Why do people think Austin is a "cheap" place to live? (Houston: homeowners insurance, how much)

[BobosCurse]

Well, I live in rural midwest. Our home is on the market for $400k, and our taxes are $7200/yr. I'm looking at homes in Austin online, and I see gorgeous 3,000 sq ft homes for $250k-$300k, with similar property taxes.

And our taxes here get us nothing. The schools are so bad, we have to send our kids to private school. So $4500 of our taxes go to schools we don't use. We're outside the city limits. We don't have sidewalks or street lights. No cable TV or internet. There's nothing here. We don't even have a Target. We basically have to drive 90 minutes to get to anything that normal cities have.

So to us, the home prices look great in Austin.
It's all relative.

Cardiff...what's the value of your friend's home ($30k/yr taxes)?
That's insane. No, I can't imagine writing that check. Mine are painful enough.

[ladylonghorn2]

Originally Posted by mark311

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.

This totally sums it up. I moved back here from Brooklyn looking for updated non cookie cutter centrally located near good schools and quickly realized that those houses cost 500k and up, just like the crappy one bedroom apartments in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn cost. So yeah, in that case, it's just as expensive.

But we settled for a big house in the suburbs for $275k and *definitely* find Austin cheaper than NYC. Groceries (I buy mostly organic and the markup in NYC is crazy) are a lot cheaper, the variety is so much greater and the whole shopping experience so much more pleasant.

Car insurance is a lot cheaper here than in NYC. Going out to eat is a lot cheaper (we laugh with delight when we get our checks at restaurants now) and the biggest savings of all: child care!!! We are spending HALF what we spent in Brooklyn every day for very comparable day care/preschool.

Things that cost more: car payments (we went from having one car to needing two) and the necessary gas for those 2 cars. Electricity is more, but that's understandable when you go from cooling 700 square feet for only two months out of the year to cooling a huge house for months on end.

And don't even get me started on the quality of life issues. You can get "away" to nature so easily here. In NYC you'd spend $20+ on tolls just to escape the city and you'd sit in traffic for 3+ hours.

[gpurcell]

I moved back here from Brooklyn looking for updated non cookie cutter centrally located near good schools and quickly realized that those houses cost 500k and up, just like the crappy one bedroom apartments in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn cost.

How big of a house were you looking for??? There are plenty of listings in Hyde Park under $400K.

[ladylonghorn2]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

I moved back here from Brooklyn looking for updated non cookie cutter centrally located near good schools and quickly realized that those houses cost 500k and up, just like the crappy one bedroom apartments in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn cost.

How big of a house were you looking for??? There are plenty of listings in Hyde Park under $400K.

"under $400k" for me is not cheap. The $200s are cheap. We were looking for about 1800 square feet. I love everything about Hyde Park but just could not afford it. Anyone coming from NYC or another major metro area looking in central austin for that holy trinity of big enough - updated recently - near a good school is going to find that Austin is not much cheaper than where they moved from.

[hoffdano]

Anyone coming from NYC or similar area living in a PRIME area will find Austin cheap. Hyde Park is a highly desired central location so it will be expensive for Austin.

For some reason people have the idea that they can come to Austin and live in the "best" (for them) area and buy it for a low price.

What is the equivalent to Hyde Park in NYC or San Francisco? What would it cost?

[CarnivalGal]

Well, after we bought our 3100 square foot, 4 BR, 3.5 bath practically new house in Steiner Ranch, I decided to check the MLS for my old zip code (in suburban Philly) to see what I could get for the same price. The only property available was a 1 bedroom condo.

As people have mentioned, you have to compare apples to apples. In other words, compare apartments and homes downtown to those downtown in other cities. Compare the suburbs to the suburbs, etc.

I will add the cost of college to this mix as well. It cost me less to go to Texas State (then Southwest Texas State) on out-of-state tuition than it did for me to go to community college in PA.

So, it seems pretty affordable to me.

[Exiled Texan]

THere is really no apples to apples comparison with respect to NYC. I find it laughable that some of those condos down town rival some NYC prices.

It is a fair comment that a 1200 square foot apartment in Austin is cheaper than our 1200 square foot apartment in NYC. However, since we were giving up the greatest city in the world, we expected more of a home in TX as a trade off.

The prior poster who said child care was exponentially cheaper, I agree 100%......except if you use a nanny and they are relatively equivalent.

That being said, I took a 60% pay cut to move back to Texas. No way are things 60% cheaper, but I don't work as hard either.

[Exiled Texan]

Also, in NYC, you can commute for an hour outside The City and find homes with character. Due to the fact Austin was a VERY SMALL town until the last 15 years, there is an EXTREMELY limited supply of homes with character. That is extremely disappointing to me.

[centralaustinite]

Originally Posted by Exiled Texan

Also, in NYC, you can commute for an hour outside The City and find homes with character. Due to the fact Austin was a VERY SMALL town until the last 15 years, there is an EXTREMELY limited supply of homes with character. That is extremely disappointing to me.

In fact, Austin was so small, that in the 1950s, there were still "homes with character" located just one block off of Congress Ave downtown! Many great homes disappeared with downtown development. I met a great man in his 80s last week who was raised in a house right where the big downtown police headquarters is. The creation of 1-35 and MoPac also crushed many large wonderful homes. The few that remain west of Congress and now law offices but "in the day" those were a major portion of Austin's housing stock.

Hyde Park and Travis Heights were developed as "suburbs." Lots of very solid houses were downtown.

edited to add: if you want to drive an hour, you can find great old homes in Georgetown, Bastrop, Luling, Lockhart, etc.

[austin-steve]

Well, Austin is in fact cheap in many respects, but it depends on how you measure it and, as was said already, what you want in life.

If you roll up the basket of lifestyle, recreation, education and cultural amenities available to people who live in the Austin Metro area, and ask yourself "where else in the USA can someone live in a 2,000 sqft home for $200K and be within 15-30 minutes of that many choices", the list of comparable cities will be mighty thin.

Not to mention we're within 4 hours of three of the 10 largest US Cities, and the beach, and an 8-10 hour drive from snow skiing, or a super cheap 4 hour SWA or Jet Blue flight away from lots of other destinations. Jeez. My wife and I are driving to Dallas Sunday for 3 days. It's too close to fly. Next month I'll fly non-stop to Orlando on Jet Blue for a week. November we'll head to San Diego for another Realtor convention. People who live on one coast or the other can't get around the country that easy.

And, the real kicker, our rents are cheaper than they were in 2001 before the tech bust and 9/11. I use to rent out 4 bedroom homes in Round Rock for $1,600/mo .Those same houses still only fetch $1450 today.

Austin is "cheap" if we define "cheap" as having a broad and varied set of amenity and lifestyle choices available to the most number of median income people.

Steve