- Mar 20, 2000
- 102,402
- 8,574
- 126
he said he wanted a place with large trees.
katy is ok, but don't expect your house to appreciate in value. just doesn't happen out there (or here, depending on what time of day it is). too much flat land; the constant new construction puts a cap on the price of older houses.
anywhere in the houston area if you dig more than a few feet down your hole will start filling with water. so, no, no basements. i don't recall having seen any in austin, either.
judasmachine
Diamond Member
- Sep 15, 2002
- 8,515
- 3
- 81
Originally posted by: Josh123
Originally posted by: judasmachine
Originally posted by: Josh123
I've lived in Texas all my life and really enjoyed living in Austin for two years. I also really like San Marcos and plan on heading down next month to float the river.
I live in west Texas now though, Snyder to be exact......small town living.
Isn't that near Lubbock? I used to live in Amarillo.
Yes sir, about an hour and 20 min. south east of Lubbock.
Pretty sure I used to pass through there on the way to Mason, and Austin.
Originally posted by: MrPickins
It's not that TX is too hot, it's just that anywhere north of here is too cold
Nah - Colorado is just perfect.
Hard to beat DFW. For real estate, I'd look at the far north / far east areas of Dallas/Plano/Garland.. they are expanding but there are still some semi-rural areas within an hour drive north and east of Dallas proper.
I've lived in suburb of DFW for 4 years and lived in Austin for 8 years and have made plenty of trips to Houston and San Antonio.
I prefer Austin though DFW area has a few advantages over Austin.
Things I like about Austin :
no snow and doesn't get that cold. You won't have to heat up your car early and scrape ice off your winshield, shovel the driveway.
College town so a lot of cool hangouts and bars yet Austin is a large enough city that that is not all there is.
Decent restaurant scene though not nearly as good as Dallas or Houston. About same level as San Antonio.
Lots of Outdoor activity nearby aside from winter sports (less than an hour away from boating, non pool swimming, rock climbing, hiking, scenery)
Lots of music venues. Any given night of the week I can go and listen to live music for free at any of a number of bars. Site of many concerts and music festivals (Austin City Limits, South by Southwest)
Good sports options. Great town for college sports and pro sports games of the other 3 big cities are at most 3.5 hours away.
Very casual. Almost no place in town where you can't go in jeans. There are decent number of rich people here but very few that exceedingly flaunt it as compared to other cities.
Bad things about Austin :
It is hot. There are maybe 3 weeks of spring and fall. Summer starts at the beginning of march and lasts until end of October. Though it is a drier heat than Houston. During August, you will face many days that are 95+ consecutively.
Traffic is getting worse. Not as bad as central Dallas or Houston but Austin traffic is getting worse.
Lack of Art Museums/good Zoos though the Art Museum situation is getting better with the finishing of the Blanton Museum.
Houses are probably the priciest in Texas especially in the really good school districts of Westwood and WestLake. 300k will get you in to Westwood but not WestLake.
It will be tough to get you in to a home with lots of trees for 200k unless you are willing to live in small home (1500 to 1700 sq feet) from the 60s or early 70s. Most suburbs are fairly new in Austin so trees are like 4 feet tall. Suburban houses lack character but are bigger (easily get $80 to $100 per square feet).
Hillside houses in Austin start at 550k, same thing with houses near campus and downtown.
I prefer Austin though DFW area has a few advantages over Austin.
Things I like about Austin :
no snow and doesn't get that cold. You won't have to heat up your car early and scrape ice off your winshield, shovel the driveway.
College town so a lot of cool hangouts and bars yet Austin is a large enough city that that is not all there is.
Decent restaurant scene though not nearly as good as Dallas or Houston. About same level as San Antonio.
Lots of Outdoor activity nearby aside from winter sports (less than an hour away from boating, non pool swimming, rock climbing, hiking, scenery)
Lots of music venues. Any given night of the week I can go and listen to live music for free at any of a number of bars. Site of many concerts and music festivals (Austin City Limits, South by Southwest)
Good sports options. Great town for college sports and pro sports games of the other 3 big cities are at most 3.5 hours away.
Very casual. Almost no place in town where you can't go in jeans. There are decent number of rich people here but very few that exceedingly flaunt it as compared to other cities.
Bad things about Austin :
It is hot. There are maybe 3 weeks of spring and fall. Summer starts at the beginning of march and lasts until end of October. Though it is a drier heat than Houston. During August, you will face many days that are 95+ consecutively.
Traffic is getting worse. Not as bad as central Dallas or Houston but Austin traffic is getting worse.
Lack of Art Museums/good Zoos though the Art Museum situation is getting better with the finishing of the Blanton Museum.
