Retiree Living in Palestine, Texas (Houston, Dallas: house prices, neighborhood, schools)

[lovegreen]

My husband and I are native Texans who moved away about twenty years ago and moved into Palestine four months ago from the West Coast. We love it. Lots of social interaction in "our" age group and things to do. My husband golfs. Not too far from Dallas and Houston and the house prices are phenomenal. A well-kept secret, actually. We learned that there are more historic homes here than any other location in Texas except Galveston. We have HUGE trees in our yard and very friendly neighbors. Don't know if we would have been this happy before contemplating retirement, but are very satisfied now!

The only drawback to Texas in general is that the property taxes are MUCH higher than the Seattle area where we lived. Believe it or not.

Hope this helps someone!

[4wainwrights]

i am very interested in palestine.
about 3 years ago, palestine came on our radar when my husband and i kept seeing historic houses that we loved there in various forums. at that time we were living in PA and planning a move. we let palestine go after a random person told us that race relations were horrible there and especially so in the schools. we had only seen some houses and figured "oh well" and moved on.
we're living back in our home state of NM; where we moved to be closer to our families. however, itdidn't take us long to figure out that being close to our families does not make up for the lack of grass, shade trees, old european traditioned houses, parks.... palestine has since popped up on our radar several times again. i don't know if we're meant to be there or not.
about a year ago, i asked about palestine on the city-data forum and got lots of feedback from native texans, but no one who lived or has ever lived in palestine. no one seemed particularly positive about it. now, here you are, living there! i'm really hopeful that you might be a wealth of transplant to palestine insights.
we're looking for a lot. i know that no one place is going to offer everything. our "dream list" is :
safety
shady streets
historic houses
Friendly people--my husband's job takes him out of town for months at a time
protestant based churches to choose from w/ larger active congregations
a really great park where kids play
convenient shopping
a population of "at home" moms
a town whose people love america (i'm living near to santa fe, nm and most people are in the "america is a war mongering pit of oppression, racism, sexism, ism, ism, ism and everywhere is better than here")
both my husband and i feel drawn to palestine. i'm just tentative to move somewhere again that we really don't "know". we're stuck in a place that we Hate with a market that makes it look like we'll be here forever! once we get out, i hope to never be in this situation again!
thanks so much. i know this is a long story, but somehow i felt it was all necessary (: hmmm?
(:

[sixzilliondots]

I live in Palestine and I hate it. It's just a bunch of rednecks if you ask me! I have 2 small boys and there is just nothing that good about Palestine that warrants moving here.

safety: Safety is probably the best feature here.
shady streets: yes we have some shady streets but it's just so hot in the summer so the shade really doesn't make a difference.
historic houses: there are lots of these as EVERYTHING in Palestine is "historic", I just call it old.
Friendly people--my husband's job takes him out of town for months at a time
protestant based churches to choose from w/ larger active congregations: I can't say anything good or bad about this because I am not a protestant but no church seems to be very active here.
a really great park where kids play: DEFINATELY NO, the only parks here are pathetic at best. Reagan park is the best park here and it's old and in a bad neighborhood (sp?)
convenient shopping: um no, not unless you consider having to drive an hour and half to see a good shopping mall convenient shopping.
a population of "at home" moms: I wish. I am an at home mom but as far as I can tell I'm the only one that is saying so and no one seems to want to get together.

People are pretty american here, however there is BAD racism here, don't look at the other races wrong or you may start something. Racism is bad still in all southern places though, so I can't pin this one on Palestine.

In conclusion, please do not move here, it sucks and as soon as we can get out we will!

[TexianPatriot]

I'll tell you one thing about east Texas towns. When them friday night lights are on, there are no race relation problems. Football brings people together. It's a way of life. I lived it.

[destin04]

It's all a matter of how you look at it. One thing I can assure you of...the churches in East Texas are very active. There is a church on every corner. We live in the Tyler area...but it's just as the first poster said. Very friendly people, lot's of shade, sweet people, stay at home mom's..shopping is a bit of a challenge but we are only 1.5 hours from the largest shopping mall in Texas. (Stonebriar Mall- Frisco)