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Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#431

Post by jason-phillips »

subpixel wrote: post #424
jason-phillips wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After living in Austin for 24 years and working at Samsung Austin Semiconductor for a decade, I decided that I wanted to work remotely. I learned new skillsets and started working for smaller startups where remote work was a possibility. This was pre-COVID. I researched every town and county between Brenham and Junction for about 18 months, studying publicly available data as well as traveling to the towns to see the…

I'm sure you can get better tex-mex food within 3 miles than I could find driving for 3 days. My concern in that region would be drought and aquifer health, and yet my lawn is also dead here in New England.

Great Tex-Mex is something we take for granted here. It's everywhere.

The water situation is important, but that's part of one's research responsibilities. That's why I struck Llano from my list, for example. Their municipal water supply is the Llano River, which did dry up during the 2011 drought.

However, San Saba has the San Saba-Ellenburger aquifer underfoot which will never be stressed at current draw rates from the 6000 people who live in San Saba County. And the Hickory Water Conservation District which covers 55% of the county prevents that water from being removed from the district. San Saba is like the Garden of Eden in Texas due to the abundant and secure water resources. Drought literally doesn't affect us.

These are all things which are discoverable using publicly available data.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#432

Post by mariojv »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #21

New Mexico has a bunch of nice small towns. I live in Albuquerque (not a small town but there are quite a few others) and I have some shops, restaurants and bars all in walking distance.

How's Las Cruces?

We were looking at possibly relocating to a friendlier state than Texas if gay marriage were to be overturned. Thankfully, that's looking less likely, but it's still on the back of my mind a bit. We have some family in El Paso, so that would be convenient.

Main consideration would be quality of public schools. Some semblance of a social life for folks in their early 30s/parents would be nice but we could deal with that being not as great with El Paso close by. Availability of decent groceries, especially for cooking Mexican dishes, and fast internet would be pluses as well. I imagine the real estate market there is quite cheap. We'd love the climate if it's the same as El Paso.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#433

Post by a2tech »

pontifier wrote: post #428
a2tech wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a process problem. The correct order to do things is: pull permit to fix plumbing, that permit will allow you to connect to the city water for testing purposes once you've proven the system will hold pressure (initial inspection), then when you're connected to the water an additional inspection will be done to verify working plumbing, if thats the only outstanding issue you can apply for a certificate of occu…

The city will not issue the permits to do the work. FULL STOP. I literally already have a city water connection and it's costing me a hundred bucks a month just to sit there unused because I can't get the permits to fix the plumbing... So what would you do in that situation?

Whats the justification for not issuing plumbing repair permits? Or is it an issue of getting it inspected?

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#434

Post by pontifier »

ryanmercer wrote: post #401
pc86 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me about 4 minutes to find out that he was robbed for the ~15th time, called the police, and held the criminal at gunpoint for less than ten minutes until the police arrived. Quite a bit different than "holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration," and with how quickly I found out what actually happened I can only assume you're intentionally misrepresenting the facts.

>It took me about 4 minutes to find out that he was robbed for the ~15th time, You do realize between his comments here, and a cursory look at his Twitter, he's told about 57 tall tales too many, right? If it was such a bad experience, why did he go on to buy an alleged SEVENTY-FIVE more properties there for starters? Because the bulk, if not all, of this is probably entirely made up. I mean, the guy claims he's deve…

I'm happy to verify anything. It's easy to type my last name "Fenley" into the county website at:

https://www.actdatascout.com/RealProperty/Arkansas/Jefferson

And see the property I bought and what I paid for it.

You can find out more about my fusion reactor at http://www.DDproFusion.com

My YouTube has tons of videos of my experiences here. http://YouTube.com/pontifier

I even started recording all my interactions with city zoning at https://murfie.com/dist/list.html

You can accuse me of being a lot of things... Oblivious, overoptimistic, naive... maybe even incompetent or delusional. But I am not a liar.

I can back up everything with evidence.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#435

Post by Dracophoenix »

tallanvor wrote: post #345
mbg721 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true in college towns? My experience (at an urban university campus that required a year in the dorms) was that the dorms and meal plans were staggeringly expensive, but the cheaper off-campus housing tended to be in older homes that had seen some very hard use as students came and went. So maybe the dorm price would be comparable with a brand-new high-rise apartment, but students didn't really need th…

Off-campus housing often looks cheaper, but that's because you're often comparing apples to oranges. As you mention, the age of the property and how well it's been maintained often varies significantly. But most places you rent off-campus don't include utilities. --That old house in the Midwest or Northeast might look cheap compared to on-campus housing in August, but your electricity and gas bills in the fall and wi…

> Another thing to keep in mind is that, on average, students living on campus have higher GPAs, are less likely to drop out, are more likely to finish on time, feel a greater sense of social belonging, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Those benefits need to be factored in as well.

