Moving to Houston from Alberta - questions galore (The Woodlands, Missouri City: apartments, power lines)

[Premont]

A lot of the oil related jobs in Houston are on the west side in the energy corridor. If you worked there The Woodlands, Kingwood, or Pearland would be too far. You'd probably want to live in the west side of Houston or Katy. Houston's really spread out so you may not need to go to downtown too often. I live on the west side and I rarely go downtown. Cinco Ranch is a good place to research if you work in the energy corridor. If you work downtown then look into The Woodlands or Kingwood.

[mikeyyc]

I am from Calgary, work for a services company, just relocated to Houston in November, and will close on my home tomorrow.

I would be happy to discuss the entire thing with you if you like.

Mike

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by teatime

I agree with Landaux. I have a good friend who lives in Calgary and she could NOT handle the humidity of East Texas when she visited. You might want to check out West Texas where the winters are still mild, there is much less humidity, and there are still jobs in the oil industry. The cost of living in West Texas is much lower, too. Shoot, for the amount of money you're willing to spend for housing, you could buy a really nice ranch in West Texas!

Or Southern California. I didn't know there was so much oil in the Los Angeles Basin. Is that why some Houstonians (like Howard Hughes) and other Texans migrated to California early in the 20th Century? Oxy has their headquarters at the entrance of UCLA in Westwood, Los Angeles--just down Wilshire Blvd from Downtown Beverly Hills (location of the famous Rodeo Drive). There was (or still is) some drilling at Signal Hill near Long Beach. (Found that out at the People's Trust CU website.)

[losttrini]

OK tons of advice from everyone. Really letting me realise I have definitely been listening to the wrong people or that the friends advising me are too new themselves to know better.
I based house prices on what I've seen in searches in the Woodland areas and I figure once I move I want to be as comfortable as possible and only a fellow Albertan will understand the crazy real estate market I am coming from. Where I am 3 bed , 1800 sq ft is worth 800K.
THat being said I am going to take a look at some of the areas suggested here.
The fun thing is I am flexible as to where I am located but the spouse has to decide if to accept a transfer or take another offer.
This is really going to take some planning and i realise that the housing decision will come from the job and not the other way because of how much bigger the Houston area is.
So let me get on the hubby's case for him to make a decision and then Ill be better able to plan the rest of the move.....

[karuna95]

The midtown area may also be an option, and Metrorail is available along Main St. Many new townhomes and condos. Slightly outside the 610 Loop is Westbury neighborhood, where you can get a nice-sized lot for your money. The heat is really intolerable for about 6-8 weeks in the year. At other times, it's hot, but not like Phoenix, stick-your-head-in-the-oven hot. I actually like the humidity - keeps my skin from drying out
If you are determined to live in the burbs, one option is working a flexible schedule, so that you can get to work either very early or later in the day, i.e. 9am or 6:30am. That way you can avoid a lot of the traffic. Good luck!
I love being able to grow things year-round in Houston.

[snappy]

As an Albertan who lived in The Woodlands for 7 years I can highly recommend it. (By the way where the heck in Alberta has it been -30- -14 for the past 9 days??) The Woodlands is a fantastic family oriented community. Not sure if I would move there again if I had no kids. Although given that I have so many friends there now I probably would.

Whoever mentioned it is right about the heat. The summers are hellish. Be prepared for $500 month electrical bill for running the AC in summer and its not an option. That said I did acclimatize. After 7 years the summer were sort of bearable. But November to May was fantastic.

Taxes are another thing too. Much higher in The Woodlands than Calgary. We paid $10,000 (just under) a year for property tax ($8000 something) and Woodlands Association levies($1000 something). That gave us sparkling clean streets and pathways though. Guys in golf carts went around regularly picking up garbage and road kill!! Seriously.

Other housing costs related to the heat are having to replace appliances like furnaces and AC units more regularly than you would think. Furnaces and hot water heaters are usually in the attic(no basements remember). The intense heat in the summer is magnified up there and things wear out a lot faster.

Home insurance ran about double. If I pay $600 a year here it was $1200 there. I found car insurance a bit higher too.

When we went there the Cdn dollar was only about .65 so it seemed like we were making a lot more $$ but with the dollar at parity now I would say you would find the cost of living there a bit higher. In relative terms that is if you are converting back and forth which you tend to do for a while for comparison.

