Moving:Arizona vs. Texas (Houston, Dallas: for sale, real estate, apartments)

[jcolvin86]

Hey all,
I am a Law Enforcement graduate with an interest in joining a local police department in the future. My wife is interested in teaching and is currently in school to get her degree. We both are from the Chicago-land area but are interested in moving to either Arizona or Texas to really start our lives out as we are a young couple 23yoa-25yoa. We both are interested in moving south to a warmer climate as well as hopefully finding more opportunities. I would like some feedback on a few things...

1. Employment opportunities
2. Cost of living both housing(taxes included) and daily necessities
3. Quality location for raising a family(i.e. education, crime)

We are both from towns with a population between 15k-30k and would like to move to a town with similar population. Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Willsson]

There must be dozens of towns in Texas that would meet your criteria. I would suggest you send off now for your Texas Travel Guide. That's not to be glib, but you might first want to decide what part of Texas would suit your preferences. The Travel Guide can help to define those areas for you.

Next, I would use an map of Texas, a Google map would do, and study the interstate highway patterns. I-10 runs from Houston to San Antonio (actually from Louisiana to New Mexico), I-45 from Houston to Dallas and I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas (actually Mexico to Oklahoma). These interstates form a central business district for Texas and where most of the growth takes place. There is also growth on those interstates beyond those major cities I have cited, ie, Tyler, Beaumont, Mineral Wells.

Between the Travel Guide and interstate highway you can find and focus on lifestyle preferences. Humid, arid, rainy, dry, urban, rural. Find something interesting to you and ask more questions here.

With Texas in a constant state of growth, job opportunities increase most anywhere.
There is no state income tax in Texas but there is a sales tax on sales, about 8+%, not to include food or drugs. Property taxes vary according to location which pay for schools and local services.

Start with Georgetown, near Austin.

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by tofurkey

There must be dozens of towns in Texas that would meet your criteria. I would suggest you send off now for your Texas Travel Guide. That's not to be glib, but you might first want to decide what part of Texas would suit your preferences. The Travel Guide can help to define those areas for you.

Next, I would use an map of Texas, a Google map would do, and study the interstate highway patterns. I-10 runs from Houston to San Antonio (actually from Louisiana to New Mexico), I-45 from Houston to Dallas and I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas (actually Mexico to Oklahoma). These interstates for a central business district for Texas and where most of the growth takes place. There is also growth on those interstates beyond those major cities I have cited, ie, Tyler, Beaumont, Mineral Wells.

Between the Travel Guide and interstate highway you can find and focus on lifestyle preferences. Humid, arid, rainy, dry, urban, rural. Find something interesting to you and ask more questions here.

With Texas in a constant state of growth, job opportunities increase most anywhere.
There is no state income tax in Texas but there is a sales tax on sales, about 8+%, not to include food or drugs. Property taxes vary according to location which pay for schools and local services.

Start with Georgetown, near Austin.

Good advice! My first most useful book about TX was the Travel Guide. It fed my interest in TX history which lead me to read several more books about it.

[Willsson]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

Good advice! My first most useful book about TX was the Travel Guide. It fed my interest in TX history which lead me to read several more books about it.

Cool. Thanx. You might also be interested in the Texas State Historical Association website. I often use links from the handbook when responding in the forum.

For instance, having grown up in Abilene, I link to info on the Callahan Divide, a range of hills that separates the Brazos River and Colorado River water sheds. The Brazos River flows west to east nearly to Fort Worth where it heads south to the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish explorers named it Las Brazas del Dio, the Arms of God. Historically, I've crossed the Brazos multi-dozens of times when travel about the state. Each crossing I honk my horn to announce myself. To me crossing the Brazos being like heading out the back door of the house, or re-entering.

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by jcolvin86

Hey all,
I am a Law Enforcement graduate with an interest in joining a local police department in the future. My wife is interested in teaching and is currently in school to get her degree. We both are from the Chicago-land area but are interested in moving to either Arizona or Texas to really start our lives out as we are a young couple 23yoa-25yoa. We both are interested in moving south to a warmer climate as well as hopefully finding more opportunities. I would like some feedback on a few things...

1. Employment opportunities
2. Cost of living both housing(taxes included) and daily necessities
3. Quality location for raising a family(i.e. education, crime)

We are both from towns with a population between 15k-30k and would like to move to a town with similar population. Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I once lived in Arizona, working as a land surveyor all over the state, so I got to know most of it pretty well. There are parts of it I might be willing to move back to if I could not make a go of it in Texas, but that is not likely to happen. The economy and real estate bubble in AZ has been hit so much harder, it's recovery is predicted to be much slower and longer then TX.

