Greetings from Nevada City. For those of you who've been following along, I haven't posted anything in a couple days....figured I'd give you a well-earned break!
This won't be a long post and it won't have any pictures, as we've been really busy doing all the things you have to do when you move to a different area....getting a new PO box (we're using a personal mail box at a local UPS store and we'll post the address later today), figuring out how to get the USPS to send our mail (which we hope has been held back in Punta Gorda), learning our way around town, trying to find the boxes in the storage unit that contain "whatever it is that we can't find" and most importantly....meeting with property managers to find a suitable rental house. The list of requirements is a long one. We did learn one important fact yesterday...even though the owner of the rental home says "no pets" in the listing, that is just a standard clause and many/most will waive that once they find out more about you and your dog. We send pictures of Tuck....his sweet face will melt anyone. Bottom line is that we now have a few more homes to consider.
The real estate market in this area is red hot. Not only did Claudia and I figure out this was a cool area, but it seems a whole lot of other people did as well. Who, you might ask, is moving here? The demographics are a lot more diverse than we had imagined. A property manager we met with yesterday filled us in on the mix: retirees (like us), young couples leaving the Bay area who want a peaceful place to raise their family, artists, musicians, chefs, small tech companies, independent film makers, people looking for "higher ground" (if it floods at 2,500 feet, Noah has already left the dock), couples from the East Coast who are tired of the weather and traffic, real estate developers and home builders (land is comparatively cheap here) and the list goes on.
All of this translates into a market where good properties don't stay listed for very long....some are gone within days. Since many are looking to rent before they buy (that would be us), the inventory is really low. If you are fortunate enough to locate a home to rent, you then have to be screened. The property manager has to accept you, your finances are checked, a background check is done and then and only then, do the owners sort through the various applicants and make a decision on who to accept. Fortunately, for us, retirees go to the top of the list. I think they figure we're too old to get into much trouble. :-) We are considered "ideal" candidates....which is nice, as I don't think I've ever been considered ideal for anything.
We're going to send in our application today for a home we toured yesterday. It's nice, lots of room, sits on a lake, golf course nearby with walking paths, big shop below the house and room for all my stuff. Stay tuned on that. If time permits, we're going to walk into town (10 minutes) and take a bunch of pictures so we can post a sort of walking tour of the town. That will have to wait until we move out of our smaller storage unit (we rented a bigger one to hold the Volvo, the Isetta, the BMW, my tools, etc). To put it mildly....we are really sick of storage units and not being able to find which box contains our underwear and socks (we didn't wear socks in Florida, but we usually wore underwear).
Cheers!