Recommend me a city in North America.

[DanS]

Brighton Beach is in Brooklyn, which is on the list.

[Dinner]

West Hollywood is actually one of the nice parts of L.A. which I wouldn't mind living in though it's a bit pricy it isn't prohibitively so like Marin. The weather is great, America's second largest city has a very dynamic jobs market, the city is packed with excellent restaurants of just about every cuisine in the world, and there is tons of cultural institutions and/or entertainment options. The city is still absolutely car centric but they have expanded the metrolink and they have expanded the subway system though it still doesn't connect most of the places people really want to go.

[Kontiki]

I'd seriously suggest Toronto. If you're curious at all, you can PM me - Toronto bashing is a sport around here so there's not much point in my posting anything.

[Hauldren Collider]

Why live in Toronto when you can live in Philadelphia?

[MRT144]

Actually Seattle is really nice, the people living there tend to be artsy & educated, while the job scene is better then most cities too. The main draw back is the city wasn't ever really planned so it just rambles where ever with no rhyme or reason to it and there is no mass transit to speak of outside of downtown.

Yeah, this is true. And they're talking about cutting back even more bus service. Kinda bull****.

But Seattle is really nice. Especially if you love the outdoors. We have snow 45 minutes away and good snow 2 hours away and Whistler 4 hours away. Bay Area is 4 hours from Tahoe.

I'm loving Seattle right now. Married, own our condo, god a job that's a 15 minute walk. Life of riley, swear to god.

Also Oerdin and I hung out at Fado up here.

Oh and the thing that's really nice about Seattle is that it rarely ever gets too hot.

[onodera]

Oerdin is exaggerating a bit. You can buy a nice place in Marin for $1M USD. Keep in mind that you can do so with a $250,000 USD down payment and borrow the rest. Your total housing costs (including insurance and taxes) would be about $5400 USD per month. My neighborhood is a bit more expensive and you would need to spend between $1.25M and $1.5M USD to buy a nice place. Again, you should be able to do so with a $350,000 USD down payment and borrow the rest. Your total housing costs (including insurance and taxes) would be about $7000 USD per month.

Is that just the housing costs, or is the mortgage included?

[Dinner]

He's saying that's the monthly cost of the mortgage with a quarter million down payment.

[onodera]

What about payments to HOA/whatever? What's their typical amount?

[Dinner]

Now that is going to vary extremely widely depending on exactly which HOA. I've heard of some as low as $50 a month and others up to $600 a month. I personnally pay just under $300.

[Dinner]

Many places, most of the older ones, don't even have an HOA. It's only if there are common areas and/or facilities to be maintained.

[onodera]

I didn't expect Sausalito to be so cold in summer.

[self biased]

i'd actually recommend the Albany, NY area. It's got a reasonable live music scene and things to do. NYC is a day trip, and by extension Boston and Montreal. Cost of living isn't outrageous like it is in NYC or SF, and it's absolutely gorgeous up here in the autumn.

[Hauldren Collider]

Albany? Really? I've been there and the city seemed like a ghost town on the weekends. Mind you, I wasn't there very long, but it seemed quiet.

[self biased]

how old were you at the time?

[Hauldren Collider]

I don't even remember, actually. It was a long time ago. I just got the impression that it was basically just NY state government workers.