I'm the undisputed winner of the "We had options!!!!" trophy currently held by KU fans from last season.

It wont be that bad...I am on the Coast but I would rather live in Fresno than alot of other places in the country...You can Golf all year and have a lot of great courses within a couple/few hours drive if Golf is your thing. If you ever wanna drive up to the North Coast I can give you some tips on some cool courses and places to stay and whatnot.

The taxation is a more than a little rough. But I'm not looking to have a mortgage and the pay is more than competitive.

Please people, we're all Californians here, so let's keep it peaceful. (hang 10 sign)

Actually property tax among the lowest in the USA due to Proposition 13......its all the other taxes that are a killer.

I plan on touring a lot of this area. I'm leaving behind 11 brothers and sisters and about 50+ nieces and nephews. And I will take you up on it when I'm settled.

My only tether to home is a nephew who lives in Pasadena.

Which taxes are then ones that are killer besides state income tax?

Sales tax is high where I live, not sure about Fresno but its almost 10% here....not sure what it is compared to KS/MO tho...but to me 10% is high.

State Income tax is pretty high, as you mentioned. Especially when there are a couple nearby states with zero state income taxes.

Also (and I am speaking from a business owner here) but business taxes are very high (workers comp...etc)...

Gasoline is pretty high out here.... (again, not sure about Fresno, but I think gas will be 10% higher probably in Fresno than in KS/MO).

We have some BS hotel taxes that get added on to rooms in different parts of the state...

Water is ****ing ridiculous now, not really a tax, but it is a goverment controlled entity and where I live it is ****ing insane....again, not sure about fresno...


The thing about property taxes is once you buy a place, Prop 13 keeps your property taxes locked in at that rate and it cant go up very much...so once you know you are going to be there for a while buying a house might be the best move if it will 1) be cheaper to buy than rent, which may be the case and 2) you can write off your mortgage and 3) if the cost of buying a home is still lower than the cost of building it when you are ready to buy.

Anyhow not to de-rail your thread but buying a place would probably save you tax money, as you'd be able to write off your mortgage and taxes are only about 1% right now ($2000 per year on a 200k home, maybe $175 per month).

Back to the topic at hand, when you get ready to come up to the wine country, PM me or something I can make a list of some bad ass spots.

(summary of taxes: http://retirementliving.com/RLstate1.html#CALIFORNIA)

Just for comparison:

Sales tax in KCMO is just over 7.725%.

If you work in the city there is also a 1% earnings tax on every paycheck.

Unless fuel has jumped in price it was actually +/- .10c per gallon. Been keeping tabs on that. So I think the idea of not having a mortgage may have been a little premature. However, I don't know that I'll stay over two years, so best to go the safe route.

You can bet I'll be looking your way for advice in the near future on golf and other activities.

Thanks for the summary. That's a good synopsis. I've saved that to my iPad and phone.

So long Will we hardly knew ya.

Absolutely. In fact, I am a little more conservative and would perhaps be inclined to raise that to 5 years. The moment you KNOW youll be there 5 years is the time you wanna pull the trigger...At least in today's market IMHO. Anything less than that involves quite a bit more risk. Anything more than 5 years involves very, very little risk if the property meets a few simple criteria....but yah your logic is very similar to mine in that regard.

Best of luck in your new digs, brother.

I'll still be here, B. Just posting from another time zone.

CA-395, which borders the Sierra's and Yosemite from the east is really cool. You have Mt. Whitney, the bristlecone pine forest (oldest trees in the world), Mammoth Ski/recreation area and Mono Lake. Also some cool old towns like Lone Pine and Bishop. I always feel like I'm driving through what CA used to be like 60-70 years ago when I drive that hwy.

Cool 'grats on the job offer. I'm trying to get out to San Diego myself the winters here just suck too much.

Thanks B'sP.

Milder winters played heavily into consideration. Plus this area just isn't conducive to riding a bicycle. People just don't look for you and the trails are few, and crowded.

I think the idea of waking up on Sunday to watch the Chiefs get their stool pushed in for a half. That allows while the frost burns off the greens in December and I can tee off at 1pm.

SD is beautiful. It's where I vacation every year. It's expensive to live there, but there's no better place in America.