Looking to move to Houston, Spring, the Woodlands...

[Sampaguita]

Originally Posted by Texascrude

When figuring out your budget, just remember that the average property tax in the Houston area is about 3% -- meaning if you have a 150k house, you need to add about another $400 a month in taxes to whatever your mortgage is.

So true.

We should have a locked sticky topic that gives basic info like this.

I think it took DH & me a good 6 months before it really sunk in that buying a 350k+ house here was going to be almost 10k/year in property taxes. That would give us a monthly payment close to $2500 (no insurance or HOAs figured yet). We left THAT behind in San Diego and weren't about to do the samehere.

[cheryjohns]

Originally Posted by RageX

Yea, I been kicking myself in the teeth over the job thing. I been more hung up on a place to live first instead of the other way around. I drive a 22-28mpg car but, if Houston is anything like Jacksonville (-no- traffic and still takes 45 mins. to get from one side to the other) I might be in for a tough time. I gotta start looking at aircraft manufacturing / maintenance facilities but, it's 50 / 50 that or College. So if I'm less than 25 miles away from a areputable State College I should be ok too, that's less than say $140G... Also, that HAR website is pretty good, thanks. I see a lot of decent property less than $80G, ...it must be too far from the jobs...

Houston is a lot bigger than that. It's the biggest shock of newcomers - they think they are prepared for the size, but they never are.

Be careful what you see on HAR. It's a fantastic site. The problem is that listing agents have the job of making crummy properties look good on the web - and some are darn good at it (which they are supposed to be). Once you target a work area, then it's easy to pinpoint the decent housing nearby.

I use the internet pictures to go by, somewhat, but am always prepared for the property to not be what I thought (sometimes it's actually better - usually worse).

[RageX]

Oh yea, mucho thanks for the info of course. Hey, TexCrude and Sampa, I agree that there should be a sticky for current tax data like that and, of course I factor taxes into themonthly payment, I look not so much at the house as I look at whether or not this place can fit into my proposed budget of $1500-$1900 a month.

Yea, cuz' it says taxes on Spring are 1.2% or something in the data section but HAR, more current, says between 2.8 -3.2 % (depending on the municipality). I wouldn't be able to trouble any of you for data on what utilities are usually incurred in the Houston area?

[crone]

Locked in rate for electricity 12-24 months is about .10 per kWh. Month to month is cheaper. Gas is as low as it has ever been. Water sewer, trash depends on where you live and if it is in a water district. Some school districts give a discount. I live in Klein. They have a lower tax rate than Cy-Fair. Cy-Fair gives a lager discount, therefore the actual taxes paid is less in Cy-Fair than Klein. That discount could go away if need be, but as a practical matter will not.