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Old 10-14-2016, 03:28 PM
 
12 posts, read 21,846 times
Reputation: 15

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We currently live in Washington State, in greater Seattle, and are looking to move to Texas early next year to purchase our first home. It is WAY too expensive here, it's insane.
I'm just not familiar with Texas, so I don't know where the good suburbs are and which ones to avoid. Are Cedar Park and Round Rock nice, safe places? Schools? (I mean sure there's good ones and bad ones, just like everywhere. How is traffic?

We have a 4 year old and a 10 month old, naturally we'really interested in parks and other activities and a family friendly place....

We make around 100k a year, and can just transfer our positions pretty easily. I looked at some real estate and it's very affordable to get a nice house.
How are these areas?
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Old 10-14-2016, 03:41 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,280 posts, read 4,292,634 times
Reputation: 677
If you want family friendly, parks, and good schools, I recommend the Wells Branch area. The west side of Wells Branch is in the Round Rock school district, and tracks to very good schools, including a brand new STEAM academy (Joe Lee Johnson Elementary). Wells Branch itself is a wonderful, tightly knit community that is constantly putting on various activities. There's a library, two pools, tennis courts, a large park, a pond, a dog park, and about 6-miles of hike and bike trails through some beautiful areas. It is clean, safe, and very family oriented. Such a great place for kids. It is also still quite affordable compared to the rest of Austin, close to lots of shopping, right between I-35 and Mopac, and close to a train station if you want to take the Metro Rail downtown.

Check it out and see what you think (78728 zip code for real estate searches).

Home - Wells Branch MUD
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Old 10-14-2016, 04:17 PM
 
772 posts, read 1,060,254 times
Reputation: 985
Quote:
Originally Posted by DLL333 View Post
We currently live in Washington State, in greater Seattle, and are looking to move to Texas early next year to purchase our first home. It is WAY too expensive here, it's insane.
I'm just not familiar with Texas, so I don't know where the good suburbs are and which ones to avoid. Are Cedar Park and Round Rock nice, safe places? Schools? (I mean sure there's good ones and bad ones, just like everywhere. How is traffic?

We have a 4 year old and a 10 month old, naturally we'really interested in parks and other activities and a family friendly place....

We make around 100k a year, and can just transfer our positions pretty easily. I looked at some real estate and it's very affordable to get a nice house.
How are these areas?
The key question is where are your jobs going to be located if you transfer here. It makes no sense of the jobs are in South Austin for you to live in North Austin and vice versa. Obviously, if you both could work from home then where you live may not matter as much. Next thing to consider is how much are you looking to spend on a house. Answers to these 2 questions would go a long way in pointing you to different directions.

To answer your original question, Cedar Park and Round Rock are both nice towns with good, great and not so great schools. Cedar Park as a town probably has good to great schools and Round Rock as a town (not school district) has a wider spread of schools from good, great to not so good.

Good luck
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Old 10-14-2016, 08:37 PM
 
7,742 posts, read 15,130,727 times
Reputation: 4295
how big of a house are you looking for? What style/age?

what price range? (read the sticky for the kinds of things that are helpful to provide)
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Old 10-14-2016, 08:51 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX via San Antonio, TX
9,851 posts, read 13,701,644 times
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Have you visited Austin before?
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Old 10-14-2016, 09:50 PM
 
2,627 posts, read 6,574,954 times
Reputation: 1230
Quote:
Originally Posted by DLL333 View Post
We make around 100k a year, and can just transfer our positions pretty easily. I looked at some real estate and it's very affordable to get a nice house.
How are these areas?
Not to focus on the negative, but property taxes will generally be between 2.5% to 3% in Cedar Park and Round Rock so factor that into the housing cost. If you're going to need daycare then factor that in too. So for a $300k house in Cedar Park, you're looking at a little over $600 per month for just property taxes in addition to your mortgage payment of maybe $1200-ish if you put around 20% down.

Our daycare place in Cedar Park is good, but it's around $1250 per month for a 10 month old for full time care. For those of us from states with state income tax, the high property tax rates are offset a bit by having no state income tax, but coming from Washington state, that doesn't apply to you.

So visit first at least a couple times. It's way too far from the West coast for you to make the move without getting some good scouting trips in.
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Old 10-14-2016, 11:15 PM
 
124 posts, read 121,978 times
Reputation: 110
I would not move to Austin. Buy hey that's just me. My bf and I both hate it.
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Old 10-14-2016, 11:16 PM
 
895 posts, read 1,240,345 times
Reputation: 610
Yeah because you and your boyfriend hate it it must be awful
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Old 10-15-2016, 08:33 AM
 
145 posts, read 173,649 times
Reputation: 211
Why could real estate be so expensive in Seattle?

How Foreign Investment is Changing our Neighborhoods | Seattle Magazine
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Old 10-15-2016, 08:40 AM
 
145 posts, read 173,649 times
Reputation: 211
30k h1b and h4 visas issued in WA state in 2015. That's half the number of newcomers. I can't believe it's hard to afford housing.

The situation in TX is not much different.
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