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Old 09-09-2009, 06:11 PM
 
Location: Round Rock, Texas
13,436 posts, read 15,333,454 times
Reputation: 18954

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As stated countless times in some of my other posts, I came from a hyper-expensive city (New York). So, when I first moved down here in 04 I thought Austin was inexpensive. However, after living here 5 years, and viewing information on some of the other Texas cities, I've come to the conclusion that Austin is not all that inexpensive. Definitely not in proportion with the "Texas salaries". It's probably not all that bad if you are working for a national/international company, which tends to pay on a national scale, but when I worked for a certain Big Texas firm my salary was a full 10K less. Housing especially doesn't seem all that inexpensive. There are now many, many apts asking for over 1K a month for a one bedroom. If you want to pay less than that, you have to move farther out. I paid 1100/mo for my apartment in New York City five years ago, just to give you something to compare. Granted, I'm sure you can make 200K stretch a bit here (ok, maybe 300K) but it seems like the prices are creeping ever upward so that Austin isn't really all that reasonable anymore. Especially when you constantly see job postings that are $10-13 hr. I think folks moving here (especially without jobs) thinking that it's "cheap" should put everything into perspective. Thoughts?
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Old 09-09-2009, 06:25 PM
 
Location: Central Texas
13,715 posts, read 30,993,781 times
Reputation: 9270
Moving here without a job is not a good idea unless $15/hour is good pay to you.

If you have $200K to spend for a house - it goes far here compared to other "national" housing markets.

If you have a job, you are assured of paying lower taxes because of zero income taxes. And since that 200K house would could far more in California or NY or Seattle or other cities the 2% property tax doesn't generate a significantly different out of pocket expense than in states with lower property tax rates.

As for rents - I'm pretty certain that is driven by supply and demand.
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Old 09-09-2009, 06:29 PM
 
Location: central Austin
7,228 posts, read 16,013,040 times
Reputation: 3914
Well, when I moved here nearly 20 years, the rent on our first apartment was $300!

BUT this was the height of the Savings and Loan crisis, which hit Texas banks hard, banks were closing, real estate prices were collapsing, and jobs were very very hard to come by. Every person flipping burgers or scooping ice cream had a master's degree. My then boyfriend, now spouse, interviewed for a job with the AG office. The job entailed counting office equipment in all the AG offices, he was told point blank that they intended to hire a pol sci Ph.D. and yes, they had several to chose from!

Austin was cheap then, in part because UT tuition was so low. In 1987 it was something like $12 a credit hour in state!! Even in 1990, my grad school tuition (out of state price) was something like $3000 a semester, maybe less! So, with cheap rent, low wages but low tuition, you could easily be a slacker for years and years (and unintentionally keep wages low), after coming to UT who wanted to go back to Lubbock? Or Breham? Or dozens of other small towns in Texas (who did make Austin look like a cultural oasis)?

The tech boom, rise in UT tuition, and invasion of Californians started to change all that. We were overseas all of 1994 and when we returned we couldn't believe how much Austin had changed in a single year! And who were all these people?

But reputations linger. Austin is not that cheap anymore and there aren't many permanent student slackers anymore (thanks to the 10% rule, UT is flush with organized over-achievers!!) But UT still churns out thousands of well-educated kids every year and many of them want to stay in Austin. This may have lessened but in the 90s I regularly met dozens of UT students who wouldn't dream of moving to Chicago, no matter what job or what salary they could have there!

FWIW, I think that rents will decline further and real estate prices at the high end will come down.
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Old 09-09-2009, 06:44 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
102 posts, read 264,655 times
Reputation: 41
It is and can be cheap depending on your perspective and your expenses-you can find apartments in the $500-700 if you are not expecting luxury and your standards are not too high, electricity can be a little high because of a/c usage from high temperatures this past summer-(my electric bills ran from $175-235 this past summer), groceries are very reasonable at HEB/Walmart and gasoline prices are running around $2.37-2.45. We have no state income tax here in Texas, so in general if a person is budget minded and spends accordingly it is not costly to live in Austin.
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Old 09-09-2009, 08:46 PM
 
132 posts, read 494,678 times
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Thank you, OP! I keep wondering the same thing. I don't think it's cheap here at all. It's worse being single and a home owner. Dual incomes definitely help with many major purchases.

D
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Old 09-09-2009, 10:10 PM
 
1,157 posts, read 2,638,912 times
Reputation: 482
i came from NYC also and totally agree- I think it is quite expensive for what you get.
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Old 09-09-2009, 10:30 PM
 
648 posts, read 1,956,407 times
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Three former NYCers (including myself) on this thread all agree Austin is not really that cheap?
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Old 09-10-2009, 01:58 AM
 
Location: NW Austin
1,133 posts, read 4,170,297 times
Reputation: 174
I find it's more expensive than Atlanta as well. The property taxes make up for the state income tax -- we don't really notice a savings, it's kind of a wash for us. Groceries are more expensive, as well as all the utilities. Intown houses are more expensive than we had bargained for -- we were shocked to see the prices of homes in Barton Hills and Travis Heights.

All in all, we're happy to be here. We have a far better quality of life than before we moved. I can't think of any place that would be cheaper that offers what Austin does, can you?
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Old 09-10-2009, 08:13 AM
 
2,627 posts, read 6,545,226 times
Reputation: 1230
If you don't care about living in central Austin and want to live in one of the outlying suburbs, then I do believe that the area is "cheap" for everything that the area as a whole offers. There is no way that I could have purchased a home for about $200K in a nice and safe neighborhood within 25 minutes of a good sized city anywhere in California.

I think it really depends on where you're coming from and what you're looking for. If you're looking for walk-ability to shops and restaurants along with updated non-cookie cutter homes over 1500 square feet that are in or near central Austin, then you might think it's expensive. If you're fine with a cookie-cutter type home and value a good place to raise a family out in the suburbs, then you'll probably think it's cheap. There are many options in-between these extremes as well to fit what other people are looking for.

Last edited by mark311; 09-10-2009 at 08:22 AM..
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Old 09-10-2009, 08:36 AM
 
Location: Central TX
2,335 posts, read 4,122,225 times
Reputation: 2811
I knew that Austin was expensive for Texas coming in. I grew up on LI and we gave up our 1br/1.5b apt in the Village for $1100/mo when we moved down here 4 yrs. ago. Sure, my monthly expenses were cheaper then but we only had 1 car and no house to maintain. I was tired of being taxed to death (among numerous other reasons).

Austin is expensive but it's nice if you can afford it. We wouldn't be able to have such a nice life had we stayed on LI; it would be a struggle, I know it. One of my friends just bought a house about 70 mi from NYC for 550k. His taxes will be 16k/yr! It hasn't been renovated since 1961. I have another friend in Scarsdale that pays 30k/yr for taxes. Could you imagine?
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