Seem to be a lot of people moving to Texas lately. Today, Ed Driscoll tells the story of his migration from around these parts, and his reasons for leaving.
My reasons for wanting to get out aren't entirely congruent with his, but there's a fair amount of overlap. Aside from being in the more-than-half-the-population that Sacramento considers to be "the enemy" for one reason or another, I really need a few hundred square feet of light-industrial space, and the aggressive redevelopment of Silicon Valley has put that completely out of reach. Throw in the cost of living (even with my relatively small mortgage payment), and the amount of cash I could free up by "downsizing" to twice as much house on a couple of hundred times as much land... well, it gets motivating.
I haven't looked too closely at Texas. Seems a bit too culturally alien, as well as hot, humid, and hurricane-prone. I did chat with a nice young lady at a trade show a couple of years back who works in, I believe, the DFW area, and who thinks it's great there, but she finds the terrain distressingly flat, being originally from Indonesia or some such place. And I recently crossed paths with a former co-worker, originally from India, who's now in the Austin area.
But... I'm looking for someplace with a bit more texture to the terrain. When I started thinking bug-out time back around 2012, I first considered the high desert of Arizona, up around Prescott. But then my attention was called to Appalachia, and Internet research (terrain, looking green in satellite view, Freedom in the 50 States rating, and the real-estate listings circa early 2013) let me to thinking of Tennessee, and thence to the Summer 2014 scouting trip.
Well, it looks like others with more money and mobility than I have been having similar thoughts, as real-estate prices in the Nashville area have been rising significantly, and the wondrous bargains on country estates have largely dried up. This is going to require another scouting trip or two, though, and some research and social networking; I basically want to be within extended social distance of either Nashville or Knoxville, though way south of Nashville and convenient to Huntsville, AL, might be a possibility. And I don't want to end up somewhere that's totally white. I'm really looking for some combination of house and workshop on 15 acres or so, including at least 5 acres of potential farmland, and plenty of privacy... but depending how things go between now and actual shopping time, I might end up having to settle for a measly 7 acres or something, closer to the big city. Another constraint: decent landline Internet access is a must-have. Seems to be easier to get in rural Tennessee than in the hills overlooking San Jose, though; I've seen a couple of listings for properties in the middle of nowhere that claim fiber connections.
Gotta start making preparations. Preferably things I should be doing anyway, and that don't - yet - involve total commitment. Like moving the server off the DSL line, for example. And, a few times a week, picking out a carload of old stuff to take to recycling (electronics, paper, or whatever).
And, yes, Tennessee has tornadoes. As does Texas. But hurricanes don't make it that far inland, and, at a safe remove from New Madrid, earthquakes aren't much of a concern.
Additional: Given that it'll take a few months, best case, to get even remotely ready to sell... I don't think I'll be putting SVR Central on the market until August or so. Apparently, contrary to conventional wisdom for the rest of the world, summer is not a good time to sell around here anyway, so rushing matters trying to get ready for June wouldn't make sense. Besides which - and assuming, as always, that things don't fall apart in the meantime - there should be more desperate buyers once more of the big shiny new office buildings open and the commute into the area gets worse.
So, anyway: I'll be watching the market in the meantime. There are currently two properties for sale nearby, and another one or two probably coming soon. Oops! The one that came on the market last weekend now shows as pending. Now there'll be a bit of a wait to find out what the actual price was (hint: probably a fair bit more than the asking price).
Come June or so, assuming the clutter is moderately reduced, it'll be time to talk to my banker about financing fixing the place up for sale, and to cast about for something rentable for a few months (and that allows cats and parrots).
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