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We were living in Iowa city, IA and my significant other got a job offer as en electrical engineer for a very good company in Austin - he also got an offer from Intel... but he wanted to work for a smaller company. I work in healthcare so we weren't really worried about me finding a position. So we moved to Austin. I was here a month before I ended up in the ICU for two weeks with complications to Typhus putting me into septic shock and organ failure. He went from someone who never had allergy problems to being miserable every day. I think Austin has a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives (allergies, traffic, cost of living, property taxes, third world diseases I thought were relegated to the 19th century, hipsters () and well, you're in the middle of Texas. Yes, I'm a bit cheeky. With that in mind though it has a ton of positives - great food, wonderful access to outdoor activities, a climate that is super easy to deal with (I don't get hot very easily), plentiful options shopping wise and people are generally decent.
I am one of the lucky people that doesn't appear to have any allergies to Austin (YET) but I miss seasons and would rather go back to the northeast - but we have to make sacrifices for the people that we care about and his line of work requires him to be here whereas mine is much more flexible. With any place Austin is what you make of it - I enjoy my time here but it isn't a place I'd like to raise my children. I know, I know the standard response is "well then leave" but life is never as simple as that. I will say that my absolute favorite part of austin is the preserves where I run (not barton springs due to the crowds) - when its not soggy and muddy its terrific... well the memories of it anyways, can't really run anymore because of the damage after my illness but I hope to soon
I moved here in 84' to go to college. Left 9 months later came back in 89' stayed till 93'. Returned a few years later for good.
What I loved about Austin then was how nice people were, the laid back folks and light traffic.
A huge consideration you need to think about is that Austin is the fastest growing city in the US right now. I mean the fastest of all. Within the past 3 years the traffic has gone from sorta bad to terrible. Everyone wants to move here, people are being lured here by the 100's. It is causing some really unpleasant changes, higher crime, impatient drivers, bad traffic, people are often not friendly now because they bring their grim faces from where they moved from. I spend quite a bit of time in 04' and if I try and catch the eye of some folks to say hi you'd think they thought I was going to mug them.
Trulia also just reported Austin has the most over inflated house prices in the US. So we are in a bubble and it will burst. Of course many will tell you different, especially real estate agents.
So take all these factors into account before moving here, the positives and the negatives.
I moved here because of love, simply put. My husband is an Austin native and we did the long distance thing for almost two years. At the time his mother was not well and his career was taking off, so I chose to move. It was a scary proposition for me since I had NO family here, friends, job, or anything. I was a New YOrker, I knew zilch about Austin or Texas and wasn't particularly interested in living there. Meaning, unless something or someone motivated me to move to Austin, I wouldn't have moved. We hadn't been married very long either. I took a leap of faith. But at 28 years old, I was still young enough to do such a leap and land on my feet. I must say that I absolutely love the Austin that existed when I moved here in 2004. I can't say that I am in love with the version of Austin that exists now. The laid back nature of the people and area is changing, despite what some say. That Texas friendliness now is waning. The douchebag count has increased -- you can see it in the driving and public transportation. That "me-first" attitude is all over the place. Perhaps that is why I really appreciate smaller towns and cities like Georgetown, Marble Falls and places where people are still touchy feely, calling you "honey" and "gurl". One of the things I liked about Austin was that it was the un-city city. Coming from New York City, I did not want to move to another metro. Austin was affordable. you got your money's worth and then some. Now, it tries very hard to be cosmopolitan but ends up looking like a clone of other cities, albeit with the patented "weirdness" on the side. They'll keep the things like the Eeyore festival for example. I dunno...I have decidedly mixed feelings now but I do like where I live (granted, it's outside of Austin) and I'll always have a special place in my heart for the City of A.
It's a peculiar thing but when we used to walk through our neighborhood just a few years ago, people would stop and talk or at the least say hello. The old-timers are mostly gone. We have a lot of new neighbors now in our hood from where I don't know you and they really aren't very receptive to a friendly greeting. Generational change perhaps.
Back to the original question. We moved from San Antonio in 1982 to put a little distance between us and the in-laws.
Sticker shock even back then.
I would love to hear from others in what brought you to Austin, what hurdles you had to overcome (if any), any regrets, how much you've come to love the area, etc..
I recently boomeranged back to Austin after a 6 year stay in Chicago. Lived here before, graduated UT in 2008 into a stinky economy & a company with locations here and in Chicago offered me a spot in their midwest team so away I went. Met & married another Texan up north, dragged Better Half back home last fall.
Regrets? I should have bought a house ten years ago instead of a UT degree
Hurdles? Hm. Well housing costs more now than it did when I first lived here. Rental sticker shock versus my prior experience in Austin but comparable to what we were paying for a similarly sized place in Chicago. I found a good job right away but Better Half is still looking for something permanent 5 months later. Yes there are lots of job openings but Better Half is trying to get noticed for comparable but not exact fit types of roles bc of prior highly specialized work experience which is not as easy as you would think, even with a strong local network for job hunting. My best advice to anyone looking to move here as an individual is to lock down the job first, or as a couple / family have one of you lock down a job first. We also came back into a great group of friends so didn't really have the "hard to meet people" issue. Better Half & I have already made some fun new friends through joining coed sports leagues and such so we have had an easy social life transition. Overall my take is that the complaints from ten years ago (traffic, congestion, prices, Californians) are still 100% the same but there's a little more steam behind those complaints now.
