What did your friends, family, acquaintances say when you told them you were moving to Austin? (Houston: sublets, apartments)

[OAC]

What a great post!

[TexasGirl@Heart]

Originally Posted by scongress1234

Sometimes I read posts from relocatees and wonder how awful their former lives were before they moved to Austin. You would swear they were in this godforsaken place, that either had poor weather, didn't appreciate them, was very boring, had a horrible job market, what have you. Then they get an epiphany of sorts, and realize that Austin is the place to fill in all those holes and emptiness, for what I suppose will be the rest of their lifetimes. And its the same, regardless of where they are from, the midwest, west coast, east coast, you name it. My question is, are the places they came from that bad?They spent many years in these places before they made the move to Austin. Were they hellish, a purgatory-like state, as if God was just prepping them for a future higher state in Austin? Is Austin really that much better than all these cities the relocatees are coming from? If so, why is this such a new thing? I mean, up to perhaps 8 years ago, I never heard a thing about Austin in the national press. Now, you would think that Austin is the pinnacle of city living. Again, if it is that great, why are we just hearing it? Did the city just make that leap into this incredible city overnight? Was it just hyped to death, simply a great selling job? Are we simply pulling the wool over all these relocatees eyes, selling them a phantasm in their minds that will never live up to those expectations? It seems like the vast majority of people raving on here about Austin have only been here a short time.

My life is not awful in Pittsburgh, nor is it a "godforsaken place". I have a GREAT job--make a wonderful salary, have a beautiful home that I remodeled. I have great friends and family here. However, I do NOT like that white stuff they call snow. I become severely depressed over the winter months. It was so bad this year (and we didn't have a bad winter) that I cried the entire winter. It's called SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I have been contemplating this move for over 8 years!! My family is what held me back. I can't live my life for them any longer, I have to do what is best for me and my health. Another thing about Pittsburgh is they don't play my song. I love country music and trying to find a place to go to listen to traditional country music---well, you might as well forget it in Pittsburgh. So sunshine, country music, friendly people and a city I have been visiting twice/year for the last decade all adds up to AUSTIN. The city of Austin didn't just appear on my radar screen with all the adds and it being proclaimed the #2 city in America to live in (BTW, Colorado Springs is the #1 city to live in as per the survey)...I have known how great Austin is since 1998.

[scongress1234]

Originally Posted by Texanwannabe

My life is not awful in Pittsburgh, nor is it a "godforsaken place". I have a GREAT job--make a wonderful salary, have a beautiful home that I remodeled. I have great friends and family here. However, I do NOT like that white stuff they call snow. I become severely depressed over the winter months. It was so bad this year (and we didn't have a bad winter) that I cried the entire winter. It's called SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I have been contemplating this move for over 8 years!! My family is what held me back. I can't live my life for them any longer, I have to do what is best for me and my health. Another thing about Pittsburgh is they don't play my song. I love country music and trying to find a place to go to listen to traditional country music---well, you might as well forget it in Pittsburgh. So sunshine, country music, friendly people and a city I have been visiting twice/year for the last decade all adds up to AUSTIN. The city of Austin didn't just appear on my radar screen with all the adds and it being proclaimed the #2 city in America to live in (BTW, Colorado Springs is the #1 city to live in as per the survey)...I have known how great Austin is since 1998.

Sounds like you know Austin well, but have trouble breaking off hometown ties. Even people that relocate from Houston, Dallas, or other parts of Texas feel like that. As long as you don't get wrapped up in the lists and numbers, you should do fine. Remember, best places to live lists are a relatively new thing. People were relocating decades before they came out. I have relatives that all moved to the sunbelt in the early-mid 60's - Little Rock, Southern Cal., and Phoenix, and this long before any top ten lists were popular. Hey, as you say, people want sunshine, and northern winters are dreary and suck. That is THE main reason for the migration south to the SB the last 50 years, say post WW2. it used to be that southerners went north for the factory jobs, but now the yanks are, and have been for many years, moving enmasse south. Florida, Cal, and Arizona were the first places to get hit big with snowbirds and retirees. Texas is the last state in the sunbelt to see a huge explosion of snowbirds. It was bound to come. It just took a city that northerners and californians felt palatable, per the more liberal, blue-state orientations of the same. Austin is that city, and boy did it open the floodgates per sunbelt relocatees. I think that when Austin slows, then other cities in Texas itself will pick up the slack, especially SA, Dallas, and Houston.

Ladies and gentlemen of Texas, the snowbirds have discoved your great state enmasse, and will be coming there in droves for the next 20 years!
Get used to it, because it is going to be a permanent fixture, and probably won't ebb in your lifetimes! And its a long time coming!

THE SNOWBIRDS HAVE DISCOVERED TEXAS!!!!!!!!!

[OAC]

One of the things outside of the weather that attracted snow birds to Texas was the lower COL. However, Texas' COL is increasing faster than any other state because of the increase in property taxes. While the property tax rates were always high as a percentage of a homes value, it didn't matter because property values were low. That's not the case any more.

