Moving San Antonio vs Houston (Port Arthur, Galveston: real estate, houses, landscaping)

[silverbelle]

Hi all, new to this site......We are moving from Memphis TN, wanted to come down to south Texas. Loved San Antonio but my husband's company does not have a job opening, they do however have several in Houston. We will need to live outside the city (we have a couple of horses) and will need a few acers. We currently commute an 1hour one way to our jobs.... I have never been to Houston and the size of it is a little daunting to say the least. Just wanted an opinion of those who know the two cities. Could Houston be a good fit or should we wait for a spot to open in SA??.......Oh yeah, we are in the $250K and less housing catagory....thanks for any info

[Mustang1]

What part of Houston would he be working in? There are some good living options for you with the horses within an hour of downtown.

[txstate]

Some good areas in Fort Bend County less than a hour from the city you can buy acres the best thing to do is to contact a Realtor. Houston Real Estate - Houston Homes, Houston Home Value and Houston Relocation

[Nancy_in_Kingwood]

Another area to consider for an easy communte to downtown is the Kingwood / Humble / Atascocita area. One particular community, Fall Creek, is located right at Highway 59 North and Beltway 8. It's a very nice master planned community featuring many amenities and you could get a beautiful home in the $200-250K range.

[N. Buck]

Land? Horses? 1 Hour commute? Sounds like Tomball to me. Look into it, but txstate made a good point about getting a realtor.

[travelguy_73]

I grew up in SA and still go back to visit my parents, who wouldn't live anywhere else. Aestheticallly, SA is more pleasing, with rolling hills and a more western terrain (at least on the north side of town, where most people live). However, from an economic standpoint, Houston beats SA hands down, and probably always will.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by travelguy_73

I grew up in SA and still go back to visit my parents, who wouldn't live anywhere else. Aestheticallly, SA is more pleasing, with rolling hills and a more western terrain (at least on the north side of town, where most people live). However, from an economic standpoint, Houston beats SA hands down, and probably always will.

How about the housing styles? Are they compareable or completely different?

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

How about the housing styles? Are they compareable or completely different?

Different. Much different.

San Antonio is very much into the spreading Texas Ranch style. You'll see lots of one story limestone houses with silver metal roofs. It's a pretty look. The landscaping in SA is also much more arid. Lots of sages and native grasses. San Antonio also has MUCH deeper Mexican roots so you'll see a lot more mission style houses with red tile roofs.

Houston is more like a part of the old south. Lots of brick houses that are more vertical and traditional. Houston is MUCH wetter and semitropical so you'll see a lot more lush green landscaping including palms and citrus. And probably a lot more flowering plants. Established Houston neighborhoods always seem like they are on the verge of being overgrown by vegetation.

Of course these days the big builders are all going national so you have a lot of merging of regional distinctions into a generic McMansion look that tends to be very similar from Texas to Virginia.

[tstone]

1980's-modern suburban style homes, SA vs. Houston have small differences but are overall pretty similar. That style goes for pretty much all of Texas, though.

There are certain older all-wood-built homes in Houston that remind me of those in Galveston and Port Arthur.

BTW, SA is still ''humid subtropical'' but is on the dry end of that scale, while Houston is on the medium-wet end, Louisiana on the wettest end. SA and the hill country has the occasional rainy off-year that can make the wild vegetation greener than Houston's. I remember this was the case in either 2006 or 2007.