Love for the area? I didn't want to leave and missed it every single day I was away! I suppose I could have rolled the dice back in 08 & hoped a job would materialize eventually but several people I graduated with were unemployed (or severely underemployed) for upwards of a year, yikes. At the time I'd spent my savings on school & had to start generating personal revenue again. Besides my Chicago job was a great money saving opportunity so I was able to afford a 6-figure home downpayment when we returned. Bear in mind if you are house hunting you will be competing with people like us who had huge downpayments or even full cash to offer. But we are thrilled to be back home for good! Give me 100 degree summers over sub zero winters any day. And ample opportunities to enjoy the outdoors even in the city, lots of low cost / free entertainment possibilities, diverse food culture, interesting people, walk and bike friendliness (in our location, not necessarily true city-wide), proximity to family and life best friends...even with the changes/growth there's still no other city that I'd rather be living in!
I do wish that the people moving here were moving for Austin, not for a job or something else - those moving "against their will" so to speak are constantly bitching about some difference or another.
Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if we could all live where we wanted to, and needed to instead of where we had to? Last time I checked people still had the right to "*****" about things. I'm sure you never do that though.
My wife and I recently moved from the Chicago suburbs. We both grew up in IL, went to school at UIUC, and got jobs in the suburbs after graduating. We had always talked about moving out of the area but had never committed to it. We had visited Austin in the past, liked the area, and had tucked it away as a place we could see ourselves living.
There were quite a few events that all transpired at once that contributed to us moving. Her parents moved to Miami due to a job transfer and her brother and SIL in Houston. My wife also had a medical situation that shifted us from "thinking about having kids" to having to wait 2 years to start a family. With no house and still being relatively young (me 30, her 28) we decided to just go for it. I found a job pretty quickly and we have been down here 4 months thus far.
There are drawbacks (city growing faster than infrastructure, rising housing/renting costs) but so far we are enjoying our time here. We will evaluate things after a year or two and decide whether to start looking for a house or whether we would want to move back toward the midwest when we start a family. Ultimately, we didn't want to look back 20+ years down the road and wonder what if. It's always easier to move back home, right?
I came to Austin in 1990 to attend grad school at UT. I had repeated near-panic attacks for at least the first two years when I would suddenly realize that even if I got in my car and drove as fast and as far as I could . . . it would be hours before I was out of Texas!! And even then, where would I be? Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mexico, New Mexico. The statues of Confederate heroes on the south mall of UT didn't help much either.
But I softened after a trip to a state park, and I adjusted to the heat and the different seasons. First year, I was shocked and horrified by how hot it was in October. It took many years and learning a lot of local and Texas history before I felt comfortable here. But I did.
And now, we have been here 25 years and have turned down job opportunities that would take us out of Texas. For us 2000-2010 was probably the high point. Now, we are feeling more uncertain in Austin again. As late as 2012, I would have said that I would live here forever, now we are slowly starting to reconsider that.
Glad you had a great visit and we met your expectations!
My first wife, our son, and infant daughter up & moved away from the cold, getting-nowhere-Nawtheast and went to Austin, in 1972.
We'd previously visited our best friends, who had moved to (then) North Austin for work in 1970-71. They had purchased a new(er) NPC® home than what they had lived in up-Nawth, and the prospect of our being able to do the same, and raise the kids in a whole-lot-better atmosphere, intrigued us. We soldeverything but the furniture, and self-moved ourselves, that year.
While our marriage didn't last, raising the kids in Texas became of utmost importance. Our children ended-up graduating from the Leander ISD, which has since gone on to be one of the better school districts in the Austin Area. At the time, there was 1 HS, 1 MS, and 2 ES's. Right near the end of their HS days, the ISD opened a brand-new HS, on what was then called "Bagdad Road". The school has since become known as the current "Leander High School", on CR 278.
Even though we don't currently live in the area, both my children and their Families still do, as does their mother.
I remain convinced that they have (had) a much better quality-of-life than they would have had, if we'd stayed in cold, gray, snowy / slushy, over-unionized, over-regulated, Western NY. They have none of those hindrances to their success, where they live now.
Now, as close to retirement as I am, I'm hoping that my DW & I will once-again make (somewhere in) TEXAS our next, permanent home.
The Austin Area is not for "everyone" though ... ... Back then, we loved the city, the activities, the music, the surrounding areas, the Lakes (Oh, those Lakes!), and the proximity to other places to see & experience, too!
Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if we could all live where we wanted to, and needed to instead of where we had to? Last time I checked people still had the right to "*****" about things. I'm sure you never do that though.
Never say never, but I will say that I have never complained about where I've lived during my adult life, for the simple fact that it's something that's totally controllable. Roads go just about everywhere and boats/planes pick up where those leave off.
The winter in Anchorage was taxing, but made the two months of summer heaven. Honestly, the closest I came was in SoCal, for a number or reasons.
My point was simple, I hope more people move here because they want to move to Austin, for what Austin is and for what it has - not just because they were "moved" here. I've probably turned down a half dozen promotions over the past few years just because they would involve moving to CA, the PNW or OH/PA/MA - I knew I'd be unhappy there. Aside from guests of the state, nobody HAS to live anywhere.
We moved to Austin after getting priced out of the Phoenix market pre-2007 market bust. The appreciation in Phoenix then was hotter than what we are seeing now in Austin. People would buy brand new homes and immediately flip them for crazy amount of profits in Phoenix.
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) and well, you're in the middle of Texas. Yes, I'm a bit cheeky. With that in mind though it has a ton of positives - great food, wonderful access to outdoor activities, a climate that is super easy to deal with (I don't get hot very easily), plentiful options shopping wise and people are generally decent. 
... Back then, we loved the city, the activities, the music, the surrounding areas, the Lakes (Oh, those Lakes!), and the proximity to other places to see & experience, too!
