Considering moving to TX from CA looking for insight! (Witchita Falls) (Houston: real estate, 2014)

[CosmicCowboy]

My wife and I are looking to start a family relatively soon. We're both starting to settle into our careers, and we're looking at our options. We both lived in Sacramento area our entire lives, but both grew up in a (what used to be..) small town with tight knit communities, good schools, and generally safe to let your kids roam around because everyone knew everyone.

We both desperately want a similar experience for our future kids. However, it goes without saying that we may be searching for a very long time if se decide to stay here. The places we can afford are okay, but it's still not ideal. My Dad told me a while back that he'd had his eye on TX for a few years as his retirement plan. Nice neighborhoods, good people, friendly to self employed, all great things.

We've been looking at Witchita Falls for a while. I wanted to ask a few questions to people who actually know the areas to get some insight.

How would you describe people on average up there? Any major gang/drug issues? How would you rate the schools? On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being Mayberry, 10 being Detroit), how would you describe the safety?
Again we're particularly interested in Witchita Falls.. But if there is such a place that you'd deem worthy of the Mayberry title.. We'll gladly welcome the suggestion!

I know a lot of this info is available on this site. But I'd much rather read real experiences and see how those match up with the data.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! I'd appreciate any help we can get in figuring out if this is going to be a good fit.

[ChristieP]

WHY would you pick Wichita Falls?!? It is definitely not one of the better cities in Texas for many reasons. Wichita Falls is 2 hours' drive away from Fort Worth, and even further from Dallas. Have you found jobs there? Do you have a budget in mind for housing?

[q32]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

WHY would you pick Wichita Falls?!? It is definitely not one of the better cities in Texas for many reasons. Wichita Falls is 2 hours' drive away from Fort Worth, and even further from Dallas. Have you found jobs there? Do you have a budget in mind for housing?

I'm not as familiar with Wichita Falls, but I do know that it has a low cost of living and a low unemployment rate. The two hours distance thing is definitely personal preference. Some prefer to be in big cities, while I and many others actually prefer the midsize cities (no rush hour traffic, yay!)

Some other good midsize cities in the region to look at: Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, and San Angelo.

Here are the adjusted crime rates for 2012, where 301 is the USA average:
Lubbock: 477.8
Amarillo: 427.2
Wichita Falls: 371.2
Abilene: 295.9
San Angelo: 268.8

Here are the 2012 adjusted cost-of-living rates, where 100 is the USA average:
Lubbock: 85.5
Amarillo: 85.1
San Angelo: 84.9
Wichita Falls: 84.1
Abilene: 83.5

School district rankings, within the state of Texas (Lubbock and Abilene both have multiple districts within city limits):
Abilene-Wylie: #28 (For the south side of Abilene)
Lubbock-Cooper: #74 (For the far south side of Lubbock)
Amarillo: #370
Abilene: #484
San Angelo: #508
Wichita Falls: #557
Lubbock: #661

Each of those districts, even on the lower end, all have some excellent schools if you pick neighborhoods that feed the way you want them to. Part of it really depends on what you are used to and what aspects of public education are your priorities.

Part of the reason that Lubbock & Amarillo are higher for crime rate and COL may be because they have larger populations - on the plus side, those cities will have more to offer in terms of shopping, dining, etc., although you'll do fine in any of these cities.

People out here are very friendly, in my experience, and it is easy to get connected (no real 'anti-native' sentiment, unless you come saying how much you hate Texas and can't stand it here - then people might get a bit defensive. Texas pride and all )

I know I tended a bit more on the data side here, but let me know if you have other questions and I'll do my best to answer them - best of luck if you end up moving this way!

[Mark Senior]

You like no trees to speak of, no lush landscape and no humidity, dusty and really hot? You know anything about Tyler or Longview in beautiful East Texas, really everything is there that you are talking about and more. Smaller places around Tyler are really nice with good schools. Lindale, Bullard, Whitehouse

[poodlestix]

When we lived in Houston, we had to evacuate for Hurricane Rita (1995). We ended up staying a few days in Palestine. I cannot begin to describe how impressed I was with the beauty of that small town! If I were to move to Texas again and didn't need to be in or near a big city for work, it would be my pick!

[CosmicCowboy]

Thank you everyone for your replies! The more I dig, the less appealing WF feels. We'd originally thought of WF because that's where my Dad had planned on going when He retires, and we're big on being close to family. My sister is also thinking about moving to TX. I'll be honest, I'm pretty ignorant to the area in general.

I don't mind heat or dead scenery. I lived in Tempe AZ for a bit while I was going to school. 110 heat doesn't scare me!

We're sure we'll do fine getting along with people. We're about as close to middle of the road as you can get politically/socially. We're very respectful of everyone.

