Need help with Taylor! (San Antonio, Austin: real estate, renting, houses)

[Fiddi]

(Copied over to this forum from the general Texas forum. If there's a way to move the whole thread over, I apologize for the double post.)

I've been reading this forum for a couple days now and I still have questions. My husband and I are considering a move to Taylor from the northeast. I'm a San Antonio native and have been up here waaaay too long. We have two sons, ages 11 and 12.

I'm not familiar with Taylor and cannot find any Texas relatives who are familiar with Taylor.

I can only find one review of Taylor High School. My children are in 6th and 7th in a Catholic school here. They might go to St. Mary's or the public middle school, both seem like good options. It seems like the closest Catholic High Schools are over 30 miles away so I would like to know what you think of Taylor High School. Our high school here in Pennsylvania is gigantic, but offers a top notch education. I prefer small schools with a good academic program.

I know Taylor is completely different than Pennsylvania. Any thoughts you have on the town, immediate surrounding areas and recommendations for areas to look at homes and settle down would be appreciated. My husband would like to live in Taylor since he may work there, but we are open to other areas as well.

Thanks!
Fidd

One more thing to add to the original post. I read about the 97 Tornado north of Taylor. Is there a lot of Tornado activity in this area? Do people have storm shelters or basements? When I grew up in San Antonio I didn't even think of this stuff, but now, having lived with basements for 20 years, I think I'd feel vulnerable without one. I know - paranoid. I'll get over it.

[TexasHorseLady]

The 1997 tornado went through Jarrell, which is about half an hour from Taylor (I know, I live there). It was on the west side of the highway and went down through Cedar Park, never went anywhere near Jarrell.

We ARE at the bottom of Tornado Alley (as is Austin, come to that), so there's always the possibility of tornadoes. Since the '97 one, I've kept a close eye on the weather (for some odd reason ), and have noticed what I never did before - there's tornado watches all over this area, meaning Central Texas from the Hill Country down to Hays County, Fayette County, Williamson County, Lee County, Burnet County, San Saba - in other words, the entire area. So not Taylor in particular.

I don't know much about Taylor High School (though I do have a former client who teaches there and might be able to get some info for you).

Georgetown and Hutto are other possibilities with good schools that are relatively nearby.

[DonNelson1]

I moved to Texas 25 years ago from Maryland. I have been a Taylor resident for the past 3 years and I am a Realtor.[mod]advertising is not allowed in the forums[/mod]

I've been reading this forum for a couple days now and I still have questions. My husband and I are considering a move to Taylor from the northeast. I'm a San Antonio native and have been up here waaaay too long. We have two sons, ages 11 and 12.

I'm not familiar with Taylor and cannot find any Texas relatives who are familiar with Taylor.

I can only find one review of Taylor High School. My children are in 6th and 7th in a Catholic school here. They might go to St. Mary's or the public middle school, both seem like good options. It seems like the closest Catholic High Schools are over 30 miles away so I would like to know what you think of Taylor High School. Our high school here in Pennsylvania is gigantic, but offers a top notch education. I prefer small schools with a good academic program.

I know Taylor is completely different than Pennsylvania. Any thoughts you have on the town, immediate surrounding areas and recommendations for areas to look at homes and settle down would be appreciated. My husband would like to live in Taylor since he may work there, but we are open to other areas as well.

Thanks!
Fidd

One more thing to add to the original post. I read about the 97 Tornado north of Taylor. Is there a lot of Tornado activity in this area? Do people have storm shelters or basements? When I grew up in San Antonio I didn't even think of this stuff, but now, having lived with basements for 20 years, I think I'd feel vulnerable without one. I know - paranoid. I'll get over it. [/quote]

[love roses]

Well, I'll see if I can chime in here. I live in Hutto, which is right next to Taylor.
My Brother in law and his sister both went to St. Mary's (They grew up in Taylor) until High School and then went to Taylor. It's a good school, although smallish. There is also a private Baptist and Lutheran School in Taylor. My Brother in Law played baseball there and even now, their sports teams are good. Although, academically, they are good, I'm not familiar with their programs.

Taylor hasn't quite been bitten by the growth bug here yet, but it will eventually get there, especially with the growth Hutto and Bastrop have been seeing. Downtown Taylor is pretty good sized, but not the gem that somewhere like Georgetown is right now. They are currently doing a refurbishing program for the Downtown area. There are some good resturaunts there and nice places to shop as well. Unlike Hutto, they have a nice sized H.E.B. Hutto is the only town around these parts with no store, which is a bone of contention for us, believe me. Otherwise, I love Hutto. Taylor also is home to the famous Louis Meuller BBQ restaurant. Mikeska's and Taylor Cafe are also very good. Oh, and they also have a 2 screen movie theatre downtown that plays first run movies. You know, the kind of theatres that were around before big megaplexes.

There are some nice homes there, and even some extremely nice homes but they are mostly going to be a little older and not cookie cutter. There are a few new subdivisions, but I think the older neighborhoods are prettier. Like TexasHorseLady says about Tornadoes. That was West of 35 near Jarrell, and not Taylor. Haven't even really heard of any hitting this particular area, but still, we pay attention to all the reports. I couldn't tell you about storm shelters there, but many places do end up or are designated storm shelters in case one comes. Here in Hutto, there are none in the homes I know of but lots do have interior areas that can second as one.

