Florence OR. real estate trap. Bay Area Oregon! (Salem: contractors, home inspectors)

[mlhm5]

Originally Posted by seansean1019

Mostly Silicon Valley retirees are moving to Florence, OR. And here is why.
The appeal of moving to a small coastal town.
Price of living is less than the bay area.
Houses are still affordable.

What the city council of Florence isn't telling you;
Californian's are being targeted as buyers.
The migration of wealthy home buyers is raising the cost of living for everyone in the area.
The price of living is increasing.

The real estate market is attempting to make the prices high enough to discourage the middle
lower class and lower class of people from moving here. They figure if only a type of person
could afford to move to Florence, that the lower class people & minorities could not afford to live
there.
This type of real estate scheme has been attempted in all liberal towns & cities since the 1900's.
It never works. Towns & cities will still need the lower class to flip their burgers & scrub their toilets.
So the lower class folks finally move in to meet the demand for businesses.

Won't be long until Florence becomes another Portland of San Francisco. Just another big city
with a out of control populatipn that lives on welfare in the next 30 years!

There is no Summer in Florence. The wind blows 20-30mph everyday starting around 12 noon and lasts til around sunset. If it is 72 degrees in downtown Florence, it is in the 60s at the beach with 20-30mph winds. I lived there 2+ years and maybe wore shorts 5 times and always had on a fleece in the Summer, even at the lake at Honeyman State Park. BTW, you will go to Eugene 55 miles away for a lot of purchases on a two lane road packed with RVs and logging trucks.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by mlhm5

There is no Summer in Florence. The wind blows 20-30mph everyday starting around 12 noon and lasts til around sunset. If it is 72 degrees in downtown Florence, it is in the 60s at the beach with 20-30mph winds. I lived there 2+ years and maybe wore shorts 5 times and always had on a fleece in the Summer, even at the lake at Honeyman State Park. BTW, you will go to Eugene 55 miles away for a lot of purchases on a two lane road packed with RVs and logging trucks.

Yeah, we got it the first time. You hate the Oregon Coast. No need to keep repeating it.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by mlhm5

There is no Summer in Florence. The wind blows 20-30mph everyday starting around 12 noon and lasts til around sunset. If it is 72 degrees in downtown Florence, it is in the 60s at the beach with 20-30mph winds. I lived there 2+ years and maybe wore shorts 5 times and always had on a fleece in the Summer, even at the lake at Honeyman State Park. BTW, you will go to Eugene 55 miles away for a lot of purchases on a two lane road packed with RVs and logging trucks.

I agree with Cloudy Dayz. There are PLENTY of parts of the country that have FAR WORSE weather than Florence. I spent a few years of my life working on the Bering Sea and North Pacific out of Kodiak and Dutch Harbor. Try those places on for size if you think Florence has bad weather. Yet they are both thriving because they have productive industry and high-paying jobs.

The problem with Florence isn't the weather. It is the economy, or lack of it. And that has more to do with location than weather. There is simply no good reason for anyone not independently wealthy and/or retired to ever move there because the high cost of living, lack of services, and scarcity of decent jobs makes it much harder to get ahead there than most other places. The fact that the place appears to be run by incompetent idiots and grifters doesn't seem to help.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by mlhm5

There is no Summer in Florence. The wind blows 20-30mph everyday starting around 12 noon and lasts til around sunset. If it is 72 degrees in downtown Florence, it is in the 60s at the beach with 20-30mph winds. I lived there 2+ years and maybe wore shorts 5 times and always had on a fleece in the Summer, even at the lake at Honeyman State Park. BTW, you will go to Eugene 55 miles away for a lot of purchases on a two lane road packed with RVs and logging trucks.

I agree w/Cloudy. Trust me, we get it.

The wind does tend to blow a lot during certain times of the year, midsummer being one of them, and that gets to me, but I think that the wildfire smoke that much of the rest of the state has been sitting in recently would be worse. And you can have those 100+ temps in the valley.

Been here for years and never go to Eugene just to shop. There isn't anything in Eugene that can't be bought online and delivered.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

I agree with Cloudy Dayz. There are PLENTY of parts of the country that have FAR WORSE weather than Florence. I spent a few years of my life working on the Bering Sea and North Pacific out of Kodiak and Dutch Harbor. Try those places on for size if you think Florence has bad weather. Yet they are both thriving because they have productive industry and high-paying jobs.

