Nice areas to live in Hays county? (Austin, Spring: houses, best school)

[eichlerfan]

We are thinking of moving there from CA and are looking at areas in Hays County because we understand property taxes are less there than in Travis and Williamson counties. My husband was checking out Dripping Springs, but how far out is that? My husband will be working from home, and so the commute is really not an issue for us. I homeschool my younger child, but any good school districts in Hays County? We are looking for homes around the 450,000 price range, and we are looking for houses built in the several years or so.

Thanks

[achtungpv]

Dripping. Best school district, easy access to Austin outside of rush hours. Nothing for the kids to do that's legal though.

I personally would rather find a place that's a great fit that worry about the tax rate. In the grand scheme of things is being inconvenienced every day of your life worth saving $1K per year in taxes?

[Trainwreck20]

County taxes may be lower in Hays, but make sure you check out the school district taxes, which may end up making the tax rate higher.

[TexasHorseLady]

Dripping is about half an hour out from downtown Austin (depending on time of day, of course, and WHERE in Dripping you live.

Lovely place, and I suspect from what folks who live out there have told me that there's plenty legal for kids to do , but what else are you looking for in the way of community? What do you enjoy doing? What amenities are important to you? Give us a better picture of what you're looking for, and we can give you a better idea of where to find it!

And, yes, you'll need to get the entire tax picture while you're looking.

[iceshots]

Dripping is great, and our experience with the high school has been very good. They have a local youth sports association and various other groups that provide kids activities. My daughter is 15 so I do not have details on stuff for the younger crowd, other than what I see around town and being advertised. Taxes can run from under 2% to almost 3% depending on exactly where you live. They biggest factor is whether or not you are in a MUD for water and sewage. The MUD taxes can be almost 1%. During our house search we found the highest MUDs to be Belterra, HighPointe and RimRock (Driftwood). You definitely have to factor the taxes into your monthly bill. $200 month tax payments is like adding $30K to your mortgage.

The up side to this is that the areas with the highest taxes tend to be master planned communities with lots of amenities and playgrounds for the kids. There are also lots of posts on this site that warn about the downside of HOAs and master planned communities. Check out all the options and make your own decision.

We have lived in Dripping for 6 months now and are enjoying it. People are friendly and it is actually very easy to get to whatever you need. I have lived in both country and suburb environments and have found that longer distances to things in the country to do necessarily translate into longer times. You tend to spend less time stopped in your car waiting for stop signs, traffic lights, and traffic congestion in non-rush hour traffic. (This is a general comment, not specific to the Austin area.)

I have friends that live around the Buda area and they are satisfied with their choice as well.

To get the best information on Hays taxes, use the following link to the Hays Appraisal District. http://www.hayscad.com/Appraisal/Pub...s/default.aspx
Just enter the address of a house you are interested in and it will identify the taxes being applied to the house and the appraisal value. Another part of the site will give you the tax rate for each tax. I ended up making a spreadsheet so that I could calculate the relative tax for each area.

Here are some the rates I had calculated back in the summer 2008. They may have changed.

Belterra 2.84%
Highpointe 2.92%
Hidden Springs 2.07%
RimRock 2.82%
Polo Club 1.97%
Triple Creek 1.97%
Sunset Canyon 1.97%
Hays General 1.97%
Sawyer Ranch 1.97%
Ledge Stone 2.82%