You also have some nearby Lakes as well. Granger and Georgetown are smaller lakes, but they are good for skiing and fishing. Lake Travis and Lake Austin are the bigger nearby Austin Lakes. Oh, there is also a small lake in Bastrop.

[Fiddi]

I want to thank you all for taking the time to help us out. There is so much to think about! I have a lot of research to do but you all have helped point me in the right direction!

[schoenfraun]

My husband and I recently purchased a house in Taylor after renting in Austin for almost 8 months. We moved to Texas from Illinois.

We found that we could not afford a house in Austin that we liked. We could still afford to buy a house in Austin, but it was not going to be what we wanted: it would be about 1300 SF, it would have a popcorn ceiling, and likely have a cracked slab or some other foundation problems. We saw a lot of that and even had a place like that under contract for a while.

(To answer your basement question: houses here generally do not have basements because of the rocky or clayey soils here. You can't dig a basement affordably, so builders don't. But these soils also expand with rains and humidity, and cause foundations to shift and buckle. Bad.)

So we could not afford what we wanted.

We found an amazing house in Taylor, in a great neighborhood close to the city park, for a price that would have bought us a questionable house in Austin. It's a mid-century house, well-built, really cool features, and we love, love, love it.

I have found people in Taylor to be friendly and outgoing. They wave from their cars and bicycles, they talk to you in the street, they are very welcoming.

There are hard-core conservatives in the hamburger joint at lunchtime, and folks with Obama signs in their yards. There are folks there of different races and ethnicities. It is not some monolithic "everyone is like [blank] there" place.

While there may not be as many young tattooed hipsters with soul patches or piercings in Taylor as there are at the cafes of Austin, there are younger people moving there, and there are artists and musicians and creative people there.

My real estate agent recently laughed with me and said, "I think Taylor is actually becoming a hipster enclave, but few people know it yet."

I don't know if that's true, and we don't care, but we're glad to be settling in there. We love the quiet and the slower pace. Not as many people out and about, driving and talking on their cell phones.... I actually feel myself relaxing as I drive out there from the city. It takes me about 35 or 40 minutes, but I decompress as I go and I love to look at the farms and ranches and orchards. I love the drive.

I should say that I commute daily to the Capitol area of Austin (!!!! gas prices!!!!) but my husband works at home. Which he loves. He loves being in Taylor during the day, doing some work, and heading to the park or riding his bike before getting back to work.

And I recently read in the Statesman (Austin paper), within the last 2 weeks or so, that the Taylor High School recently won it's 3rd or 4th championship in some type of competition--I just can't remember if it was history or the broader humanities competition. You might seek that story.

Of course you should definitely visit any place you're thinking of, but I think Taylor has a lot to recommend it! An Amtrak station, it's a "Main Street" program town with planners and preservation consultants looking to help small business owners make the most of the downtown.

I think Taylor is a fine place to live.

[schoenfraun]

I wrote:

"And I recently read in the Statesman (Austin paper), within the last 2 weeks or so, that the Taylor High School recently won it's 3rd or 4th championship in some type of competition--I just can't remember if it was history or the broader humanities competition. You might seek that story."

I should not have used an apostrophe in "its" as a possessive, as I did. Maybe I need to go back to high school!

Sorry about that. I was a bit hasty with my post. But I was excited to share my enthusiasm! I need an editor....

[Fiddi]

Well, my husband is off to Taylor this weekend for a visit/interview. He is under strict orders to get a good feel for the town and to look at available housing. He's supposed to poke around as much as possible and figure out if it would be a good fit for us. I know there's not much he can really do in a couple of days but I'm counting on his first hand account. The replies I received above have really helped us and we are leaning towards making this move. There are a few roadblocks, like having to sell our house up here and the actual moving part - but we can't let that keep us from making a life changing decision.

My main concern is that I still feel lost on the schools. I know there are excellent school districts within commuting distance from Taylor, but if we make this move we want to become part of the Taylor community and that means living & going to school there. I really think I would not want our family to live live anywhere else. The reviews at the school ratings websites are extremely limited. I've watched just about every video available from the Austin TV stations that have to do with Taylor. Unfortunately, the times any high school gets in the news is when bad stuff happens, with the exception of the recent Academic championship. I don't want to base my opinion of the schools only on these negative news stories. I think every high school is going to get it's share of bad publicity.

Again, our needs for a school district are simple. My children are in 6th and 7th at an academically challenging Catholic School. It's a small school, about 400 students. It has the nicest kids and the most involved parents I have ever seen. If I am honest I can say that I think my children have had a pretty sheltered life. I feel they live in a bubble here and I kind of want to show them the real world. "Academically Challenging" can be good and bad. I've kind of had it with the high pressure that kids are in now to perform to such high levels of expectation. My kids are doing fine and one is excelling with all the pressure, but all we want for their high school is for it to have nice kids with involved parents, and a decent (not poor) academic program. We want them to be happy. They have the rest of their lives to feel extreme pressure. I think they should enjoy being kids while they are kids. I know all high schools have drugs & alcohol - I just don't want them to get completely culture shocked getting thrown into a school full of bad problems. I am hoping Taylor will be just what we are looking for.

I have no idea if I'm making any sense, but if anyone is able to provide more insight into the Taylor Schools I would be forever grateful.

[love roses]

I know quite a few people who went to Taylor schools. I'll ask them what their opinions are.

[Fiddi]

Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you.