The ones that don't kill themselves, sure. There's also a higher rate of suicide, alcoholism, reported sexual assaults by both sexes, drug use, etc. but those statistics don't make it to pamphlets for obvious reasons. Living on-campus is more of an amplifier of opportunities and failures. It expands the range of scenarios; it doesn't raise the floor for everyone. If you're already successful and can handle yourself, you'll benefit from the proximity of those opportunities while residing on or close too a college campus. If you're an emotional wreck or don't know your own values (which describes many people in college), then anything aside from sheer force of will would won't be of much help and living on campus may interfere with that.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#436

Post by pugworthy »

wrp wrote: post #200
pugworthy wrote: post #40

Corvallis OR. Housing costs are higher, but probably not the $1M you mention unless you really want to go overboard. Walk to the store, city bus is free, great place to raise kids, bike paths and trails, and you're out of town into the woods or farm fields in 15 minutes of driving. 1 hour to the coast, or 1 hour to the mountains. University as well as HP, NuScale, and other smaller companies. People that come here ca…

If I wanted a small town with the facilities of a good university, Corvallis would be my first choice in Oregon. Eugene has I think not aged as well over the past 30 years and the central area has experienced rising property crime and homelessness. If you don't care about a university, the eastern part of the state has sunnier weather.

Corvallis has been able to keep its population and sprawl very much under control. When I first came here in the early 80's the population was in the low 40k range. It's now just hitting 60k. Green space helps control growth, but admittedly it's pushed a lot to the other nearby communities.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#437

Post by rlawson »

mynameishere wrote: post #329
rlawson wrote: post #288

Let me give you the scoop on the Carolina's. I'm a developer living in the upstate of SC. I am an agnostic liberal which makes me a rarity but I was born here so I can go under the radar thanks to my deep melodious southern accent. Pros - Great climate 10 out of 12 months - Friendly people - Lots of outdoor activities - Beautiful beaches (Fripp Island and Kiawah especially) - Low cost housing (altho going up rapidly)…

Pretty standard answer. "It's great except for those Leftover-Americans."

Well I was born here and have lived here almost my entire life of 50+ years. So I feel pretty qualified to have an opinion on the South.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#438

Post by honkdaddy »

braingenious wrote: post #423
pc86 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious why you're intentionally misframing things this way. Is it political? Or you just don't like this guy for some reason? He's been robbed (from what I can see a dozen or more times), and in one instance called the police and held the criminal there until they arrived a few minutes later. Everything completely legal, above board, etc. This is a perfect example of someone telling the truth in such a way…

How could anyone asking questions about somebodythat bought a town be framed as being anything but political? I’m sorry that you didn’t like my factual summary of events, but I provided direct references that were very easy to click on and read more about and I’m glad that you availed yourself to those resources.

Can you please be more clear with what you're trying to say then?

You obviously feel very strongly about pontifier and his past, given the amount of time you spent digging into his background, what is the point you are actually trying to make here? Be as direct as possible, please :)

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#439

Post by pontifier »

rngname22 wrote: post #398
pontifier wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought the warehouse before I really had the money to do it. I was scraping by on ramen for a while. Buying the others was honestly WAY, WAY, WAY cheaper than you'd expect. I almost didn't feel like I had a choice it was so cheap. Spent about $130k at a tax auction to get them all. It almost feels like land is the only thing they can't steal around here.

130k at tax auction for double digit # of properties, what's the annual property tax for all that?

About $8k per year. Most were bought for just back taxes, so I basically paid 5 years taxes on them. A couple of them were bid up, so the taxes are less than 1/5 what I paid.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#440

Post by rngname22 »

pontifier wrote: post #439
rngname22 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

130k at tax auction for double digit # of properties, what's the annual property tax for all that?

About $8k per year. Most were bought for just back taxes, so I basically paid 5 years taxes on them. A couple of them were bid up, so the taxes are less than 1/5 what I paid.

Ah I see that is pretty cool then. Wish you the best in your ventures there.
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