Living in Moore, Oklahoma

Hi, my name is Marcie and I want to tell you about some pros and cons about living in Moore, Oklahoma. Moore, Oklahoma was founded in 1889 when land run happened, meaning that people ran from Guthrie to Moore to settle there. Moore is surrounded on three sides by Oklahoma City and on the south side by Norman. Let’s run through these pros and cons and see what you think.

Is living in Moore right for me?

To be honest, I talk to a lot of people all the time about moving to Oklahoma and many people do not want to move to Moore. There are definitely some really great pros to the city and one really big con that people love to point out. And I do completely understand the apprehension; tornadoes are terrifying! My husband can attest to this. I can attest to this; we both saw what happened in May 2013 with the tornado in Moore. My husband was working in the hospital at the time and I was very near where it started, however even though Moore has this really big con, there’s some pretty great pros to this great little city.

If you don’t know me yet, my name is Marcie Billen, I am a real estate agent here in Oklahoma City metro. I do mostly work outside of Oklahoma City, meaning like south Oklahoma City, Moore, Norman, Choctaw, Midwest City, Del City; places like that. I am a real estate agent with Rüya Team Realty and Keller Williams Mulinix.

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Pros

Location, Location, Location

All right, so what are the pros of living in Moore? Well, number one is definitely going to be location. To illustrate location for Moore, let’s talk about how long it’s going to take you to get to downtown Oklahoma City if you were to live in Moore. We have a spot that I picked here in Moore; it’s on 19th street which is the business or like the restaurant district of Moore. And from this spot on the map, it’s gonna take you 15-to-20 minutes depending on the day, depending on the hour, depending on the traffic (we very little traffic that we do have here) it’s going to take you 15-to-20 minutes to drive to downtown Oklahoma City.

Now is that a good amount of time? I don’t know. That’s up to you to decide, if you’re thinking about moving to Moore or the surrounding areas. Most people would say that a 15-to-20-minute commute to work (if you’re working in downtown Oklahoma City) is pretty awesome. Moore is a suburb, it’s close to downtown Oklahoma City, remember. And then it’s also surrounded on three sides by south Oklahoma City. Now remember, Oklahoma City is a huge, sprawling city um literally the sign welcoming you to Oklahoma City on the east side, is in the middle of a cow pasture.

So just remember, the land mass is huge for Oklahoma City and Moore is still very, very close to a lot of things that you might be interested in going to in the city, if you’re thinking about moving to Moore. Now, just as a caveat, when I say “the city” we here, in Oklahoma, describe Oklahoma City as “the city,” just to let you know, if you hear me talk like that. Because Moore is surrounded on three sides by south Oklahoma City, that means that sometimes if you’re “living in Moore,” you could actually be living in south Oklahoma City. Sometimes you forget which city you’re in just because of the way everything is arranged on the map. So typically, if I’m talking about Moore, I’m talking about the area that encompasses Moore school district, which is all of this area right here. So that includes most of south Oklahoma City, as well.

Cost of Living

All right, number two for Moore is the cost of living. This is definitely a pro for this great little city. If you haven’t seen my Cost of Living in Oklahoma video, you may want to check that out. I’m just going to take a moment to walk you through the major differences in the cost of housing here in Moore. I’m going to illustrate this by comparing home costs for you. There’s this kind of a new neighborhood in Moore, it’s called Featherstone. And then there’s a very similar neighborhood in Norman, called Greenland Trails. Now, these two neighborhoods are both built by the same builder, so I’m going to illustrate the difference in housing costs with the sales prices of these two areas. A house in Featherstone, which is in Moore school district, technically in south Oklahoma City, very close to the 19th District Shopping Area recently sold for $263,000, around 1,800 square feet. The same house, in Norman, just sold for around $280,000.

Now, moving on to older homes, let’s talk about 1980 style homes. So, a house in Norman just sold for $185,000 that was that three bed, two bath, two car garages; very normal house. A very similar house to this just sold in Moore. Same you know, 1,650 square feet, the three bed, two bath, two car garage – that same house – just sold for $163,000 in Moore. So that’s I feel like, a really good illustration of the cost-of-living differences of these two cities.

