Renting, then buying in Houston suburbs. Advice appreciated! (Sugar Land, The Woodlands: rental, relocation company)

[Need2Relocate]

Hello!

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving!

My wife and I are relocating from the NY suburbs to the Houston suburbs. We plan to rent for 6 months or so and use that time to get familiar with the Houston area.

I do most of my work from home, so it's not really necessary for me to be a certain driving distance from anything. My wife will continue her college studies so not being too far from a major college is somewhat important.

I "think" the areas I'd like to live in would be Sugarland, The Woodlands, South Katy area, and possibly Spring. Suggestions are welcome

We'd like a 3+ bedroom, 2+ bath, 2000+ sq ft home with a 2+ attached garage and an inground pool. Some fenced land for our dogs would also be great!

Unfortunately due to time constraints my wife and I cannot visit the areas before we move.

I'd like to find a realtor that can recommend a very safe, nice area with good schools to rent. Hopefully we'll be buying from the same realtor once we're more familiar with Houston.

Any suggestions, guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[EasilyAmused]

Well Sugarland would be the closet burb to Rice, U of H, and Houston Baptist. Maybe South Katy if you got close to the Westpark. The other burbs you listed wouldn't be an wasy drive.

Of course, you never stated your budget. You could live in REALLY nice city neighborhoods and be right nextdoor to Rice.

[sbhubbell]

I live in South Katy and LOVE it. I know there was one house in my neighborhood available to rent that would meat your description, but I don't know much more about it. We were assigned a realtor by our relocation company and she turned out to be fantastic, so if you're gonna be serious about South Katy I'd recommend Unjoo Azbill with Remax...uhhh...I think it's Remax Cinco Ranch on South Mason. The schools here are excellent. My neighbor works at Rice and commutes down there every day, and there is a U of H Cinco Ranch campus.

[ZeroTX]

If you don't care as much about getting INTO the city of Houston regularly, then I'd definitely pick The Woodlands. If you want to be able to easily enter the city for whatever reason, I'd go with Sugar Land. Both are beautiful. The Woodlands has more trees, but is a lot farther from town. Sugar Land is somewhat more expensive on the median home level, but has great schools, shopping, convenient location, etc. Of the two, we picked Sugar Land based on the need to get into Houston easily/quickly.

[Poltracker]

You might want to consider Clear Lake and its proximity to the UH Clear Lake Campus.

[Need2Relocate]

Thank you all for your very quick and courteous responses!

As suggested above, I should have posted my budget.

I'd like to cap it at $2000/month.

Does that eliminate any of the areas that were suggested?

[westres1]

Very hard to find rental with pool in that price range.

[tstone]

HAR.com shows several residential leases under $2k with pools, and that's just in Sugar Land.

http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearchClass7.cfm

[Kappinator]

Originally Posted by Need2Relocate

Hello!

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving!

My wife and I are relocating from the NY suburbs to the Houston suburbs. We plan to rent for 6 months or so and use that time to get familiar with the Houston area.

I do most of my work from home, so it's not really necessary for me to be a certain driving distance from anything. My wife will continue her college studies so not being too far from a major college is somewhat important.

I "think" the areas I'd like to live in would be Sugarland, The Woodlands, South Katy area, and possibly Spring. Suggestions are welcome

We'd like a 3+ bedroom, 2+ bath, 2000+ sq ft home with a 2+ attached garage and an inground pool. Some fenced land for our dogs would also be great!

Unfortunately due to time constraints my wife and I cannot visit the areas before we move.

I'd like to find a realtor that can recommend a very safe, nice area with good schools to rent. Hopefully we'll be buying from the same realtor once we're more familiar with Houston.

Any suggestions, guidance would be greatly appreciated!

I did a quick search. I'm sure there are many more. 19115 Tobacco Rd, Katy, TX 77449

[ZeroTX]

This morning on the radio, at 8:10am, the Sugar land -> Downtown drivetime was quoted at 30 minutes on AM950. That's tyipcal, 30-45 minutes, depending on how heavy traffic is from Sugar Land. Typical from The Woodlands is 1 hour.