Cheap cheap cheap eating out in restaurants compared to here. And fantastic Mexican food. Cheap cloths and better quality cottons. I miss those things. I found grocery prices fairly similar.

Given your 3-600K alloted for housing you will find something VERY nice and large. WE had a 3000 sq. ft place with pool and 3 times the yard I have here for $325,000. A 3000 sq. ft. place there is on the small side. In The Woodlands anyways.

Keep in mind that The Woodlands is expensive compared to areas around it, but not necessarily compared to other outlying suburbs. I thought is was worth being in the Woodlands.

Good luck with you decision.

[canukgal]

Hello fellow Albertans!

We recently moved to Houston and would be happy to answer any questions you have. I used to live in both Calgary and Edmonton. Where are you from - sorry I didn't see it in any of the posts?

We decided to live in Benders Landing after living in The Woodlands for several months. We love The Woodlands and Benders Landing but we only decided on Benders Landing because we could get an acre of land within our price range.

If you are from Calgary, Benders Landing is like Elbow Valley Estates but with better access to downtown. It takes me about 30-35 minutes to get downtown (I take the Hardy Toll Road) so is very quick. If you are from Edmonton, Benders Landing is similar to Sturgeon Estates. All have larger luxury homes on large parcels of land.

We looked for almost a year before buying a house here. We looked ALL over Houston but it boiled down to what we were priorities for us. We looked in Tanglewood, Mid-town, Braeswood, River Oaks, The Heights, Medical Centre area, and a bunch of other areas closer to town. We thought living down in Texas would give us the opportunity to be mortgage free, so we were working with about $700k and yes we could have bought a house closer to downtown. BUT we also wanted a min. of 3000 sqft, a newer/functional home, good access to downtown and a very large yard (at least 1/2 an acre). Also keep in mind that there are no basements in Houston so when I say 3000 sqft that's the same as owning a newer 2000 sqft home with a usable basement (big windows and professionally finished) in Alberta.

Because we wanted all that, we weren't able to find something closer to downtown. I'm sure there will be an anomaly and we may have missed one or two that would have fit everything we were looking for but not during the one year that we searched.

How much time have you spent in Houston? For what it’s worth, I’m very happy that we moved down here. I NEVER want to go through another winter again… well maybe in 5 yrs when it will be more of a novelty again. Hahaha. We’ve been warned about the brutal summer heat but to be honest we spent a week here in August and it was fine. Yes, it was hot but no my skin did not melt off. What Houstonians don’t realize is that they have it really good. In Edmonton, we are almost guaranteed to be snow free for 3 months. In Houston, its supposed horrible for 3 months but the rest of the time including Dec/Jan/Feb you can spend many days outside having lunch or dinner – by Canadian standards that is. If it’s at least +17’C outside I’m out there enjoying the weather. So, it’s not perfect in Texas but the weather is SO much better than Alberta’s.

If you have any other questions feel free to send them my way and I can give you our experience with it. I can also give you some tips about setting up your utilities because they won't check your Canadian credit and banking.

[jimboburnsy]

All previous posts notwithstanding, the energy sector jobs away from Houston are not necessarily going to be the "onward and upward" sort and there will be quite a bit less opportunity. Further, $300-$600K will buy a nice ranch that is 200 miles from the nearest post office. Land is expensive if people want to live there. If you are considering West Texas, keep in mind that the oil jobs are going to be in Midland (no trees, no grass). I would advise you to expand your search to include Ft. Worth. The city has real seasons, a rich history, a laid back attitude, LOTS of oil work, a bit of traffic but NOTHING like H-Town, and your money for housing will go as far or farther than it will here. It is close to awful Dallas, but the two cities are diametrically opposed as far as culture goes. Do you work for a service company at present? Are you an engineer?

[greenie]

I am originally from Canada as well and now live in The Woodlands. We LOVE it, and many other Canadians live here in our neighbourhood too. Hubby takes the Park n Ride. 45 mins door to door from home to office. He loves it. (And this is coming from someone who loves driving his car!) For other Canadian specific questions like visa's etc, I suggest checking out this group on meetup.com: "The Houston Expat Canadian Meetup Group".

[EasilyAmused]

Lots of oil and gas companies are moving into the Energy Corridor. There is no Express Bus to the Energy Corridor. Live in Katy, Memorial or the EC area to avoid the 90 minute drive from the NW.The commute from The Woodlands is hell.