out there, but not counting on it being cheaper.

Very valid point. I romanticized about moving out west, to Bozeman, MT, and when I looked at real estate prices, I realized it's really not that much cheaper. But where I'm from in upstate NY, I could get a nice house in a great school district for less than $200,000. I know that plenty of places are more expensive, but....200k! That's a downpayment around here.

There is also something to be said about a slower pace of life and not dealing with all of the BS that comes with our super Type A community in DC. I don't know if I can put a price on that.

+1. A lot of people on this forum seem to not realize that real estate prices have climbed in many other parts of the country. It’s like they think real estate is what it was when they were growing up. Even looking at my childhood home I was shocked how much it costs now.

You can probably find a less expensive house but for real estate to truly be MUCH cheaper means the job market in that area is limited and there is limited money to push up real estate prices. Also don’t discount moving from an area with public transportation to one where people have multiple cars per family. When driving around MCOL areas I’m always shocked at how most of the cars are new and fancy. It’s like instead of spending more on real estate they spend it on cars.

All, well, most areas have seen prices go up. It's called inflation. House prices probably doubled, on average, between 1999 and 2019. But they also did the same thing between 1979 and 1999. Actually, even more. My parents bought their house in a provincial city that's not one of the "hot" cities for 52k in 1976, sold it for 208k in 1994, bought another house for 300k and just sold that house for 650k. It's inflation. It's an upper middle class suburb with good schools.

Some cities (not all, but some) have seen higher than average real estate price increases. But the vast majority of the country remains much more affordable than DC.

^ totally this! I find it so weird how fatalistic people seem about living in DC - like they may as well not even explore other options because surely every place will have the same downsides and so why even bother.

there's a lot of nice places to live. lots cheaper than DC. DC is nice too but expensive.

Because JOBS

There are JOBS in other places. We have a sub 4% unemployment and a booming upper middle class across most American cities.

I think a lot of people get trapped into DC because of the artificially higher salaries paying 25-40% more for the same role than in, say, Atlanta or Minneapolis and are afraid to take bite the bullet and readjust to a lower salary even with a lower cost of living offsetting it.

I lived in a MCOL city like Atlanta. I’m not convinced it’s that much cheaper. A lot of these MCOL cities have a lifestyle of nicer cars, more travel, more furniture for your larger house, a SAHM etc.

If I moved to a MCOL city I’d make around 40 percent less and would have fewer job opportunities in the future. But I would probably only save 20-30 percent in living expenses.

However, we are close to 500k HHI and can afford to live well in DC. I think it may be a very different equation for someone making 150k HHI. I assume they are already out in the exurbs and moving to a city like Atlanta would only improve their quality of life.

Probably true. If you're in the 400-500k bracket then in Atlanta you'd be looking at Buckhead and similar, with a high cost of living. You'd save money at cheaper private school tuition, and maybe get a bigger house for your money, but car costs are the same, travel costs the same, daily expenditures are the same, so your net savings improvement isn't going to be that much.

But it's a very different story for the sub 200k incomes. And that's most people.

+1.

I do think there are a lot of dual income 300k HHIs on this forum where it’s suggested they move to a LCOL/MCOL city since real estate is so much cheaper. Problem I see is that I’m still not convinced for this income bracket it makes sense. You’re significantly limiting your career to take a lower salary with slightly lower expenses.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting hearing someone with a HHI of $300k worry that they won't have the opportunity to advance in their career, if they leave DC.

It makes me wonder if some of this debate really comes to - are you a type A person who wants to achieve and earn and keep pushing, or are you a type B who wants a more laid back lifestyle. Type A, sure - staying in DC could seem very important. Type B - leaving and having more free time and a nice house but less chance of hitting it HUGE one day seems plenty good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting hearing someone with a HHI of $300k worry that they won't have the opportunity to advance in their career, if they leave DC.

It makes me wonder if some of this debate really comes to - are you a type A person who wants to achieve and earn and keep pushing, or are you a type B who wants a more laid back lifestyle. Type A, sure - staying in DC could seem very important. Type B - leaving and having more free time and a nice house but less chance of hitting it HUGE one day seems plenty good.

I think that's part of it, though it's a bit more nuanced than that. For example, I'm a Fed, and my work is both way more interesting and way more socially valuable than it would be in most other places I could live. There are many ways that I could make more money (here and elsewhere), but I wouldn't get as much pleasure out of doing it, so I'm disinclined to leave.

[Anonymous]

What types of jobs are we talking about here? What are these jobs that are only available in DC?
Some are saying that even if they find a new job outside of DC, their career will be over.
I'm really curious to know what those jobs are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What types of jobs are we talking about here? What are these jobs that are only available in DC?
Some are saying that even if they find a new job outside of DC, their career will be over.
I'm really curious to know what those jobs are.