[scongress1234]

Originally Posted by OAC

One of the things outside of the weather that attracted snow birds to Texas was the lower COL. However, Texas' COL is increasing faster than any other state because of the increase in property taxes. While the property tax rates were always high as a percentage of a homes value, it didn't matter because property values were low. That's not the case any more.

True, but there are no state taxes, which cancels that out to a certain extent. Texas is anti-tax as a state, so the local places have to be the ones to grab the tax revenues. It comes out somewhat the same, or did, as you say, until recently. I don't think evaluations are going up nearly as much in Houston, DFW, or SA. That's why you will see those cities pick up the snowbird slack big-time if the PT's get much farther out of line in Austin. I do think that all the Texas cities will get florida syndrome, in which they get unbearably crowded, and chock full of new and transient people. That could be good or bad, as they will generate growth. The growth is a given, the only question is how the Texas cities will handle it. Florida did a really bad job with it. Phoenix even worse. Hopefully, Texas can learn from the growth mismanagement of the other states, and set new standards for smart growth. If not, it will be the same old same old congestion that hit all the other sun belt states when they bursted at the seams.

[OAC]

The total tax burden is what matters so it's really hard to generalize. Texas is an anti-income tax state, but that's really its only advantage.

Texas as a whole has such a varied there will always be growth. Austin though has sold it's soul to hi-tech. Hi-tech is littered with companies that have not been able to innovate their way out of obsolescence.

[twange]

Originally Posted by scongress1234

Sometimes I read posts from relocatees and wonder how awful their former lives were before they moved to Austin. You would swear they were in this godforsaken place, that either had poor weather, didn't appreciate them, was very boring, had a horrible job market, what have you. Then they get an epiphany of sorts, and realize that Austin is the place to fill in all those holes and emptiness, for what I suppose will be the rest of their lifetimes. And its the same, regardless of where they are from, the midwest, west coast, east coast, you name it. My question is, are the places they came from that bad?They spent many years in these places before they made the move to Austin. Were they hellish, a purgatory-like state, as if God was just prepping them for a future higher state in Austin? Is Austin really that much better than all these cities the relocatees are coming from? If so, why is this such a new thing? I mean, up to perhaps 8 years ago, I never heard a thing about Austin in the national press. Now, you would think that Austin is the pinnacle of city living.

I thought you were going to stop over-analyzing Austin and why people come here

Anyway, since you quoted me, I guess I'll respond.

Our life was very comfortable in Cleveland. We owned a great old house in an historic(though declining) neighborhood, had a huge network of friends and family and decent (though somewhat dead-end), jobs. We tried to be involved in the community as much as possible and genuinely cared about it's well-being. And while it has serious problems right now, I still think it's a great place to live and raise a family as long as you don't mind the weather. Snow doesn't bother me in the least bit -although the pervasive grayness and the up-and-down nature of the Great Lakes region does- and after so many years there, the cold wasn't that big of a deal. Personally, I became very frustrated with the city's lack of gumption and vision and I felt this produced a sort of apathetic inertia that over generations, became a central characteristic of many Clevelanders personalities.

So why move? We just wanted to try something else. That simple. We don't have kids, so why not. It's a great big world and if we don't like it, we'll either go someplace else or go back to Ohio. For us, just breaking out of our routine cycle was a victory: Austin doesn't deserve credit for that nor does Cleveland deserve the blame. WE deserve the credit for doing something positive for ourselves! Austin was never some Valhalla that we built up in our mind that would somehow "make all of our dreams come true". To me, that kind of thinking is rubbish. I'm too far along down my trail to look at the world that way. Austin seemed to somehow present itself to us of its own free will and the more we looked at it, the more we liked. In fact, we turned down the first opportunity to move here due to family concerns and a general lack of information towards Texas. It was "never on our mind" (sorry, couldn't resist the reverse Willie Nelson pun).

Let me repeat: We didn't move to Austin because we read in Money magazine (or whatever) that it was hip, cool and THE PLACE TO BE. In fact, had I been exposed to that much Austin hype before we had an opportunity, I might have not wanted to come. I don't like self-conscience "coolness". My definition of cool is "that which is unique in style, substance and temperament". In fact, the cities that were on my radar as places to relocate were: NYC, San Francisco, Toronto and Portland. Austin was (and still is) a very pleasant surprise for us.

[scongress1234]

Originally Posted by OAC

The total tax burden is what matters so it's really hard to generalize. Texas is an anti-income tax state, but that's really its only advantage.

Texas as a whole has such a varied there will always be growth. Austin though has sold it's soul to hi-tech. Hi-tech is littered with companies that have not been able to innovate their way out of obsolescence.