TX is way ahead in job growth and having a healthy economy in comparison to most any other state. I greatly prefer Texas to AZ, for one thing, even though it gets hot here, there are numerous lakes, rivers, springs and other natural places where you can enjoy water sports in TX. That is the key to being able to enjoy being outdoors in the summer time. You can't do that in most of AZ, the only water sports are mostly limited to man made parks.

Texas is such a big and diverse place, its hard to recommend just one place for you. Plus you are asking for a lot of specific detail even thouhgh you can't narrow your interest areas down much. For towns in the size you are looking for, take a look at the City-Data demographics page here http://www.city-data.com/city/Texas.html , that page lists the towns & populations and links to the detailed demographics for each place (cost of living, poverty level, mean income, mean housing costs, race, education levels, etc., etc.) Use this link to find out what the tax rates are. Local Sales and Use Tax

A few towns that that I would suggest you look at (places close to your size range, and where I would be willing to live) are Boerne, Canyon Lake, Corsicana, Elgin, Hunstville, Kerrville, Lockhart, Lakeway, LagoVista, Marble Falls, Nacogdoches, Port Lavaca, Rockport/Fulton, San Marcos, Sequin, South Padre Island, Taylor, Texarkana. I'm sure there are more but those are a few that I like. NOTE: the size range you specified overlooks some really nice places to live like Bastrop ... and a few others that skip my mind at the moment.

In regard to your wife's interest in teaching. Things are not currently good here in TX, like many other states the State government is looking at major funding cutbacks that will effect all educational organizations. This is because substantial amounts of the state budget comes from sales taxes, which have dropped as people have cut back drasticaly during this recession. I expect that this will improve in 2-3 years but the outlook for new teachers entering the profession is not good right now.

Search teaching: http://www.city-data.com/forum/searc...rchid=29270700

[h886]

Ditto on the comments about the teaching field. If it's really important that your wife work (at least in the immediate future), you'll want to apply for jobs and pick a town based on where she can find work, not the other way around--choosing a town and hoping she finds something there.

Or things may be in better shape 3+ years down the line... just make sure you're looking at the reality, not what it was 10 years ago.

[dee936]

How are yall, I want to say Nacogdoches/lufkin area in east texas pinywoods meet your requirements they are about 10 mins from each other have national retailers and malls in both citys university in nacogdoches which name is stephen f austin univ.Nacogdoches has the highest hills in east texas with houses and apartments on them area lakes the largest in texas lake sam rayburn and lots of festival in nacogdoches blueberry fest in summer brings about 20,000 visitors the nine flags fest in december which brings around 15,000 the multicultral fest going on now that brings thousands and the city has red bricks and a lot of history.Has tons of apartments,condos etc... at least 200 of variety. Side walk friendly they are every. National resturants to name a few chilis,ihop,fuddrukers,asian city, etc........tons of shopping walmart of course,belks,jcpennys,bealls etc.....plus kmart is still open in lufkin.They are friendly people in the area close to houston hour and a half away an hour from shreveport and about an hour and half from dallas.Boths citys has loops 224 nac and 287 lufkin,both have to major hospitials with major medical area. An Nacogdoches is home of clint dempesey who play for usa soccer and the oldest city in texas at night you can see views of the city at night on the hills beautiful choose NaCoGoDoChEs texas Almost forgot us census says that nacogdoches pop is 33,ooo and lufkin is 35,ooo

[jcolvin86]

Thank you very much for the suggestions. It sounds like Texas has a little more to offer than Arizona at this time with employment as well as cost of living. Thank you very much for the suggestions on city's/towns. I started going through them all on the city-data homepage but it will take forever getting through all of them. Your suggestions gave me a nice place to start. I have heard good things about the Austin area as they seem to be developing/growing the most, what about Houston. Does Houston have any areas that are developing fast, i.e. North,South,West,East. Also, any suggestions on websites to use for looking into housing?

[CptnRn]

All of the major Texas cities have good job growth and are doing better then cities in most other states.

You can use this one for apartments, condo's or houses for rent as well as for sale.

Zillow - Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Home Prices & Values

[jcolvin86]

Thank You CptnRn. Any suggestions on living on the south, north, west, or east side of Houston. I am kind of leaning toward the South side but didnt know if it was like the south side of Chicago, meaning the worse of the 4 sides to live?