From Redlands, CA to West Texas (McKinney: renting, home, to buy)

[redcoff]

I recently found these forums and was looking for some help/advice.

My husband is a public school teacher and I am a stay at home mom in Southern California. We have 2 sons and have been renting and saving money for the last 7 years hoping to be able to afford a home someday. We've saved $30,000 to put down on a house, but unfortunately in our state that is a drop in the bucket. We are thinking our downpayment would enable us to buy something nicer there. We currently live in Redlands, California for anyone that is familiar with it and have had the desire to leave the state. So my questions:

For those of you that moved away from family (all my family lives in southern california, specifically my mom and dad) how did you weigh the decision? We don't like the direction of our area but moving away from 2 sets of our kids grandparents is SO hard.

Second, we have family that lives is eastern TX, several hours east of houston and we want to keep a few hundred + miles away from them. That said, we'd prefer to live in northern/western texas. Any advice?

We are looking for a town that is 20,000-60,000 people, has decent schools, is an hour or less drive from a major city and gets seasons. Coming from the Mojave Desert we get 2 seasons, the windy season and 100+ dry heat season.

[achtungpv]

I've been to Redlands several times and am familiar with what amenities you have there. Odds are you'll be bored out of your mind in West Texas or at least frustrated at the lack of conveniences. I'd look at places like McKinney just north of DFW. There are tons of small to mid-size cities around DFW that are very nice, great schools, and are affordable, especially coming from SoCal. You'd have the added benefit of having two major cities within minutes or worst case 1 hour. You should still have a couple hundred miles between you and pesky family too!