Houses are probably the priciest in Texas especially in the really good school districts of Westwood and WestLake. 300k will get you in to Westwood but not WestLake.
It will be tough to get you in to a home with lots of trees for 200k unless you are willing to live in small home (1500 to 1700 sq feet) from the 60s or early 70s. Most suburbs are fairly new in Austin so trees are like 4 feet tall. Suburban houses lack character but are bigger (easily get $80 to $100 per square feet).
Hillside houses in Austin start at 550k, same thing with houses near campus and downtown.
Well Westlake you are paying for exclusivity and if you are lucky hillside views so the half mill to 600k starting price is somewhat justified. Westwood isn't that much. You can find houses in Westwood for 250k still.
But for example Bowie High school down south not bad and actually the Northern suburbs of Round Rock, Leander, Pflugerville also not bad school districts. Just that you are further away from the action in a Suburb and commute could be bad depending on where you work.
But for example Bowie High school down south not bad and actually the Northern suburbs of Round Rock, Leander, Pflugerville also not bad school districts. Just that you are further away from the action in a Suburb and commute could be bad depending on where you work.
Oh yeah forgot to mention that the 100 miles around Austin is referred to as the Smoke Ring, aka the surrounding areas of Austin are the meccas of Texas BBQ.
Moist smoky brisket ftw.
Moist smoky brisket ftw.
CrackRabbit
Lifer
- Mar 30, 2001
- 16,642
- 62
- 91
Former Austin and Houstonite here.
Austin Area
Good: Lots of tech jobs (AMD, Motorolla, Intel, IBM, etc.), Music and club scene (if you are in to that), beautiful hill country.
Bads: Austin outgrew its roadways about a decade and a half ago, driving is horrible. It has lost a lot of the cool funkyness that it had. Lots of wannabe hippies. The outlying areas have turned in to suburbia hell.
Houston:
Good: Much larger than Austin and much more diverse. Has real music and sports venues. Much more energy and petrochemical focused business.
Bads: Mosquitoes the size of Volkswagens, very very polluted especially the eastern and southern sides due to the large numbers of chemical refineries. Chance of having to deal with a Hurricane or large tropical storm.
Austin Area
Good: Lots of tech jobs (AMD, Motorolla, Intel, IBM, etc.), Music and club scene (if you are in to that), beautiful hill country.
Bads: Austin outgrew its roadways about a decade and a half ago, driving is horrible. It has lost a lot of the cool funkyness that it had. Lots of wannabe hippies. The outlying areas have turned in to suburbia hell.
Houston:
Good: Much larger than Austin and much more diverse. Has real music and sports venues. Much more energy and petrochemical focused business.
Bads: Mosquitoes the size of Volkswagens, very very polluted especially the eastern and southern sides due to the large numbers of chemical refineries. Chance of having to deal with a Hurricane or large tropical storm.
Austin, San Antonio, San Marcos. Don't choose a home in East Austin, and try to avoid the mega-developer neighborhoods and choose an older house in an established neighborhood.
With a family, I probably would not live in East Austin though that is a hotbed of real estate activity. Lots of speculation there with the cleanup of the Ghettos and large number of Condo developments thus actually hard to get a house for less than 400k in East Austin now. Stories of poor families having to move out of the house they own due to skyrocketing in real estate prices and thus inability to pay property taxes there.
Oh yeah, thats another thing about Texas. No state or local income tax but very high property taxes.
thanks for all the info guys, I'm gonna have to read through this post at least a couple of more times to make sure I did'nt miss anything.
Can someone give me some ideas of what property taxes are like out there? Currently I pay about 5k a year in property taxes for a 1700 sq ft. house in a fairly decent area here in Illinois. I don't mind paying slightly higher taxes if the neighborhood I move to is a good one.
Can someone give me some ideas of what property taxes are like out there? Currently I pay about 5k a year in property taxes for a 1700 sq ft. house in a fairly decent area here in Illinois. I don't mind paying slightly higher taxes if the neighborhood I move to is a good one.
Property taxes will vary from area to area.
If $5K/year is okay with you then, based on your specs, I think you're good to go most anywhere in TX.
This is a generalization so take it with a grain of salt, but the closer you get to Mexico the poorer are the cities.
It gets more and more hispanic the further south you go. The Valley (way south) is about 80%, Corpus Christi is 70 or so, etc, etc. Nothin wrong with that just want you to be aware. I really enjoyed Corpus when my Grandmother lived there 5 years ago, I went there every year from around 1990 to 2000.
I lived in Dallas my entire life (loved it) and have lived in Austin for 2 months and I love it.
Be careful about the coast though, VERY humid. That's the one thing I hated about Corpus.
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