10 days to soak in Austin and get a feel of TX

[mauroavella]

Originally Posted by cBach

But you are very limited, even if you "drag" your baby around as you say. I know that's not the answer you want to hear, but that's the answer. When you have a baby your life changes and things now have to be done differently.

I appreciate your sincere and very accurate observation, I definitely put my boy's health above anything and this will not be the exception and I will observe your comments and tips, I am very thankful.

Originally Posted by mark311

What is your price range for renting or buying? Do you have any requirements for size and age of a home? If you're renting, do you want an apartment or a house?

Answering these questions will greatly determine where you are able to live. There are some great neighborhoods that I would love to live in within Central Austin, but they are way out of the price range of my family and many others. If public schools and child care facilities are a factor, that could be an issue as well. It would be very easy to set yourself up for some disappointments if you fall in love with SoCo or Clarksville only to find out that there's no way you could afford to live near there in the type of home that you want.

Well, here's the idea as of today:

We want to rent for 6-12 months first at the neighborhood we "think" we like and see if we were right or not after living in it. Rent for that period I'd say $2k/monthly is the max for a 3/2

To buy we'd like a 3-4 Bedrooms & 2-3 Baths priced around $350k to $400k, I've checked www.Hotpads.com and could not get a clear idea of the real estate situation there

We live now in a 1950sqf single family home built in 2005 (bought it under plans on 2004), on the outside of Gainesville. We like the feel of a new house, layout is nice and open and the suburb living is not bad but we have talked several times that wish we had lived closer to Downtown to be able to walk to places, to the parks, supermarkets, restaurants, bars and not be "confined" to always having to use the car. Just to give you all an idea, I try to check the site www.walkingscore.com and always search where the score is higher

We are willing to sacrifice age/size for location if layout and price are right. and I know that "Location" is a very vague concept and also varies for different people and even more so now that our lives are not only about "us" but more about our baby

I deeply appreciate every single one of the replies, donating time to read and reply my post is awesome.... thanks

Please keep the suggestions and tips coming, I am right now in COLOMBIA (yes South America), but will get back to the States Sunday and we will start planing our trip to TX based on all the comments posted here.

[bgrn198]

You might also check out Austin Home Search

Austin real estate search (http://austinhomesearch.com/Static/homeset.aspx - broken link)

[PicklesCureHiccups]

It's shot in the dark, but the Vintage Place section of Circle C might suit you. It's the right price range, newish homes, walking distance to parks and stores. Walkable doesn't always have to mean downtown.

If you like planned communities, there are several. I'm no expert. But they might be a good place to start looking. In the Houston area, you might consider the Woodlands.

Hope you have a great visit and that you fall in love with Texas.

Oh, no one mentioned bat-watching! About a million bats fly out from under a bridge on the river downtown every night around dusk. Beautiful sight and very Austin-y. You can google for info, but there's a nice little lawn next to the Austin American-Statesman offices where you can park for free and watch. Enjoy!

[UTHORNS96]

Originally Posted by cBach

the heat we have here you've probably never experienced in Florida,

I'm gonna go ahead and wager that you've never been to central Florida before.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by UTHORNS96

I'm gonna go ahead and wager that you've never been to central Florida before.

Wrong, I used to travel regularly to Central Florida and stay several weeks at a time. I was working in the Winter Park and Apopka areas and I would stay in the vicinity. I've toured the Space Coast, Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, and been to the theme parks many a time. We even used to have events at downtown Disney where they'd rent out the whole area. I remember great dinners at Emeril's and going down the Hollywood Tower of Terror many a time on the corporate dime. Man those were the days!

I absolutely loved my visits there, but it sure was humid. It was around 95-97 was what Central Florida maxed out at. June through November was the "rainy" season which brought sunny skies until around 4 PM (you usually could time it by your watch) then torrential downpours until 6 PM which cooled things down dramatically, sometimes the temps got to the lower 70's during those rains. Then it would clear out again, not a cloud in the sky and the evening would be warm and humid, but bearable.

12 noon in Austin is better than 12 noon in Orlando (both low to mid 90's), but 5 PM in Orlando (78 degrees after a rain) is far more tolerable than 5 PM in Austin (107 degrees). The evenings after 7PM are far better in Austin though because of the dry air.

The one thing I still miss is how lush everything was over there. It was so green and my colleagues that worked there said that you could grow virtually anything and you rarely had to water it. My office was on a building that overlooked a large lake and the lobby was open air. The parking lot was covered with large palms and pine trees along with a live oak. There was not a sunny spot in the parking lot. It was a spectacular setting and the building an architectural wonder.

The other thing that was fantastic was the winter weather. It was slightly chilly at night, maybe low 50's. It was funny because the hotel I stayed at had the fireplace going on those chilly mornings (by Central Florida standards), I wasn't sure why they did that but the locals were shivering. The afternoons were in the 70's and low 80's in the winter.

All things being said, I truly enjoyed my time in Central Florida. People to this day wonder how I got that gig (I still do too). Oh, I loved the dot com boom days!