Thinking of moving to North Bend, WA...any advice/feedback???

Maybe I should say that North Bend is 30-45 miles east of Seattle, a little ways down the highway from Issaquah, at the ft. of Mt. Si. Very small town, pop. 4000.

Hi, Jaime,
I assume you have a reason to move to North Bend.
The town sits at the toe of the Cascades, about a 30-40 minute drive to central Seattle (depending on traffic), half that to Issaquah or Bellevue, major employment and shopping areas. The town has grown significantly over the past decade or so, and is now much more suburban than rural IMO. Still, it's close to the mountains - ski areas about a 20-30 minute drive, and the owners of the cafe featured in the TV series "Twin Peaks" apparently intend to re-offer cherry pie and a da**ed fine cup of coffee after the cleanup from a recent destructive fire. Extra bonus (?) - there's a big outlet mall in North Bend.

We have friends who moved from here (Southern Calif.) to North Bend and they love it and don't ever want to leave. They love their neighbors and the small town atmosphere. They do get a little sick of the rain at times but still not enough to make them move.

Visited North Bend & Snoqualmie Falls area many times. Beautiful & quiet.

I live in Bellevue which is about 25 minutes from North Bend. The drawback I would see is that they get a lot more clouds and rain there as they tend to hug the mountain. It is cheaper to live and more stores are heading out that way. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions. Lots of great hiking in the area.

Jaime, I lived in N. Bend many years ago. It's beautiful country and close enough to Seattle to really enjoy the city even though that area is growing rapidly. I now live in N. Dakota but make it to Seattle a couple of times a year. My biggest reason for leaving was gray skies and to wet for me. Where do you live now? If you need winter sun it will be a difficult adjustment. Good Luck!

Mary, I live in Indianapolis, Indiana right now, but I grew up in the country (still in Indiana) but much of the "country" here has suburbanized. I'm looking for a small town somewhat near Seattle that's still "in the country." Of course, I'll probably have to commute to Issaquah, Seattle, or Bellevue for work, but I don't mind. I don't really mind rain in the winter but what are fall, spring, and summer like?

Jaime,The last three times I was in Seattle (Oct.,late April and June) the weather was great. If there was rain it was periodic and light. I prefer it hotter in the summer and I agree with another message that there always seems to be a big cloud looming over N.Bend. There are however alot of little beautiful communities in that area that will give you that living in the country feeling.

Having grown up in the Seattle area and being married to a man who was raised in North Bend, I have to let you know that while the area is close to the mountains, Bellevue, Issaquah, etc; it is in no way immune to the enormous growth impacting this area. There are a number of very large developments that have been approved in the Snoqualmie Valley. These will continue to dramatically change the character of these once rural communities. North Bend is right on I-90, the major freeway heading into Seattle and Bellevue. Many affluent software people are moving to Northbend and this is driving development. Issaquah has some of the worst traffic in the area so unless you are working really odd hours, you will have a considerable commute. The North Bend area is very scenic, as is Preston, Fall City, etc. I just wouldn't expect the rural character to remain as these are fast becoming bedroom communities for Seattle and Bellevue, complete with "MacMansions" and strip malls. People are even beginning to commute from the Snoqualmie Pass area and Cle Elum on the east side of the mountains. If you are trying to escape development I'm afraid that development will be following you.

As to the weather: we grow moss and love the sunny days but don't count on them. This is polar fleece country.

Good luck.

Jaime,

I live in Sammamish (recently incorporated), just north of Issaquah.

North Bend is definitely undergoing development, and it's likely to get much worse over the next several years. Affordable housing is an issue out here, and development keeps pushing east because of land availability and costs--it started in Bellevue, pushing through Issaquah to Snoqualmie, and on toward North Bend in the near future. Whatever's bucolic now isn't guaranteed to stay that way.

If you have to commute all the way into Seattle from North Bend, that's a pretty good haul with lots of traffic, especially starting just west of Issaquah. If you happen to work in Issaquah, Redmond, or Bellevue, then it isn't quite as bad--a straight shot west on I-90, then local roads to your workplace.

You're likely to see a lot of drizzle/rain from October/November until May/June, and during that period it's possible you won't see the sun at all most days. And, as others have said, North Bend sits next to the mountains, so a lot of clouds moving east hit the mountain and dump their precipitation--more rain than you get just 10-15 miles west of there.

Still, the scenery's stunning, the summers are gorgeous, the temperatures tend not to get too extreme (unless you cross to the east side of the Cascades) in either summer or winter, and there's lots to see and do. If you don't mind the imminent development in North Bend, this area is a nice place to live.

Just my humble opinion, of course. Good luck with your decision!

Jaime, I'll follow up on my earlier posting with some additional comments. Watch out, I tend to wax...

About 10 years ago Washington State enacted growth management legislation one of the aims of which was to encourage development into existing communities and their adjacent "urban growth areas" so that sprawl and the conversion of agricultural land to residential or commercial could be discouraged. Under the law of unexpected consequences, fringe metropolitan communities like North Bend immediately found themselves undergoing a great deal of development pressure as land in unincorporated or rural areas was taken off the table, so to speak, leaving the small towns with their lower land costs and their limited growth areas alone to cope with the development pressures which come from a robust regional economy. Many of the smaller towns, including North Bend IMO, caved to the developers' pressures (and related promise of tax revenues, more jobs from service businesses - all those new residents want their dry cleaning done or their pizzas delivered.)

So the boundry between "town" and "country" in the Puget Sound region is a hard line to draw. You'll encounter natural resource and habitat areas right in the middle of big cities, or you'll see formerly small towns like North Bend or Puyallup turning into much larger settlements as their inventory of developable "urban growth area" land is transformed into builderburgers and K-marts. The end result will not likely be a Los Angeles scene, because much of the rural land will be designated for permanent agricultural or forestry use, but on the other hand there will be few if any Mayberrys left, at least within a 1 - 2 hour radius of the Boeing Microsoft Weyerhaueser Immunex blah blah centers. By the way, many of these folks telecommute, too, so the old rules of thumb about nobody commuting more than 45 minutes, are hooey.

Let me suggest you investigate the Olympic peninsula, or the Bellingham area, or the Olympia area, or maybe Eugene, for possibilities along the lines of your preferences.

John and everyone, thank you for your good advice. It's always hard to move to a city "sight unseen," and it's wonderful to have this feedback to take with me when I make my move. I still don't know WHICH city, but this forum has been very helpful. Does anyone have an opinion about living on the other side of the Sound, west of Seattle, and just commuting over the Sound by ferry daily? Please email me at [email protected] with any suggestions. Thanks again for all of your help!