As far as jobs go, I'm not concerned. I'm self employed and I work remotely. As long as theres an internet connection,I'm good! This is proving to be a huge advantage. My wife is currently going back to school, but her study is in pastry arts, I'd think she could probably get a gig generally anywhere that sells baked goods, but she doesn't need to work, so either way it's fine if we don't find something for her immediately.

Where it comes to being out in the middle of nowhere.. That was one of the perks. We're both small town kids. We don't care too much for being in the city. We wouldn't mind a metro area, we're cool with suburbs, we're just exploring our options.

Our budget is somewhere between $100-195k for a home.

The more I dig, the more I feel apprehensive about WF. We were drawn to it again by a vague suggestion and a quick search on real estate sites, prices look great. But perhaps theres better options to explore.

Thank you all for your suggestions! I'm going to start digging into your suggestions @q232 and @poodlestix I'm going to look into Palestine!

[txsizzler]

I lived in Wichita Falls for 15 years (1994-2009). Wichita Falls is not a bad little community. It has been slow on growth, due largely to "old money" that runs large sections of town, which is largely why downtown is so dilapidated. However, it is changing, and it is evident when you are on I-44 from Burkburnett, going into Wichita Falls, and to where it changes to Hwy 287.

Wichita Falls, at present, is going through its worst drought in history. Combined water capacity, from the 3 surface supplies, are just a dime over 20% at present. Wichita Falls is going through pilot studies on water reuse, which is to say that it will take the discharge from the wastewater plants and cycle it back through to make a potable water supply (which is not ANYTHING as bad as people make it out to be... more cities should be doing this!!). Give WF some credit, they are trying to take control of the bleak situation.

Wichita Falls has a very low cost of living compared with many other cities. Your budget will buy a pretty nice home there, especially on the southwest side, and the developing SE side of town. If you'd prefer to live closer to the base, you have lots of options there too.

The heat.. what can one say about the the heat.. it varies from year to year there. One summer, I think WF only hit the 100s on three occasions. In the summer of 2000, it happened 72 times. And, in 2011 (IIRC), it did the feat no less than 100 times!!! The average summer there sees 36 days of 100 degree plus temps. That, combined with somewhat higher humidity than what you'd see in AZ, and you have the ingredients for misery. Fortunately, the wind blows pretty constantly, so it does mitigate the heat a bit. Winters can be from very cold to relatively warm, with Spring being a changeable time of year (Warm/Hot/Chilly) with Fall being by far the best time of year. Tornadoes are always a concern there, as you are on the south end of Tornado Alley. Research the April 1979 tornado that ripped through WF. Its an eye opener for sure!

Don't completely take WF off your list. Just be sure to visit other communities as well. I miss WF sometimes. It has a unique way of life that you don't find in many other parts of the state.

Feel free to ask me questions if you need to know more!

[CptnRn]

Wichita Falls is having a major drought and difficulties finding water for the community.

Environment and green stories - weather.com.

[CosmicCowboy]

@txsizzler thank you for your insight! Yeah, I didn't take humidity into consideration! That really does sound like a recipe for misery. It sounds like we're just gonna have to take a trip down there to check it all out. Tornados..that's definitely something I didn't think about.. We're definitely going to do a lot more research. Well everyone has been just extremely helpful! Thank you all so much. We feel much more enlightened about the area for sure!

I may post back in a couple weeks with more questions about other areas. We're going back into "dig mode" for a bit!

Thanks again, everyone! One thing for sure, we can't wait to get out of California

[naj609]

Don't come to Wichita Falls, you'll regret it, pass this information along to your Dad as well!

We've been stuck here in WF for almost a year & we HATE it! We live in Tanglewood, which has tons of beautiful homes & is close to the busy part of town. The downside : our water bill, lack of community/neighborhood friendliness, lack of things to do & we just learned our daughter will be bused to the ghetto school(thanks to "diversity")! MANY FOUNDATIONS, EVEN ON THESE BEAUTIFUL HOMES, ARE IN TROUBLE DUE TO THE DROUGHT

Water is gone, they've just recycled toilet water back to us. Water was brown for a week & now smells like wet dog. They are raising the water bill 53%, stage 5 drought to save water, yet fine us since they aren't making enough $! We're a family of 3, now pay $100, hope to be gone before the raise!!

If you want to go out to eat, deal with SMOKING (it's still allowed for 2 more year's) & shop at a big box store....you'll love it, that's all there is to do. Not many parks or things going on.

I worked finance for 20 years, never had a problem finding work, until here. My hubs job transferred us & I'm currently a SAHM. I can't even get my foot in the door at a hospital here doing grunt work! There are already two bakeries in town, which doesn't hire out & I'm anticipating one to close within a few months. Donuts are the draw here, mostly by the Asian community. Your wife will have difficulty,I think.

We're praying & working our butts off to get a transfer anywhere else, it's just miserable! Especially, as stated above about the weather....it just keeps getting freaking HOTTER w/o any water!