Quality vs high square footage

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And thanks again to all you guys. When we were moving from Chicago, everybody's reaction was, Wow, you will get sooo much house for the money in Dallas! Everybody knew Plano too to my surprise- it had the reputation of the Promised Land. Ok, we moved (and received a verrrry low offer on our Chicago prop, from a....foreign investor. We will probably turn it down, but that is another story). But! I agree with HockDad not as good as everybody in Chicago thinks. Or, I should say not as simple. And yes TurtleCreek80, I do check crime heat maps. Some lovely homes are unfortunately located in somewhat "red-ish" areas.
synchronicity: Taxes here are about the same, at least for two homes we considered briefly. One of them a lovely house in a gated community in Richardson, but off Audelia
Johnhw2: we had a walk-out basement in Chicago. It was not included in the total square footage. Cold in the winter, but a great room otherwise. And it was great for storage. Where do people store their off-season stuff here? Or since it is always warm, there is no such a thing? We could dedicate an extra bedroom to storage, I suppose.

[MurphyPl1]

We have a walk-out attic in our house, plus the space above the garage and also above our second story. Depending on what we're storing and how often we access determines which attic.

As far as "off season" - we don't really have traditional seasons so I personally find myself digging into a variety of items depending on the temp. We have a large walk-in master closet and I just utilize all three racks with the true off-season stuff occupying the top rack. But I layer a lot of stuff so there's a lot of stuff that just lives on the bottom two racks.

[pinipig523]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

yeah, property taxes in Cook County are essentially the same as in DFW. In fact, looking at the property tax on our place in the Chicago 'burbs and comparing it to what we're going to be paying here in january, the rates (property tax due as a percentage of sale price) are almost EXACTLY the same.

(Side note - Cook County has a byzantine methodology for calculating property taxes that makes the system here look like a beacon of simplicity by comparison. Yes, I had a spreadsheet that did those calculations, but I'm strange that way).

AND we got pelted with state taxes that seem to be on the verge of going up, yet again.

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MurphyPI1: Ah! Thanks for pointing out to walk-out attics, they do seem to be somewhat standard here.