We live in Central Oregon and love it here. The Cascade Mountain range is practically in our backyard.
As for housing.......rentals are hard to come by. For example our sons share a house the rent is 2200 a month for a 4 bedroom 2 bath. Buying a home is just as bad, it is a sellers market so the owner can basically wait it out until a high bid rolls around.
Insurance and razes....Auto insurance for us is around $1200 a year for 3 trucks, $150 a year for my husband's Harley. Homeowners insurance runs us around $750 a year and property tax is $1500 a year on a 2 acre lot w/ a 1638sq ft home and 720 sq. ft shop. Our current personal income tax rate with the state is at 9%, they tax my income because it comes from out of state (it's complicated).
Weather.....Winters here are hit and miss snow wise. This past winter we had about 12" total fall in our part of the forest. The winter before it was 6-8 feet! Spring is rather mild and lovely except for the yellow pollen from the pine trees. Summer, we get about 2 weeks of 90+ degree days usually in August. Fall is perfect not cold enough to turn on the central heat.
As for big cities......On the eastern side of the Cascades, where we live. There are three decent sized cities, Bend (pop. 80,000), Redmond (pop. 40,000) and Klamath Falls (pop. 30,000) and our town of La Pine has about 5,000 give or take a few hundred. We don't have all the shopping places most huge cities have but we get by. What we can't get we can get via online shopping. In Bend there is Penny's, Kohls, Wal Mart, Target, Shopko and Macy's. Next is the grocery stores Safeway, Alberstons, Fred Meyer's (like a fancy version of Super Wal Mart w/o the strange people....lol) Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.
DMV.....An 8 year driver's license is $60 renewals run $40. Vehicle registration is $97 for title transfer, $121 for a two year sticker + license plate. Four year tags are for new vehicles only. And they just started a new tax.....new vehicles are taxed .5% at the time of purchase.
Hope this helps..........Oh almost forgot we have Quilt Shops here too.
Last edited by Chasing Hawk; 05-21-2018 at 08:38 AM.