More relocation questions (Austin, Spring, Georgetown: RV park, real estate, apartments)

[ocmom]

We are looking into relocating to Austin from OC. We were in Austin earlier this month for 3 days and it definitely wasn't enough time to get to know the place. I have a pretty good idea about the layout of the city and better ideas about areas we like those are out of the question. We leaning toward Dripping Springs. We didn't get to experience any of the cultural and entertainment aspects of the city that we've heard so much about but will be going back for a few more days (without the kids this time) and hope to then. From what I can see the school systems are great and we really like the idea of not having to send our kids to private school to get a quality education (worth the higher taxes!). Everything we've been able to unearth so far looks great! Unfortunately, I've seen posts on other forums where the locals are not real happy about Californians in particular moving there. I haven't seen that mentioned here and didn't experience it but we didn't get a chance to interact that much with the people there. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[Spookmeister]

It's not where you're from, but the attitude you exhibit that will determine your reception. Most won't give it a second thought. I've seen/heard the California bashing and it's mostly due to the few that have no clue as to how to endear themselves to their new home and neighbours. Those give the rest a bad rep, unearned of course.
From the few incidents I've personally witnessed what started out as nothing more than a difference of opinion escalated into serious warfare when the transplant went..."Well, in California...." Fill in the rest...

[Trainwreck20]

CA bashing is not really about people from CA, it is more about the population growth in general. There has been a huge amount of growth in the area over the last 20 years, and a good portion has come from CA; therefore, people bash CA immigrants when they really are just griping about traffic and raising prices. You are very unlikely to find anyone giving you, personally, any grief over being from CA.

Re: Dripping springs, it has a great school district and is located about the right distance from Austin and provides just about the right amount of local business. Get it while the getting is good, 'cause I think it is the next 'boom burb'. Get there early, and you can gripe about all those Californians moving in . Seriously, though, highway 290 will expand, traffic will get worse, and more people will move into the area. Think about what is going to happen to the area around where you are looking to live, or you may be unpleasantly surprised.

[ocmom]

Thanks for the good information. Sounds like it just comes down to common sense and common courtesy both of which unfortunately are lacking more often than not where we live now.

My parents experienced this several years ago when they drove to the Seattle, WA area. There were alot of Californians moving there and the locals blamed them for driving up the cost of real estate and everything else. My parents were approaching my uncle's house and on 2 different occasions someone yelled at them to go back to California as they drove by. I just wanted to make sure we weren't going into that kind of situation and it sounds like we're not. Thanks again for putting my worries to rest!

[iguanas4]

Originally Posted by ocmom

Unfortunately, I've seen posts on other forums where the locals are not real happy about Californians in particular moving there. I haven't seen that mentioned here and didn't experience it but we didn't get a chance to interact that much with the people there. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

hi OCmom,
We are also Californians relocating to Austin (Georgetown, actually). We were there about 2 weeks ago to check things out. I was curious also if there was any kind of backlash or resentment towards the many people from CA moving out there. I'm happy to say we did not encounter any negative vibes from ANYONE in and around Austin. We looked at some apartments in case we had to live in one for awhile, and struck up conversations with many of the servers at restaurants we visited. So we talked to a good number of local people. (If "local people" sounds patronizing in that sentence... I sure don't mean it that way!)

Without exception, the response we got was something like "Yeah, there are a lot of people coming here from California." I detected no negative or unpleasant undertones in those responses... it was just a neutral statement of fact. Some people seemed slightly amused by it, but again, nothing negative!

I know what you mean about common sense and courtesy being in short supply in CA. That's one of the reasons we're getting fed up with this area. Let's just hope that none of those annoying Californians are the ones moving to Texas! hehee.

[laguna1995]

Hi OCmom-

I was worried about the same thing after reading the forums for other states. Some people have some serious hatred for us. Everyone on the TX forums has been so kind and helpful, there is a totally different feel here than many of the other posts. They seem to truly understand that we don't want to change the area we are relocating to, and we are just looking for somewhere to live with a good quality of life for our families and good people around us.

What area of OC are you living? We are down in Ladera Ranch. You mentioned that you were leaning toward Dripping Springs. What did you like about the area? Was it green with hills, or a flat area without much vegetation? We haven't made our scouting trip to TX yet and are trying to make a list of areas we want to check out.

[ocmom]

Hi Laguna

I feel the same as you - not interested in changing Austin at all. We live in Westminster but my kids all go to school in Huntington Beach. We liked that Dripping Springs was close to everything but still had kind of a rural feel to it. The lots seem to be larger there too. We don't want alot of acreage but we don't want a 4000sf house on a 6000sf lot. The area was green with hills but not quite as hilly as Lakeway I thought. We were only there for 3 days and it wasn't nearly long enough to get to know the area very well but we did at least get a general feel for the place. I have to agree with what I've seen here about staying west of the 35. We stayed in an RV park that was just east of the 35 and while the park was nice, the surrounding area wasn't.
We are going to try to go for another 4 days next time probably in late October when it's a little cooler. We went in August last time and it was very hot (but it was hot here too I understand). We figured if we could handle it for a few days at it's hottest then the rest would be great!

[Steph78746]

We have been living in Dripping Springs for almost two years now. Our family loves it here. We moved from Central Austin/Westlake area. The lots are larger here primarily because of septic systems and well water. Alot of the subidvisions have city water now. If you have any questions about the area or Austin let me know. I have been doing Real Estate for almost 6 years and will be glad to answer any of your questions.

[peanut666]

I have lived in Southwest Austin for 3 years and absolutely love it. We have lived in a master planned community called Circle C Ranch. It's great there and the commute is easy and traffic is much better than in northern parts of Austin. Circle C is a very kid centric and a country club community at the same time. A new master planned community is going in across the highway called Meridian that looks like its going to be beautiful as well...It's right next to the golf course. There's several "big" builders in there including Meritage, Wilshire, David Weekley and Newmark. From the looks of it the community will be from the 300's-500's. Its right in the middle of an environmentally sensitive area...so they have lots of big lots that back up to greenbelt, tons of trees and mature landscaping. Its a great compromise between the beauty of Dripping Springs and the convenience of living in closer into Austin. Its about a 15 minute commute to downtown from here. I would recommend Southwest Austin to anyone! I lived in New York City for a while and am very much a city girl at heart and I wouldn't live anywhere else in Austin but here. Anyone moving to Austin needs to check out SW Austin.

[ocmom]

Sounds like we're making a good choice so far! I hope this doesn't sound stupid but is there any advantage to using a realtor if we're going to buy a new build home? We're pretty sure we want to buy in the Highpointe subdivision. We like the larger lots and walkout basement options that we haven't seen offered by any other builders. We've made our reservations to return in early November for a 2nd look. Thanks for all your input!