Lots of things related to national security, international development/aid, diplomacy. Lobbying and industry associations. Certain subfields of law related to regulation. Financial regulatory work. Many of those things basically don't exist elsewhere in the U.S. Other things exist to some extent in other cities, but are heavily concentrated in DC, like economists, statisticians, cybersecurity folks, and certain types of basic medical researchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What types of jobs are we talking about here? What are these jobs that are only available in DC?
Some are saying that even if they find a new job outside of DC, their career will be over.
I'm really curious to know what those jobs are.

Lots of things related to national security, international development/aid, diplomacy. Lobbying and industry associations. Certain subfields of law related to regulation. Financial regulatory work. Many of those things basically don't exist elsewhere in the U.S. Other things exist to some extent in other cities, but are heavily concentrated in DC, like economists, statisticians, cybersecurity folks, and certain types of basic medical researchers.

I guess next time the OP should specify in her top post that her question does NOT apply to nat sec folks. Would that stop people from coming on and insisting that it's only in DC that anyone has a job and everywhere else in the country basically you either make sandwiches at Panera or live in a box?

[Anonymous]

I left DC for lower cost of living area. I took a step up position wise, make a little more than I made in DC. I have a house I wouldn't be able to afford in the DC area and have an easy commute to work. The only problem is that I totally hate the job and there just isn't that much else here for me. So I'm actually kind of miserable in spite of the things I gained. Spending most of my time working in a position I hate for a horrible boss is taking a big toll on me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What types of jobs are we talking about here? What are these jobs that are only available in DC?
Some are saying that even if they find a new job outside of DC, their career will be over.
I'm really curious to know what those jobs are.

Two Fed household here. Impossible for us to leave D.C. and have both of us stay in the same field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Norfolk, VA. Great houses, lots of restaurants and things to do, we can walk to the beach. I never stop being amazed that when I go downtown I can find a parking spot in front of the restaurant/museum. There are some "red staters" and it was a bit of a culture shock but overall we're happy here and plan to stay.

I just came on here to say the same thing! We moved to Norfolk, we built a house on the water so we can have our toes in the sand within 30 seconds of opening our front door, our commutes are short, we work right next to each other so we can actually have lunch during the week (as opposed to before when one of us worked downtown and the other worked in VA), and we are so happy. Our quality of life has increased dramatically. We have so much more time to spend together and with our kids. And we get to go to the beach basically every day if it isn't raining or freezing cold. My firm has an office here so I moved laterally. My husband's job allows him to work remotely and travel, which is what he did in DC anyway. I haven't seen more Trump stickers on cars here (and definitely not in my neighborhood) than I did in NoVA, and our friend circle is very similar to the one we had before. Literally the only con to our move is that we miss our kids' old school, although we're very happy with their new one. We don't miss anything else about DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lower cost areas don't have the same amenities, and too often they're Trump country, so I don't want to raise kids there. My parents both live in areas like this--super cheap areas of FL and TX. Those are not my people or politics, and I like DC, so here we stay, for now. May eventually head back to CA as empty nesters.

There's really a lot of variety in American communities. Not all affordable places have terrible politics. I live in a smaller, cheaper place with very good amenities and a blue-voting population.

There's really a whole world out there, guys.

+1

Most college towns are not Trump hot beds and they also tend to have great hospitals. It's pretty pathetic that you think anywhere that isn't DC, NY, LA, SF, Boston, or Chicago isn't somewhere to consider living.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I did this. Moved to Charlotte. Came right back.

I've considered Charlotte (and Richmond). Why did you return? Was it that bad?

I lived in Richmond before I moved to DC and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in moving to Wilmington, NC or Virginia Beach, VA area. HHI in DC is $300k, with two mid level GS-15s. Were both CPAs as well but our entire career is in federal government. How can I make this happen? Need to keep HHI, as I need waterfront (river, bay, channel) is fine to keep boat, as well a built in pool. I also need highly rated schools.

Ha, we moved to Virginia Beach and my best friend is considering a move to Wilmington! I personally favor VB but that's because I like VA better than NC as a whole. VB schools are good, many districts solidly on par with FCPS in my opinion. Wilmington has a bigger college so it's a slightly different feel. I think VB would have more jobs - plenty of accounting firms around here. My friend and her husband are teachers so I don't know anything about CPAs in Wilmington, but we're happy and my friend is excited so I say go for it!

[Anonymous]

I work for a nonprofit that focuses on healthcare policy, and my salary is ~40% more than I'd make in other cities. My spouse works in healthcare and probably makes only slightly more here. But, we like the progressive politics, diversity, and other amenities in this area. We live in DC, fwiw.