bike friendly with funky small places to live in

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
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erbfarm
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:20 pm

bike friendly with funky small places to live in

Post by erbfarm »

Hi Everyone,

I'm not quite ready to ERE but am looking to take the next step towards it by getting out of home ownership. I've been car free for 5 years now and am used to biking/walking to work, grocery store, to run errands, and everything else. The city I live in is great for biking, but not so great for finding an affordable, small, place to live in for one person. Tons of shiny, new, expensive apartments to rent which are priced at more than my mortgage but very few affordable over-the-garage types of lofts or spaces. Even the ADU's are very expensive. Just wondering where there might be a mix of bike friendly streets and affordable rentals for minimalists. I know Manchester, NH comes up a lot on these forums and I used to live near there. One thing they had lots of, because of being an old mill town, is 3-family housing where each floor was a very generously spaced apartment with a balcony/porch on each end, lots of light, and lots of character. I work in higher ed so I need to be near a university or college also. Thanks in advance for any input!

Sparrow

Allagash
Posts: 128
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:34 pm
Location: WA State

Re: bike friendly with funky small places to live in

Post by Allagash »

Where do you live now? Your question is pretty broad as the U.S. is huge. Any region you are focusing on? Rural? Mountains? Coast? Weather you are looking for? I think Maine has some nice smaller towns you can bike and probably get some decent rents. The lower rents in the U.S. are going to be mostly away from the wealth coastal cities and in the interior. The rents are highest in coastal cities...I would forget Seattle, Portland, SF Bay, San Diego, LA, Denver, Boulder, Boston, DC, NYC.

There might be some Ohio cities worth looking at. Lincoln NE has cheap rents. Buffalo NY has cheap rents, probably other parts of upstate NY. Pittsburgh is pretty affordable. So is Albuquerque NM, Knoxville TN, Boise ID is not bad but getting more expensive. Iowa probably has some cheap rents, Missouri.

Allagash
Posts: 128
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:34 pm
Location: WA State

Re: bike friendly with funky small places to live in

Post by Allagash »

I'm not sure if there has been a really good discussion recently on this board about ideas for places to live that are good bang for the buck for the ERE type with some other amenities like a semi interesting town, natural beauty, etc... Maybe I missed it. I'd love to hear others opinions of this. It can be really overwhelming to find a new town to live in as the USA is so large and it is very expensive to take trips to see a lot of cities scattered across the country.

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