Considering move from Detroit to Southlake/Colleyville (Houston, Dallas: sales, rental)

[bstockwell]

I was just given a huge opportunity to relocate and start-up a new corporate location in North Richland Hills. Currently I live in Grosse Pointe just outside of Detroit in a great family community with excellent schools. From what I can tell the general Southlake/Colleyville area appears to be a great fit for my family. We are in our early 30's with 3 girls (11,7 and 4). It appears the Carroll and colleyville school districts are excellent. My wife and I are planning on visiting late september/early october.

I am excited about the aspect of no state income tax. What is the sales tax % in texas?
Are there any hidden costs I may not be expecting IE license plate tabs , high car insurance rates , tolls etc?

Current location of our texas office is not necessarily our long term location so I am not ready to go $500K in debt initially on a house. My plan is to try and find a 1-2 year lease on a 4 bedroom house with a Pool of course.

Any advice helping me narrow down this housing search would be greatly appreciated.

[bencronin04]

Sales tax is 8.25%. We have tollways and your property tax here will be in the mid 2% range. In the area your looking at expect to pay 3-5 grand a month for a 4 bedroom.

[TurtleCreek80]

Property taxes - when you eventually buy a home- are the big expense. On a $500k home, they'll range from $8k-$13k / year depending on what city you buy in and what homestead exemptions they offer. I always caution that state income tax - which we don't have- is mandatory. Property taxes are 100% within the buyer's control and if one can't afford the taxes on a $500k home, then one moves down to a $400k home or researches which cities have lower tax rates and / or higher exemption rates and buys a home there instead.

Car and home insurance can be much higher here than many other areas of the US.

Tollroads can add $100ish per month if you ever need to do a 20-mile each way commute and the Tollroad is your only highway option.

In many of the Southlake & other suburbs with master-planned communities, mandatory HOA fees can reach up to $1500/quarter or more depending on amenities and number of homes supporting the sub-division.

But, in general, Detroit to Dallas is a GREAT move! I work with two people who grew up in the Detroit suburbs (one in Grosse Point) and they are so happy to be raising their young families in the Dallas area. Great public schools, well-run cities (for the most part), and tons of economic prosperity & opportunity. The "hidden" costs of property taxes, tollroads, etc far outweigh staying in Michigan.

[Squirl]

You will love our winters and curse our summers. Perhaps you can visit back in MI a lot during the summers. Hidden costs are trading the beauty of Michigan for Texas -- which is not beautiful, dang! But there is a vibe of prosperity here, that cannot be denied, and it contributes to an uplifting experience for young families.

Schools are NOT excellent at all, but among the DFW schools Colleyville, Southlake, Flower Mound are better than most other public schools.

Utility bills and insurance will be higher. Property taxes will be higher but offset by no income taxes somewhat.
Leasing is a great idea!

[bstockwell]

Thank you for the quick replies already.

BenCronin04 - I realize I would be paying 3-4K a month just to lease initially. The property tax rate is similar to Grosse Pointe so as long as you pay for what you get I am good with it.

TurtleCreek80 - I am a salesperson on the road , I imagine I will be driving 6K miles/month driving the triange of Dallas , San Antonio and Houston. I did not fully consider this problem.

Squirl - I think I can handle your summers compared to 6months of Blah in the Midwest. your vibe of prosperity is a great way to look at this

[EDS_]

People always make this kind of comparison harder than it really is:

1. Generally it costs about 3% less to live anywhere in DFW over a similar home/apt/condo in Detroit metro - food, gas, housing etc.

2. The state and local tax burden here is about 20/25% less in Texas than Michigan.

For math's sake if you make $!00K it'll be like getting a ~$5.5/6K raise.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by bstockwell

I was just given a huge opportunity to relocate and start-up a new corporate location in North Richland Hills. Currently I live in Grosse Pointe just outside of Detroit in a great family community with excellent schools. From what I can tell the general Southlake/Colleyville area appears to be a great fit for my family. We are in our early 30's with 3 girls (11,7 and 4). It appears the Carroll and colleyville school districts are excellent. My wife and I are planning on visiting late september/early october.

I am excited about the aspect of no state income tax. What is the sales tax % in texas?
Are there any hidden costs I may not be expecting IE license plate tabs , high car insurance rates , tolls etc?

Current location of our texas office is not necessarily our long term location so I am not ready to go $500K in debt initially on a house. My plan is to try and find a 1-2 year lease on a 4 bedroom house with a Pool of course.

Any advice helping me narrow down this housing search would be greatly appreciated.

Property taxes in Southlake or Colleyville on a 500K home will generally be ~11.5K to 12.5K, with Southlake being slightly higher than Colleyville. There are many websites where you can find the property tax rates. In general there are 3 parts - the "City" rate, the "County" rate, and the "Independent School District" ("ISD") rate. Both Southlake and Colleyville are in Tarrant county (the northernmost part of Southlake is in Denton County). Colleyville is mainly in the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, while most of Southlake is in the Carroll ISD. Both districts are very good - Carroll has slightly better metrics, mainly because it is more affluent overall.

Both places are very conveniently located if you need to get to DFW airport, as you likely know. They have also recently completed (well, save for some minor bits) a construction project on the highways thru the cities and the airport.

Sales tax throughout the metroplex is approximately 8.25%.

There are a number of toll roads in DFW, so if you're driving around the area a lot, you may have to take that into account. They cost about 15 cents/mile. There will also be some "managed toll" lanes coming soon (that's part of the aforementioned construction project), you can choose free lanes or toll lanes, and rates during rush hour could be as high as ~60 cents/mile.

Beyond that, EDS's rule of thumb probably is most of what you need to know.

Specific to Southlake and Colleyville - We looked at homes in both suburbs and expected to wind up in Colleyville but the "best fit" home for us happened to be in Southlake, and we moved in about 5 months ago. I'm happy to try and answer any questions you may have about either city.

[synchronicity]

Forgot to mention - Although I'm sure they exist, I never found any HOA with rates as high as $1,500/quarter, at least not on houses in the 500K price range. In fact, I can't think of any listings we saw that were as high as $1,500/yr. TC80 is generally very knowledgeable about the DFW area, but on this point I'll disagree with her. Again, there may be exceptions, but I'd say more than $1,000/yr in HOA fees is the exception. Most rates we saw were between $250/yr to $850/yr.

[ChristieP]

And one other point: $500k is really the lower limit for Southlake. You will occasionally find lower priced homes, but they will usually be older and need updating. Colleyville will have more homes under $500k.

You might have difficulty finding a rental with a pool due to liability issues for the landlord.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

And one other point: $500k is really the lower limit for Southlake. You will occasionally find lower priced homes, but they will usually be older and need updating. Colleyville will have more homes under $500k.

You might have difficulty finding a rental with a pool due to liability issues for the landlord.

I have to laugh, because here in DFW, "older" means "built WAY back in the 1990's". In many cities, that's "new development". To the OP - ChristieP is certainly correct that Colleyville is slightly less expensive than Southlake. Also, we obviously don't know what you are looking for in a home. That being said, there are a fair number of sub 500K homes in Southlake that you may find are Just Fine. If you're not already, start checking listings from various websites and screen by your desired criteria and see what comes up. FWIW, we found a sub 500K home in Southlake that is everything we wanted and then some, but yes, it was over 20 years old.