homes in Austin (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio: apartment, rent, condo)

[codemc]

What would you do if you couldn't afford your ideal home in Austin? Would you buy a smaller home in Austin or move to the outskirts?

Or would it make more sense to move to Ft Worth/Dallas/San Antonio/Houston to get a larger home?

(Budget is @ $450)

First world problems, I know.

[Trainwreck20]

If I could work anywhere (i.e. from home), then I would not likely move to or buy in the Austin area.

[ashbeeigh]

Id get something smaller because I want to live in Austin. I don’t want to live anywhere else. If I were moving to Austin for the sake of saying I live in Austin and can’t afford it, I’d stay where I was at, wherever that might be. (In this imaginary world we’ve just created in this thread).

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by codemc

What would you do if you couldn't afford your ideal home in Austin? Would you buy a smaller home in Austin or move to the outskirts?

Or would it make more sense to move to Ft Worth/Dallas/San Antonio/Houston to get a larger home?

(Budget is @ $450)

First world problems, I know.

I would buy a smaller home as close in as possible. Over time it will become worth it to add on/renovate.

Most space people have is wasted anyway.

For me, why bother living in the area if you arent as close in as possible? Only you know what your priorities are.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by codemc

What would you do if you couldn't afford your ideal home in Austin? Would you buy a smaller home in Austin or move to the outskirts?

Or would it make more sense to move to Ft Worth/Dallas/San Antonio/Houston to get a larger home?

(Budget is @ $450)

First world problems, I know.

I wouldn’t move to an entirely different metro just to commute to Austin. If you live in San Antonio, DFW, Houston, ect … you also need to work there unless you’re maybe doing the drive once or twice a month.

As for your question. I wouldn’t throw away all my income just to say I live in Austin. I would move someplace more affordable and enjoy a more financially rounded life.

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

The price of Austin today, I would not even consider moving to Austin and I wanted to live on my own. I always made a very average middle class living in Austin but I certainly never made enough money to afford living in Austin at the price of housing today. Fortunately I was able to buy my little half acre and trailer when the cost of housing was still reasonable enough that I was able to pay it off about 20 years before I retired. Not having to worry about rent made such a big difference in making everything else so much more affordable. Now that I'm retired and on a very fixed income, property taxes are my biggest expense each year, at about $2700 for the past 2 or 3 years. It wasn't all that many years ago they were less than $400. If I was to sell my property, I doubt I could find another place in Austin that I could live cheaper than I do now.

I must say I never ever anticipated or planned on property taxes costing anywhere near as much as they do today. I never thought they would ever be more than $600. I pày more in property taxes in 2020 than I paid for a years rent in my 1st apartment in Austin in 1980. I remember it well. It was $230 a month.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

The price of Austin today, I would not even consider moving to Austin and I wanted to live on my own. I always made a very average middle class living in Austin but I certainly never made enough money to afford living in Austin at the price of housing today. Fortunately I was able to buy my little half acre and trailer when the cost of housing was still reasonable enough that I was able to pay it off about 20 years before I retired. Not having to worry about rent made such a big difference in making everything else so much more affordable. Now that I'm retired and on a very fixed income, property taxes are my biggest expense each year, at about $2700 for the past 2 or 3 years. It wasn't all that many years ago they were less than $400. If I was to sell my property, I doubt I could find another place in Austin that I could live cheaper than I do now.

I must say I never ever anticipated or planned on property taxes costing anywhere near as much as they do today. I never thought they would ever be more than $600. I pày more in property taxes in 2020 than I paid for a years rent in my 1st apartment in Austin in 1980. I remember it well. It was $230 a month.

are your taxes frozen? 2700 at 2% is around 135K in value.

bear in mind that property taxes are based on increasing budgets, not on the value of your property. If your property goes up in value more than the average, then you are bearing a larger load.

[ScoPro]

I wouldn’t want to move back into the city limits of Austin even if I won the Powerball. Might buy a downtown condo for weekend entertainment visits though.

Seriously, being retired I’d go for Georgetown or Kerrville, possibly Wimberley.

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by Austin97

are your taxes frozen? 2700 at 2% is around 135K in value.

bear in mind that property taxes are based on increasing budgets, not on the value of your property. If your property goes up in value more than the average, then you are bearing a larger load.

They're not frozen, that I know of. Over the past 3 yrs they've increased from around 2400 to 2700 or thereabouts. I get taxed for the trailer and the land. They are not combined. It's 2 separate tax bills. The city wouldn't combine them because the way it was explained to me, or the way I understood it, the trailer is not on a foundation like a house and I could haul the trailer away, so the city wants to be sure it gets it's taxes on the trailer which runs about $900. It should be less this year since trailers supposedly depreciate, but somehow I doubt they will.

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

They're not frozen, that I know of. Over the past 3 yrs they've increased from around 2400 to 2700 or thereabouts. I get taxed for the trailer and the land. They are not combined. It's 2 separate tax bills. The city wouldn't combine them because the way it was explained to me, or the way I understood it, the trailer is not on a foundation like a house and I could haul the trailer away, so the city wants to be sure it gets it's taxes on the trailer which runs about $900. It should be less this year since trailers supposedly depreciate, but somehow I doubt they will.

Are you 65+? That is the age where school taxes freeze and it makes a big difference over time. Make sure you protest (if it makes any sense at all) the year before you turn 65 to get the taxes down as much as possible before the freeze. Also, the exemptions increase notably when you turn 65.

Having your trailer and land separate can be a good thing - usually, TCAD 'swaps' value from the structure to the land over time, so that even if your structure decreases in value, your overall taxes don't. That is a little harder for them to do if they are separate.