thing is, guys, I've already been living in a very un-hip place for the past 15 years and I'm just ready for a little anything goes attitude. Normally, I wouldn't consider hipness a draw, but in my case, I just need a break from convention. Pittsburgh is a nice place, in fact it's my home town, but I wouldn't want to move there necessarily. I know there's a ton of $$$$ in Seattle, but I don't live too far from Boston and I'm used to people who have $$ for no real reason that is apparent to me. I'd like to get away from that also!! I work in higher ed and my husband works in hi tech so we need to be near a tech-geek hub of some sort. I just don't want anything to do with the suburbs anymore and I've lived in a rural area for long enough to really crave a small house w/ a small yard and a couple of places to hang out in on occasion that you don't have to drive to. Not looking for the moon here. The other thing is, my sister lives in Portland, owns a condo which she just purchased 18 months ago at the height of the housing boom, has a salary half of ours (and even has to pay 9% income tax on it vs zero for us here in NH), and still manages to save money and have way more disposable income than we do. Reason? she never has to drive her car b/c the public transportation is so great there and/or she can walk to everything including her job. She doesn't have any property to maintain so doesn't have to own the cadre of power tools and implements that we do to deal w/ acres of trees, grass, fencing, rocks etc., doesn't have to deal w/ all the home maintenance $$$ issues like heating and plumbing, and also doesn't have any dependents (or even pets) or health issues. I can't do anything about the last two items on the list, but I sure as heck can do something about not owning much property, not having much house to maintain, and finding someplace to live where I don't have to own a car.