That's a good point. Read this little bit of info from the chamber of C website:


"Austin has earned its reputation as a city of creativity, innovation and invention. Patents are one of the best measurements of innovation and Austin has always been extremely competitive in the number of patents issued yearly. The University of Texas is third in the nation in the number of patents earned.
According to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office geographic analysis patent activity in the 1990s, Austin outpaces much larger and more economically diverse regions such as Phoenix, Seattle, Denver and Raleigh-Durham. This demonstrated capacity for generating new ideas has only increased in the new century. In 2006, The Wall Street Journal named Austin the No. 3 Most Inventive City due to patent activity."


So, if Austin is outpacing the nation per patents, it should continue to stay a step ahead of obsolescence, as long as there is a VC presence in place, and the patents are cutting-edge AND marketable. I would presume that the innovation would stay in Austin, but that can be outsourced as well. I think the outsourcing of the heavy-duty of tech, as opposed to the ideas incubated, are the main concern of those who think a large local tech presence is important.

[TexasHorseLady]

I thought you were going to stop over-analyzing Austin and why people come here

I had that thought myself (checked the date of the post to make sure) and then thought, as a fellow sufferer, ah, it's an addiction. You can't just quit cold turkey without risking serious damage.

I remember snowbirds from back when I was a child (first time I heard the term, and I loved the idea of being free to do that, so it stuck with me). That would have been in the 1950's, and they were mostly in the Rio Grande Valley. So this isn't a new phenomenon, as far as those seeking to escape the snow are concerned - it's just that then, they went back up in the summer rather than living here permanently.

By the way, I was a longtimer for decades longer than I've been a real estate agent, and if you'll take careful note of my posts, I'm not "selling Austin" as far as encouraging the Mongol Hordes to move here just so I can make a buck. And I've been here a LOT longer than Steve! Real estate agents aren't clones, you know - we do have thoughts and opinions that have to do with being Real People just like you!

[scongress1234]

Originally Posted by twange

I thought you were going to stop over-analyzing Austin and why people come here

Anyway, since you quoted me, I guess I'll respond.

Our life was very comfortable in Cleveland. We owned a great old house in an historic(though declining) neighborhood, had a huge network of friends and family and decent (though somewhat dead-end), jobs. We tried to be involved in the community as much as possible and genuinely cared about it's well-being. And while it has serious problems right now, I still think it's a great place to live and raise a family as long as you don't mind the weather. Snow doesn't bother me in the least bit -although the pervasive grayness and the up-and-down nature of the Great Lakes region does- and after so many years there, the cold wasn't that big of a deal. Personally, I became very frustrated with the city's lack of gumption and vision and I felt this produced a sort of apathetic inertia that over generations, became a central characteristic of many Clevelanders personalities.

So why move? We just wanted to try something else. That simple. We don't have kids, so why not. It's a great big world and if we don't like it, we'll either go someplace else or go back to Ohio. For us, just breaking out of our routine cycle was a victory: Austin doesn't deserve credit for that nor does Cleveland deserve the blame. WE deserve the credit for doing something positive for ourselves! Austin was never some Valhalla that we built up in our mind that would somehow "make all of our dreams come true". To me, that kind of thinking is rubbish. I'm too far along down my trail to look at the world that way. Austin seemed to somehow present itself to us of its own free will and the more we looked at it, the more we liked. In fact, we turned down the first opportunity to move here due to family concerns and a general lack of information towards Texas. It was "never on our mind" (sorry, couldn't resist the reverse Willie Nelson pun).

Let me repeat: We didn't move to Austin because we read in Money magazine (or whatever) that it was hip, cool and THE PLACE TO BE. In fact, had I been exposed to that much Austin hype before we had an opportunity, I might have not wanted to come. I don't like self-conscience "coolness". My definition of cool is "that which is unique in style, substance and temperament". In fact, the cities that were on my radar as places to relocate were: NYC, San Francisco, Toronto and Portland. Austin was (and still is) a very pleasant surprise for us.

True about how short life is....indeed, why not give another area a chance? Sometimes it just gets old driving the same old roads and haunts, even if you live in a decent place. For me, that was the kicker. If I had the resources, being somewhat strapped financially, I wouldn't mind being an expatriate, and I see Toronto was on your short list. I could really handle somewhere urbane, and yet exotic and far off, like Buenos Aires, Rio de Jainero, Sydney, Melbourne, Paris, London, Rome, Milan, or such. The nice thing about Austin is that its different, somewhat off the beaten path for other US regions, and unique. An interesting question is where you would live if money was no question, and you could telecommute from anywhere. This would open up small cities and exurban/rural areas. In that case, Key West, Aspen, Lake Tahoe, and the rural pacific NW start looking good. Another dream would be telecommuting from somewhere in the carribean that is relatively safe, like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, St. Marteen, St. Kitts, and the like. Austin is to me the most affordable exotic option for someone like me that has a limited budget, yet wants to live in a warm place with a unique atmosphere.
Let's just say "Hooked on Austin works for me!"

And glad to see you dug Eeyore's BD, Twange........don't forget Pecan st. fest next weekend as well. You are currently in Austin's high season for festivals,
which slows down in the summer, picking up again in early fall with ACL festival...!