My husband is job-hunting and a recruiter keeps calling about a job out there, he's had an interview or two and has at least one more over the phone. At first the salary didn't sound too good but now it's sounding better and they said he might end up in a higher level position than they're currently interviewing him for, so it's sounding much better. But it's scary to think of moving clear across the country. Best I can tell, we'd be moving from an area with decent houses for $100k, to an area with tiny houses for over $400k, $700/mo rent to $2000+ rent. What are the other areas I can look at housing in? We wouldn't want a huge commute. I don't know exactly where this job is located except "Irvine".

Also my husband said the recruiter was really trying to sell him on this job, mentioned mountains and beach, but what are the BAD points about the area (besides cost of living... eek!).

I've never been west of St Louis

Irvine is a very nice area of Orange County. I would say for a nice home in the area the cost would be $550k average, usually more.
Other cities near Irvine: Lake Forest,Rancho Santa Margarita, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo,San Juan Capistrano, Tustin, Santa Ana. Closer to the beach-Laguna Beach,Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar.
I know I'm forgetting some but that's what I can think of that is close by.

Commute is rough out here. The freeway is packed and it can take an hour to go 20 miles. Depends on where the office is located though because there are lots of ways to get around the freeway drive.

Irvine to mountains- about 2 hours
Irvine to beach-15-30 minutes depending on the beach
Irvine to Disneyland- 15 minutes w/out traffic
Vegas is 4-6 hours away.
Hollywood is about an hour w/out traffic.


HTH

I would stay away from the Santa Ana area but generally, Irvine and the surrounding areas are very nice, just expensive.

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Thanks The freeway sounds like where we used to live when we first moved to Atlanta, you'd just SIT on the interstate on the way to work in the morning, and I think it was 6 lanes wide at the time (one way). Now they've expanded it but that was after we moved. I remember when we first stayed at a hotel before we decided to move there (his employer moved their servers which he managed). His boss picked us up and we got on the interstate and I about crapped myself, it was just a SEA of cars.

I've asked a couple other people and was told about taxes, special vehicles (or spending $$ to get your vehicle up to their standards, food and gas being way more expensive than the rest of the country. I guess we'll keep talking to them and see what kind of offer letter he gets, also has several other places calling, this one is the most extreme of relocations.

property taxes are 1%
Vehicles- yeah it can be expensive to register them-depends on the car. We have the whole smog test thing here and there is certain equipment that has to be on trucks here.
I don't think food is more expensive though. We have so many options for shopping that the competition is pretty good.

Gas is expensive. I just paid $72. to fill up my tank. Irvine area probably averages in the $3.15 right now.

Find out where in Irvine. If it's in the computer industry I could take a pretty good guess as to where it would be. Even a street name would give me a good clue. Irvine is weird cos it goes in and out of other cities so commute could be good for certain areas and bad for others. 2 of the main freeways go thru there.

I agree about Santa Ana. Don't even know why I included it other than it's so close.

The company would be Capital One, I don't have any address. We don't have to do emissions where we live now (but if we lived closer to Nashville we would). Did have to in Atlanta, and there is state tax (none here), and "ad valorem tax" on your vehicle every 2 years I think? Doubt we'd buy a house for a while at least. I was also told something about having to contribute to some emergency health care fund?

I am from So. Cal. and can tell you the beach/mountains and weather is amazing. However you pay a high price to live here. The traffic is AWFUL and the price of gas is $3.50 a gallon for the cheap stuff at Arco. In Orange County the cost of a small home in a decent neighborhood is in the upper $500K. If a commute isn't out of the question you could look into the Lake Elsinore/ Murrieta area. The rent is a lot cheaper but you could easily spend the difference in gas. You would really have to factor the pay into our cost of living out here. Most families have to have both parents working just to live. $80,000 will put a family of 4 into the lower middle class section. You can pay your bills and eat well but not have a lot left over. $50,000 and you are sturggling to pay everything every month.

As far as houses go.... A 2bed, 3 bath, double wide will fetch $250K and the commute to Irvine is about an hour and a half without traffic.
Groceries.... Milk= 2/4.99, cereal= 3.99, bread= 3.50 loaf, peanut butter= 4.00, laundry soap= 12.50/ 32 loads, hamburger meat= 3.00/ per lb.

We do not own so I cannot tell you about taxws but am happy to answer any more quesetions you have about cost of living.

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I laugh at you because you are all the same.

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The traffic is much worse in that area of CA than in Atlanta. We lived in Atlanta for 3 years and I didn't think the traffic was too bad. DH is from Santa Ana (his parents lived in the high desert at the time) we went down the hill to visit the area, etc. the traffic was horrible, way worse than driving in Atlanta. I also found food prices there to be higher than other places we had lived (we were military and moved around). Gas was also higher, going to the movies was higher, pretty much everything cost more.

The median income for the job they're interviewing him for is $130k plus huge bonuses (but I never count on those), and they think he'd end up getting a higher position. Doesn't seem like enough to live in that area though?? We're looking at several Atlanta jobs too, plus the one local to us, and a couple government jobs elsewhere. The phone has been ringing off the hook (finally!)

I've never heard of an emergency health care fund. Not sure what that would be.
The median income in Irvine is $85k. median income for Orange County is $65k.

$130k. would be a good salary for living in OC. I'm sure we could compare food prices and going out and it would average out. Might cost more for somethings and other things would be really cheap.