From San Jose in NorCal to SA (San Antonio, Howe: real estate, mortgage)

[srcerebro]

i'm thinking of moving to SA next summer, i currently live in San Jose Ca(SF bay area). is there any one that hade made the move from here to SA that can guive me their imput.
How is SA compare to the bay area?
Good schools?
is it true that housing is chepper in SA?by how much?
any disappointments from SA?

[rd2007]

I moved from Monterey to SA and it's quite a change.. first is the weather. except for this freaky stuff we're having right now, San Antonio is MUCH hotter than San Jose and it's not the dry heat like SJ gets either. Another huge difference is the lack of tech. SA is definitely no SJ in that arena, we don't even have a Fry's.. We're allegedly getting one soon though, I HOPE!!

The housing market is way cheaper here though. I'm guessing the average SJ house has to be at least $500K and for that you can live like a king here.. 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3 car garage, 2 living rooms, media center room 4000+ sq. ft.. no joke

big question though is what work are you looking for? or do you already have something lined up?

oh, and Texas schools are much better than Cali. My kids actually had to work when we moved here. Schools there are awful

major disappointment for me is the lack of tech stores and basically anything tech related and the heat. Summer does not joke around here.. it's nasty hot, except this year

[srcerebro]

Is the weather similar to Maui, hot and huimid? in any case i think we can adjust to it since we really don't like the burning sun in SJ.

Housing is more like 700K, our house is now value at 675K you know the kind of house that was built in the 60's. we are not looking for a palace but just a single house with 3bdr in a nice school distric for my 3,5 and 6 year old kids.

As for work i'm in the middle i desing tools that make the stamp sheet metal parts and injected plastic of our main product PCMCIA cards the ones you can buy at Fry's for your laptop. i do work as a Tool & Die Engineer, but i what to see if i can get into an other field or down size to a Machine shop.

i'm glad that your kids are actually learning at school, yeah the school as a whole here sucks!

i don't know if you been around San Jose but i was raise in the east side(Story & King) and it was not so good.

RD2007 thank you for your comments and i don't what to abuse your kindness but can i ask you some questions.
what kind of work do you do? any danger zones(crime, flood, etc..) in the city? any advise?

[rd2007]

we're all here to be abused

I have no clue on your field, so hopefully someone else can help you with that.
I'm a system administrator for a new project for the Air Force, or defense contractor, take your pick...
I've only been to Oahu and that was in January, it's hotter here and the sun is brutal, when it's out. Right now there is a lot of flooding, especially in the areas outside Bexar County (the county San Antonio is in). I personally would never live near a river or a road that has a flood gauge. we rarely get flooding rains, but we do get them and this is the second time in the 6 years I've lived here, although this time is nowhere near as bad as 2002.
You'll hear a million places to live and all you have to do is mention one you like and you'll get a response. However, if you can afford a $675K house, you'll be living somewhere nice here.. Very few houses are up in that range.. That leads to one problem though, wages here are nowhere near California wages and you should probably look into what you might make before you make a decision to move. I was military in Monterey and here so income was the same and I lived in base housing in Monterey. When I retired here and started looking for a job, I found that the pay was seriously lower than I thought it would be. I thought military people were paid low, but it is pretty good compared to the private sector here.

[srcerebro]

rd2007 thank you for your help!
i was looking in the internet and saw houses that are new or 10 year old that are selling from 150K. is this true or are houses that are in bad part of town from the photos they look really nice much better that what we have here. by the way this was in the north side and the web site is Realtor.com

[smuboy86]

150k homes are usually in good areas. the 70k homes are the ones in bad areas. Look from the far west side to the north to the northeast for homes.

[rd2007]

ha ha ha, yep, $150K will get you quite a bit here and in good areas.
I

[turnerfamily]

I'm finding that you get alot of house for your money but don't leave out the property taxes and the cost for cooling that big house.Those things will always be a constant.Adding 400 to 500 a month for taxes to your mortgage doesn't sound like that good of a deal to me.Can you write off your property taxes in Texas?

[rd2007]

Property taxes are a federal thing, there is no state income tax in Texas..

and yes, Texas does have high property taxes, but it's still better than paying high state income tax like in California and you do use more electricity over here, but he rate is much higher in Cali..

[disappear-here]

Yes you can deduct real estate tax on your federal form.