The problem with Florence isn't the weather. It is the economy, or lack of it. And that has more to do with location than weather. There is simply no good reason for anyone not independently wealthy and/or retired to ever move there because the high cost of living, lack of services, and scarcity of decent jobs makes it much harder to get ahead there than most other places. The fact that the place appears to be run by incompetent idiots and grifters doesn't seem to help.

Sort of. The professional class here seems to consist of real estate agents, but a graduate of veterinary school could make a good living by opening a practice here. On the blue collar side, an electrician or plumber could do well.

Housing is pretty much nonexistent; the revolving door of California retirees keeps the real estate agents busy, but with much of these properties being in 55+ subdivisions, that leaves even less for younger people. And I don't imagine the schools are attractive at all to those with families.

Personally, I get tired of the retirees. All they do is complain. Someone is opening a car wash on Highway 101, and the bawling because it's "not attractive!!!!" is ridiculous. The town needs a car wash; it doesn't need another precious little restaurant or art gallery with sweet little windowboxes. Someone's opening a Burger King, and oh man the crying about that...a couple of new housing developments are going in and the screaming....smh.

Meanwhile COVID is rampaging through the assisted living facilities here thanks to unvaxxed employees who get their "news" from youtube.

But then, a lot of people find enough things to like about Florence to make living here worthwhile. It was easier for me to ignore what I didn't like prior to COVID and being stuck here most of the time.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Sort of. The professional class here seems to consist of real estate agents

What value or productivity do real estate agents bring to Florence? I've bought and sold enough houses to know what they extract from the economy. But what value to they ADD to the Florence economy? What new wealth is created because there are loads of real estate agents in Florence?

[dozerbear]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

Here is my favorite.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7yvuM4Apus

While you slackers were hanging out at the beach, up north we were performing important scientific expeditions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-Ieeu7oIA

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

What value or productivity do real estate agents bring to Florence? I've bought and sold enough houses to know what they extract from the economy. But what value to they ADD to the Florence economy? What new wealth is created because there are loads of real estate agents in Florence?

Probably not much, but I didn't claim they did; just that, for better or worse, they seem to represent the majority of the professional class in this town. Can't shake a stick without hitting one. Interesting question but out of my wheelhouse. I suppose some of them lease office space and hire peripheral help; maybe that makes a dent in a small town like this, but I don't think that's what you mean.

Indie business owners probably outnumber real estate agents on second thought, though. It's not a terrible place for them; there's enough of a retiree population to keep them going through the off-season and enough of a tourist industry to make it pretty worthwhile during summer.

But no, it's never going to be what the OP is predicting for reasons mentioned in this thread. I see individual opportunity here but not collective opportunity, and I don't think it'll ever be that way.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Probably not much, but I didn't claim they did; just that, for better or worse, they seem to represent the majority of the professional class in this town. Can't shake a stick without hitting one. Interesting question but out of my wheelhouse. I suppose some of them lease office space and hire peripheral help; maybe that makes a dent in a small town like this, but I don't think that's what you mean.

Indie business owners probably outnumber real estate agents on second thought, though. It's not a terrible place for them; there's enough of a retiree population to keep them going through the off-season and enough of a tourist industry to make it pretty worthwhile during summer.

But no, it's never going to be what the OP is predicting for reasons mentioned in this thread. I see individual opportunity here but not collective opportunity, and I don't think it'll ever be that way.

I was being facetious obviously. But it is sort of a serious question. Communities and economies thrive and grow when they generate wealth. What kind of an economy can you have when the major industry is devoted to extracting it rather than generating it?

If, for example, Florence was still a fishing port and more fishing boats or fish processors arrived in town you would expect new wealth to be generated. But if 5 new real estate agents arrive in town how many new dollars are generated? Any?

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

I was being facetious obviously. But it is sort of a serious question. Communities and economies thrive and grow when they generate wealth. What kind of an economy can you have when the major industry is devoted to extracting it rather than generating it?

If, for example, Florence was still a fishing port and more fishing boats or fish processors arrived in town you would expect new wealth to be generated. But if 5 new real estate agents arrive in town how many new dollars are generated? Any?

Ok; I didn't get that you were being facetious. Hard to tell online sometimes. ETA I suppose it could be said that the retirees they market and sell homes to bring a lot to Florence in both property tax and spending on local services and businesses, so there's that. There's only so much buildable land, though.

Florence's main industry these days is tourism, but unlike a lot of other places, the retiree population provides a buffer for local businesses during winter. I'd consider that an advantage if I were interested in opening an indie business here as opposed to certain other coastal communities where they literally board up the windows at the end of September.