Phantom Mark

Yup, I may have a chance of relocating my family and I to Redmond, Washington.

If any of you guys could maybe tell me what its like to live there I would be most gratefull.

Best and worst case scenarios.........nowhere only has good points huh

I have no idea about the place apart from the obvious things I see on the TV, but that really stands for crap im guessing.

Cost of living relative to various areas and things would be useful please? anything you can tell me.

Would of course welcome opinions from any other Brits who have moved over ?

swajames

Mark, I don't live in the Pacific North West but if you need any info on the transition from the UK to the US do let me know. I'm 9 years in and counting!

noonehome

I assume you would be working in Redmond. Redmond is really part of the metropolitan Seattle area. You can live either in a very uban area or very rural area and be within commuting distance to Redmond.

Winter weather is a lot like UK. Long damp, dark and cool. I think we are about the same Latitude. Summers although short July 5 to mid September are awsome. You can ski and suba dive the same day (in the winter) if you like but the water is always cold. We get snow a couple times a year and it's usualy gone in a day. There are a lot of hills and limited snow removal equipment so when it does snow pretty much everything shuts down.

Traffic sucks during rush hour for. There is really only 1 main highway servicing Redmond and most of Microsoft's 30,000 employees use it. Plus, Nintendo in Redmond too.

Over all very good guality of life. With 3 million people in western washington it's not too big but has big city culture and cuisine. Cost of living is pretty high but not like Chicago, NY of San Farncisco. Food is reletively expensive because most of it is brought in from other parts of the country. Beside portalnd OR, and Vancouver BC the next large city is an airline flight or over a days drive. It took me a while to realize how far away everything is.

Housing is pretty expensive too and we are holding up better than the rest of the counrty has a whole. Granted the further out from down town seattle the more affordable it gets.

Brit_in_NJ

Run away...run away!

I don't know much about Microsoft''s home town, had a friend spend a couple of years there. I think if you get a comparable salary here you would have a better standard of living overall excluding a couple of US cities but just make sure you have health insurance. http://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator Unfortunately this link does not have UK cost of living comparison but you could compare cities here

Unless you are here for just a vacation I'd say give up converting prices from $ to ? just compare store to store it drove me crazy for example thinking how much a loaf of bread cost in Tesco or Asda compared to the few $s in stores here.

Phantom Mark

Thanks guys for the insight you have given so far.

I guess my major and main concerns are cost of living, particularly housing costs, I currently own a 4 bedroom detached new build in the midlands of the UK, but thats a still only worth around ?190k, what would be comparable in that area maybe ?

I used the link to check the costs of living briefly, thanks, I have some indication of wages in that area now for my trade (games developer / programmer) which will be very useful in my current negotiations, my wife is a Class Teacher so she should be able to relocate anywhere in the world pretty easily.

How is crime btw ? Gun and Gang type crime worry me the most actually, but I blame the one sided view from my television screen for that ?

The commuting thing I can deal with, I would just pick up another motorbike

Can anyone describe the surrounding areas maybe ? Lincolnshire for example where I live is virtually flat, and pretty boring for the most part lol, I'm originally from Sussex where of course we had the rolling south downs etc, looking at the images on multi-map it certainly looks pretty interesting around Redmond.

Anyways thanks again guys, look forward to reading further information on this

ImolaRedM

I just moved to the area last year. I can't compare it to the UK but it reminds me alot of nothern Germany (HH) only more hilly. Crime is low on the east side (Redmond, Issaquah, Sammamish, Bellevue). Crime tends to pick up if you go to South Seattle, Renton areas. Cost of housing isn't cheap but on par with metro regions like Washington DC/Northern VA and cheaper than Metro NY City and San Francisco. Weather is not as bad as I was expecting. Summers are actually VERY nice, winters are mild with fair amount of rain. There are mountains are close by so weather will vary considerably. Plenty of skiing in the area as close as 45 minutes from Redmond and many other skiing options within a 2-3 hour drive.

PM me if you want more detail and/or comments on working here.

carson

I've lived here for a long time and I love it!! If you are an outdoors person you will never run out of things to do, There is a handful of ski areas within 2-3 hours from here, rivers, lakes, the ocean, beautiful mountains, and beautiful scenery everywhere you look. Fall and winter here is gray and rainy, but I wouldn't trade the summers for anything The cost of living here isn't too bad if you don't live in a real metropolitan area of seattle, I'm a middle to upper class wage earner and I live real comfortable here. Don't worry about crime either, I don't know the statistics but it is nothing like other big cities in the U.S. Just do it man, you won't be dissapointed

noonehome

Google earth has good coverage of this area to give you an idea of geography and such.

www.zillow.com will give you an idea of what kind of house you can get for $$$.

Phantom Mark

Cool info again, thank you so much guys

Tom, Just sent you a PM before checking this thread regarding house prices, you already answered my question here tho thanks

Fingers crossed the negotiations continue favourably then !