Amenities

Another great amazing pro for Moore is the amenities. Okay I’m going to be honest with you; this area was destroyed by the tornado in 2013. The city built it back and this area is amazing. Anything you could possibly imagine that you need, is here. The Station at Central Park is another amazing amenity for the city of Moore, which includes different things like fitness classes and even ballroom dancing classes, at times. The aquatic center features a lazy river, three slides, a diving well, a lap pool, a splash area, and spray features that are designed for an entire family to have a fun afternoon or morning or whenever. This of course, is only open during the summertime since it’s outside. The park includes 51 acres, a walking trail, a pavilion, and also an amphitheater. There is also a farmer’s market in the park on Saturdays and Thursday nights. Another great amenity for the city of Moore is Buck Thomas Park. Buck Thomas Park is 128 acres; it includes a dog park, a playground, of course, different pavilions and a great walking trail.

Cons

Weather

Those are some pretty great pros for the city of Moore, so let’s talk about the con. It’s on your mind, we all know about it. It’s tornadoes, right? That’s the big con when you’re talking about Moore. In 1999 and 2013 the city of Moore was hit by an F5 tornado. In 1999 this tornado, you know lasted for around 38 miles, which also means it did not just hit Moore. It actually started in Bridge Creek, went up on the city, a LOT of Oklahoma City and Moore, and then some areas out in western Oklahoma or more west of the city, were hit and destroyed by this tornado. Thirty-six people died during the 1999 tornado which was in May. The other tornado that we’ve all heard about of course, is the 2013 tornado. This is the largest tornado on record and 24 people did die whenever this tornado happened. My husband, as I said, was working in the hospital that was destroyed by this tornado. He had to crawl out and then walk to a friend’s house in order to find his way home. And then I that day I was working in Newcastle, which is close to Moore and the tornado formed behind the building that I was working in.

Yes, this is horribly terrifying and it was a terrible day and the weeks that followed were awful. These weather systems are terrible; we do get a lot of storms in Oklahoma, but it’s not just Moore, south Oklahoma City, whatever that gets hit by these tornadoes. Growing up in Oklahoma, I saw several other cities be hit by tornadoes too, including the city of Katusa, which is near Tulsa, and then Del City. So we hear people constantly say if they’re moving to Oklahoma, they don’t want to live in Moore. And I get it. I do because all you’ve seen is the footage from these horrific events. I understand when we’re talking about tornadoes in general, and just like the likelihood if you’re you know, going to succumb to a tornado then we have to look at statistics for other types of disasters as well, right?

The chances that you’ll actually die in a tornado in your life, is 1 in 60,000. The chances that you’re gonna perish in a car accident are actually 1 in 103. The likelihood that you’ll die in a hurricane is about 1 in 62,000. And then the likelihood that you’ll die in an earthquake is about 1 in 20,000. So why do I bring all this up? These are terrible numbers, Marcie; stop it! This is horrible. The point that I’m trying to make here is, I still know people that live in LA, right? They have earthquakes all the time. I still know people that live in New Orleans. They have hurricanes, right? And it’s not all the time, just like we don’t have tornadoes all the time.

The cost of living in a place like LA or New Orleans is really high and you’ve heard me describe the cost of living here, in Oklahoma. These are risks and factors that you have to take into consideration if you’re contemplating a move to the area. I want you to be cognizant of the realities here. Of course, it’s also just not the fear of you know, losing your life. You can of course die, but there’s also the fear of losing all of your stuff and that’s a very real fear. I’m not saying you should absolutely move to Moore if you want a low cost of living. There are other places to live. I want you to understand that Moore is a great city that has had some terrible things happen to it. The decision to move there is yours and yours alone. I don’t want you to be afraid the entire time that you’re living there. There are plenty of other great towns and cities around the area. I have a video where I interviewed a meteorologist it’s fantastic; it’ll explain a lot more about weather in Oklahoma, if you still have questions. You can catch it right here.

Feel free to reach out!