Moving to Utah from New York…
If you’re thinking about ditching New York and moving out West to Utah, then this video is for you. I’m going to cover 10 things you need to know about moving to Utah from New York. And I actually talked to a friend who was born and raised in New York, now living in Utah, so I’m going to give you her perspective as a fellow New Yorker.
Hi, this is Melissa Ballman and I am a real estate agent here in the greater Salt Lake City area. So what that means, if you’re looking at making a move to Utah, I’d love to connect with you and see how I can help you. But first, let’s jump into some of the big differences you’re going to encounter if you’re thinking about moving to Utah from New York.
First, and this probably is not going to come as too big of a surprise, but things are much slower paced in Utah than they are in New York. So my friend said that, that’s one thing she really had to adjust to moving here is she felt like she was rushing people constantly, because it’s just so much of a slower pace. If you’ve watched any of my other videos about things to know about moving to Utah or any of the other ones, this isn’t going to come as a surprise to you, but Utah has low humidity compared to New York. And that plays a factor in a couple of different things like your snow. As my friend said, “It doesn’t weigh a thousand pounds per shovel here in Utah like it does in New York”. And our cold does not feel as cold as the New York temperatures because there’s not the humidity. So I’ve spent some time there in the winter time in New York and they’re 35 degrees feels significantly colder than Utah’s 35 degrees.
So the other thing that you’re going to encounter with that weather, low humidity because we’re higher elevation, which means that according to my friend, “The sun feels hotter in Utah than it does in New York at sea level”. And I have to agree. A lot of people do comment that the sun does feel more intense with the higher elevation you go. Next, fine dining options. We have some fine dining in the Salt Lake city Metro area, but the food is going to be nowhere compared to what you’re used to in New York. And my friend actually pointed out the fine dining portion of it. She feels Utah has more fast food style. And coming from California myself, I think of fast food is like hey, I’m going to In and Out or McDonald’s or something like that. So it’s not all that, but you just don’t have the fine dining, nice restaurants in abundance like you do in New York.
I hope you’re enjoying my video so far. If you haven’t already make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the bell that way you’re alerted each week when I drop a new video. And if you’re on Facebook, join our group called Salt Lake Life. And we talk about all things related to living in the greater Salt Lake City area. Next let’s talk about alcohol and bars. So I never really gave it a lot of thought, but we really don’t have a lot of bars here, especially compared to New York city. So you’ll find most bars in the downtown Salt Lake City area. And then as you go outside of downtown, the bars are going to be fewer and fewer it seems.
So of course there’s bars and restaurants, but to just go to an actual bar or pub, not going to happen like you get in New York. And with that, and I’ve done a video on alcohol laws in Utah, so check that out. But with that, alcohol is more expensive in Utah than it is in New York or pretty much anywhere in the nation almost because it is state run, the liquor stores. So just be aware of that. You, you don’t have alcohol delivery services here. You don’t have liquor stores, every other block here. So it does take more planning to get alcohol and more money.
So probably no surprise here, property taxes are lower in Utah than they are in New York. And from what my friend says, “New York spends a grundle of money on education in the public school systems per child”. In Utah, you just don’t see that kind of spending on the education system unfortunately like you do in New York city. So yes, much lower property taxes in Utah than you will find in New York. To give you a general idea, in 2020 my property taxes for about a 3,400 square foot home on a third of an acre was about $3,000. So you can compare that to what you’re paying in New York.
No surprise. These next few are probably going to be not so shocking to you, but we have tall mountains in Utah not tall buildings. And because of that, people are much more outdoorsy in Utah than you see in New York. When you get off work in New York, you might be taking your dog for a walk out of your apartment building and around a concrete jungle. In Utah, it’s not uncommon to put your running or hiking shoes on and get out to a trail within a few minutes of your house. So with that, that was one thing that my friend said was a big, big difference for her. And that was how many trees we have. Utah is a beautiful state. We have five national parks here. We have, I don’t even know how many acres and acres of national forest and things like that, camping everything. So there is a big difference to her coming from New York to Utah with the amount of trees that we have.
Let’s talk, getting around. Like I just said, we have five national parks in Utah. So really you’re going to want to have a car and really you need a car when it comes to getting around in Utah. The mass transit system here is nowhere close, not even an inkling of what it is in New York city or in New York in general, the East Coast. So you really do need to have a car to live in Utah. Next, since we’re talking cars, let’s talk the freeways and traffic. So this is where I maybe have a little bit differing opinion than my friend, but she says, “The freeways here are always busy and lots of cars on the road and the freeways are always under construction here”, which the construction part a hundred percent true. But I’ve been to New York and I remember looking out my hotel window one night at 1:30 in the morning and there’s a traffic jam on the freeway. And I thought, “What in the world?”
So, just like all big cities we do of course have traffic on the freeway during prime time traffic hours, much more congestion than normal times of day, in the middle of the afternoon. And I’m sure that the same is pretty much true for New York as well. Now, one thing that she did mention is in New York trucks can’t go on a lot of the freeways there. Well, in Utah, there’s a lot of trucks on the freeways here. So complete opposite. We do not have restrictions on our freeways for trucks. And finally things to do. So in New York you have a lot of indoor things, way more than we probably have here in Utah with all the museums in New York and famous library and things like that. Whereas Utah, we do a lot of outdoor things and they’re much closer than you would get in New York.
So skiing is right here in your backyard if you’re living in the Wasatch Front area, the Salt Lake city metro area. Like I said, hiking, biking trails, you name it. If you’re in the greater Salt Lake City area, you can be doing all of that probably within 15 minutes of your front door of your house.
So to sum it up, like my friend said from New York, “In Utah, way more outdoors and it’s close versus New York where most everything is indoor or far away if you’re going to do outdoor things”. I hope you enjoyed my video today. If you have any questions or want to reach out to me because you’re thinking about making a move to the area, I’d love to connect with you. Just send me a text, email, whatever you got to do, get in touch with me. I’d love to connect with you and as always make it a great day.