Help from Twin Ports guys. Need advice
 

The wife and I are really thinking about moving back up to the Twin Ports right now and this is all contingent on my wife finding a good Nursing job when we move up.

She is just finishing with school this spring and we are going to be putting our house up on the market.

I know a few of you guys I talked to when I visited last month were talking about your spouses being nurses.

I've been doing some research on-line here and I keep finding highly variable results on their pay scales. I've looked all over and salaries are ranging from 40k a year up to 70k a year. Cant really find any "concrete" figures anywhere. I know its hard to find out this type of info, but I know someone out there has to have some knowledge on this.

The housing market in the twin ports is OUTRAGEOUS compared to Indiana as far as home prices go. Property taxes are also killer for you guys too!
The homes in the Twin Ports are about 1.5x expensive as the same homes in Indiana. A 150k home up there would sell for 100k here and so on.
So this is playing a BIG factor in what we can do.

An average nurse salary at the hospital my wife works at starts out at $22.00 an hour, which is pretty low. I've heard nurses in Duluth are making quite a bit more, but have not been able to confirm this.

I don't want to go through the hassle of selling my home, leaving my job and moving up there to find out that she will be making $22 bucks an hour.

Any ideas guys??

I can only speak for the twin cities but locally full time nurses start out closer to $60k but within a few years are easily in the 70-80k range. I also know several full time nurses that pick up a couple extra holidays & make closer to 95k. One idea would be to go to strictly weekends and also swap for holidays. Weekends only schedule is typically a 20% bump in pay & holidays are double time. You can usually find someone scheduled to work a holiday that would rather have it off. My wife is a part time 4yr RN in the twin cities.

My fiance works for essentia health and makes good money. There a lot of openings. I think pay is based on if you have a 4 year degree and experience of course. She told me $28.00 starting, more with experience.

As for the housing market.....I bought a house and it was not cheap. Basiclly any thing west or south of the cities is 1/3 to 1/2 off....anything in duluth full market value and the range....the houses are so cheap they are 1/4 of the price.. But superior does have some good deals right now I have seen some good houses for the 150 range.

My daughter is in nursing in Minneapolis, I've never asked her exactly how much she makes but I know she does well.

Downside housing prices in the cities make the Twin Ports look like a bargain and taxes are high to.

Jesse what do you do? Usually when you have an area with high housing costs the salaries usually are about the same percentage higher as well.

Even through the recession the Twin Cities never even got close to 9%, I think it 7.5% right now much lower than the national average.

I too have heard that. 4yr degree will net more income but it's hard to confirm.

The houses in the twin ports are definitely at full market value. It's discouraging, just thinking about building! It would be nice to have a new home and the fact that I can do all the mechanicals in the home would not be too bad. Electric, plumbing, gas, and HVAC would be no problem for me.

I've worked in a few different fields in the past 15 years and have a very broad scope of ability. I currently work for a water treatment company that services, residential, commercial and industrial water treatment equipment. I also carry an ASE Master certification for automobile repair. I have experience in heating and ai conditioning. I have a class B CDL license and am trained and certified on LP and flammable gas as a serviceman. I worked for a propane company my father in law owned for about 5 years.
And I'm also a volunteer firefighter and first responder.
I'm sure one way or another I'll find a job up there, not too terribly worried about that right now.

I'll sell you my house in Two Harbors. cheap :ror:!

LOL! I'd really like to stay somewhat close to the Twin Ports. Thanks for the offer though."thumbsup"

Lol Two harbors is only 18 min from Duluth. Hope u find something man. It will be nice to have another crawler local

It would be a very cool having you in Minnesota.

+1 "thumbsup"