More on cities v. suburbs (Sugar Land: school districts, income, property taxes)

[houston-nomad]

I agree, mainly, EA, except for this point:

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

COH or Burbs, the main problem is that people threw a majority of their personal wealth, or lack of it, into housing.

You see this in stagnating and falling burb values, and in the multi-million dollar homes sitting unsold within the Beltway, or even ITL.

Perhaps why you will see more of it in the burbs in the years to come, is that the middle and upper middle class are a much larger demographic, and these are the areas that they could "afford." Or perhaps the only areas they were willing to afford because of newness or the questionable illusion of better schools/safety. The problem here is that the value is in the dwelling, not in the land or location. People all around this country are upside down on their houses, basically because many fell for the allure that they could afford a castle on a blue collar salary if they just drove further out. And in turn, their decisions have affected the housing all around them, whether others can afford their homes or not. MHO.

The big houses closer in, that are sitting, do have excellent land value, but they are far too enormous to maintain (utilities, maintenance and taxes), even by a large percent of the 1%-ers. And even some of those that can are questioning if they should. Same problem as the burbs, too much money in the dwelling.

Houston's Metro area has been pretty lucky so far. But when you look what has happened to new,middle class housing all over the country...it's damn frightening. Houstonians/Houstoburbians seem to blissfully ignore that

It's my impression that while in some cases, people overextended to get their castle, many people are upside down DESPITE being responsible in their home investment. The drastic changes to the market, loss of jobs, and extremely conservative appraisals these days are putting people's down payments in a very different ratio to the home value. It's too easy to blame the victim, in a sense, and say that people were irresponsible. Those people lost their homes a couple of years ago, I think. Now we're seeing longer term fallout. Another problem is that people can't refinance despite the good rates, because banks have tightened their standards beyond where they should be.

Add that to the scenario you outlined above, and yes, you have people who can't afford to be in their homes anymore, can't afford to maintain them, and can't afford to leave them. Scary.

[SouthernBoy205]

Will places like Sugar Land become poor?

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

Will places like Sugar Land become poor?

tell me the next lottery numbers and I will tell you.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

tell me the next lottery numbers and I will tell you.

LOL! I was being funny when I asked that question.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

LOL! I was being funny when I asked that question.

really? I was being mad serious with mine

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

really? I was being mad serious with mine

[redsunwest]

Is there a Texas realtor in the house? I have a question.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by redsunwest

Is there a Texas realtor in the house? I have a question.

cheryjohns

[testmo]

Originally Posted by NYer75

Can you be more specific on that? What's changing for the worse in Copperfield area?

the houses are older (which is preferable to new builds) but more and more it looks like the people in them cant afford to renovate. wood paneling in a living room and old nasty showers - still?

there are quite a few of the neighborhoods nearby that seem to depend on rentals. client went into foreclosure spitting distance from copperfield - home worth under 60k.

in driving around there are a lot less nicer cars than there used to be. the whole area is looking for tired and used up. traffic is horrendous, people use the main roads as commute routes.

i've had my run in with both hard core minority criminal families and white supremacists hard core criminal families. those people are the majority of my clientele but a whole lot of them live there. that is just all my subjective experience. #1 reason i wouldn't live there would be traffic, it's a suburb, and it's really far away. maybe my post is a little stronger than i would usually put it but i just got back from there


as far as "failed suburbs" wasn't Mission Bend supposed to be like a wonderful place sometime ago? that is not far from the city compared to the suburbs that are around now

[Illủmiñatex]

Originally Posted by testmo

i've had my run in with both hard core minority criminal families and white supremacists hard core criminal families. those people are the majority of my clientele but a whole lot of them live there. that is just all my subjective experience. #1 reason i wouldn't live there would be traffic, it's a suburb, and it's really far away. maybe my post is a little stronger than i would usually put it but i just got back from there


as far as "failed suburbs" wasn't Mission Bend supposed to be like a wonderful place sometime ago? that is not far from the city compared to the suburbs that are around now

You seem to know a lot about white supremacy.