BGG,
Hope all is well up there. Not trying to offend anyone, just certain attitudes hit me as incongruent with American ideals, as I understand them.
Telling a person not to spend his "California" money on an item he wants (land) in another member State of the Union seems to me to be a bit Anti- American. Of course, speaking one's mind is as American as can be too.
Should he not have the right to spend his money where he wants?
I see the point some are making about foreigners investing in American land, but not a fellow American.
Free movement between the states, for business and pleasure, seems to be one of those things I learned about in history classes. No need for "papers" etc. I think the line of thinking I'm describing helped settle this country, no? Folks buying or homesteading land in another State or Territory and bringing their upbringing and customs with them perhaps should be tolerated at least?
Geno
All is exceedingly well Geno, hope your high desert bit o' real estate is treating you well today. FWIW no offense taken here at all. I enjoy fleshing out arguments among friends.
Any of us (American citizens that is) can and should be able to spend out hard or easy earned dollars any way we see fit. I did not say otherwise. My contention (and I tried to make a point not to single Cali out as I know how sensitive you gals are
) is simply that if a guy/gal wants there little slice of rural heaven, then cool. Live there. Oh, you mean the winters are cold? Or the summers are hot? Or maybe it's fit for a weekend here or there but certainly not to live full time as there aren't enough or the right kind of stores there? Then bugger off. If it's that magical, that amazing then simply live there. If you are unwilling, then I guess it ain't so magical eh?
Otherwise what happens is absentee owners come in with out of state money, drive the price up on real estate (because although it's a pittance compared to where they live and work it's higher than local wages can afford), and voila you have a shidty situation. I'm not local to this area, or even this state. My kids are though, and I have trouble seeing a way for them to be able to afford to live here, if they so choose.
I'm sure there's several hundred holes in my position, and I'm willing to hear the other point of view.
BGG,
yep, this garden spot is treating me OK today, and most days. If only, Jeeze if ONLY, it wasn't in California.
It's that time of year of 50 degree temperature swings. I love it. It's the interior west for sure. Fall calves are dropping in the pastures, geese are flocking up, flycatcher or phoebe stopped by for some bugs today on its way south, robins showing up for the juniper berries, leaves are turning colors. Jeeze if ONLY it wasn't in Kommiefornia.
I feel your pain, and likely that of your children down the road. I'd still likely be living in SoCal if they hadn't allowed so many people in there. Grow most anything year round, decent amount of public land to play on, go to the desert, mountains, and beach all in the same day if you choose, offshore fishing, great bass fishing, quail, some deer. But the f'rs wanted growth, growth, growth and more growth. My brother still lives and works down there building and building and building. He has to split rent with someone as even on his good wages he can't afford a decent place/neighborhood by himself. Traffic traffic traffic, and more traffic, And still they don't do anything to slow growth.
I lived through exactly the situation you described regarding the seasonal housing. My wife and I moved to the White Mountains of AZ in mid December a number of years back. Stayed in a motel with 2 dogs and 2 cats for over a month, looking for places every day. Driving around and seeing houses that would suit our needs quite well, with snow in the driveway that you could tell fell on Thanksgiving. We could live in that house, why aren't the owners?
It's not just out of state seasonal owners, most of those places were owned by desert dwellers in PHX and Tucson areas. Second houses for mom and kids to get away from the heat, dad drives up on Friday (made it a real zoo on Fri and Sun nights on the highways leaving the mountains). And they came up for the Ski Resort in the winter and then there was the ones up for the casino too. Priced the local regular wage earners out of the market in some of the areas. If you could find a place that is.
I always figured the ideal is to find paradise (SoCal was nearly that at one time, hence the attraction) and stay there and if one couldn't, then do like our primitive ancestors and migrate with the seasons. Too cold and the acorns are all gone, and the elk have moved off the mountain......time to go to the valleys. Or in SoCal the natives went to the beach and ate lobster, clams, and abalone! I can't blame a person of means for doing the same in the modern world. It sucks in many ways, but the only way to stop it is to limit growth, then the city fathers and mothers hear from the locals that they're not able to split their 10 acres into lots to sell to the lowlanders and they're being "deprived of their property rights".
I'm glad this is a sort of dying/stable area. It's likely the empty lot (couple of acres) across the street is not ever going to be developed. My nearest neighbor has no intention of splitting his lots, I'm certainly not going to. And there's no big drive by developers to get BLM to sell off the flat sage lands behind me. The remoteness keeps many desiring a calmer way of life away. It's just about 120 mile drive in any direction, on two lane winding highways, to get to ANYWHERE.
It would be nice in some respects to see an infux of cash from somewhere, to bring back some industry to the city. And a few more variety restaurants, and not Jack in the Box types.
I certainly don't know how to solve the "gentrification" of the rural west, but I do realize it sucks in many respects. What's left for folks like us when the city folks move into the area and start to change things? (even tho I grew up in the burbs it was a way different time. They don't let kids run around there with BB guns and 22's anymore) I guess a fella could pull up stakes and move to the Rust Belt places where populations are decreasing, but then one would lose the mountains, elk, antelope, Big Skies, etc.
I just can't see telling a person to stay away, stay "home" in situation they don't enjoy, don't start planning for the future, and whatever you do, Don't Come Here.
Well, I can see doing it, but it sorta starts to reek of the NIMBY mentality. Which I hold to when it affects me.
Such is life, full of dilemmas, eh?
I wish you and yours the best there, and certainly hope your kids get a chance to stay in the area they grew up in, find an affordable place, and raise a family if that's what they choose to do. But if they move to another place I hope they don't run into the "Don't bring your rural ideas here" folks.
Enjoy the conversation.
Geno
