Safe inexpensive area to live with bad credit?
 

Short story is my house is in foreclosure after a long battle trying to keep my truck & the house last year. Moved out last year, sold the truck.

I'm not partial to any area. Was thinking Vegas at first since it seems easy to get a place to rent with bad credit out there. But the job market looks awful, and I'd have to stay on the road. Would prefer to find a market where I can get a local gig for the standard $1k/wk at least. Inexpensive and safe are key, warm climate would be nice too. Tired of the northeast.

Would appreciate any suggestions, thx.

Good luck finding something local that will pay you over $1M/week. It is a tight market. If you want to move to Vegas you might find something with one of the construction companies driving a dump, if you have a decent MVR. Some of the cab companies are hiring in Vegas, but I doubt you will make that much with this economy.

I am sorry to hear about you losing your house and truck. I have had a number of former owner operators who have applied for a driving job with me who lost their trucks this year. It is not a time to have big payments.

My guess is that some landlords will need to ease some credit restrictions to keep someone in their properties with this economy. I know many do check credit. There are may be some local jobs in Florida if you want a warmer climate. I believe you can access the jobs that are listed with state employment offices in specific markets or states online.

You may also want to check the jobs listings on The Truck Paper. Of course, there is also an application you can fill out on this website that will match you up with carriers. I don't know if it includes local jobs or not.

Man, that hard and wish you the best.I know that news like this are hard.Phoenix is a good are where rents are cheap and really they don't care about your credit to much.I know this cause my wife works in the the business rental here.Jobs are kind of slow and bad.Nobody is hiring and if they do they pay little as possible.

I just thought that you might check with some of the border towns such as Laredo and El Paso. They still seem to be bringing a lot of freight across the border. Some of the larger U.S. carriers are moving freight across the border. I believe Celadon, U.S. Xpress, J.B. Hunt and others have facilities across the border and may need some good drivers. At least that is what I have been told be some of their drivers. When I used to travel down to Laredo and some of the other border towns there always seemed to be a lot of construction.

I always found it weird that Phoenix and Vegas, not more than several hours drive from the LA Area, have all the goods that LA does, but are exceedingly more affordable.

Yeah, there's beaches and such, but nothing else to get too excited about.

I think it has a lot to do with the tax base. California has a much higher tax rate than Nevada or Arizona. Those taxes must be passed along to the consumer. California used to be a pretty inexpensive place to live. Once they added all these extra taxes the cost of living went through the roof. I don't know how the average worker can afford to live in California, especially the more densely populated areas such as LA and San Francisco.

I only live in the Victorville area due to myself being four when we moved here in '87 and my stepdad finding a schoolteacher position here.

Since I've spent my entire life in this desert, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico wouldn't feel that much different to me.
I love that type of scenery.

Only reason why the Victor Valley is suc king right now is due to it losing that small town feel.
The amount of businesses and recreational activities haven't increased, but the houses and population have.

I would call that a jump from "small town" to "refugee camp", especially considering that many who live here now got priced out of houses in the aforementioned LA and OC areas.

A good friend of mine just put his property in Apple Valley back on the market. He has dropped the price significantly. He originally had it on the market for about $200,000 and has now dropped it to about $100,000. I think he said that he had about 5 acres. He loved it there but his long time girl friend doesn't want to live in California. He doesn't know if he can even get $100,000 for the property with the drop in land prices.

I remember being in Victorville a couple of years ago and lots were selling for close to $100,000 according to one local with whom I spoke. Things have sure changed in the last year or so.

Well, couple the drop in prices to the lengthy commutes and lack of local jobs, this area is totally going to the dogs.
On another note, there's this radio station based in Barstow, but owned by a Vegas-based company that's running advertisements luring CA-based businesses out to the Vegas area.

Cost of business is pretty high out here and already climbing with all the usual Friscomento politics driving every corner of this state.