Going back to the States, bringing an Aussie with me...Austin, or somewhere else in, Texas?

[leliathomas]

Thanks so much, Atxcio! That is some good information! We're finding it hard to find "true" cost of living analyses, as most seem to forget taxes beyond the federal and state levels.

Ideally, we'll be millionaires in a few years' time. :P

[imaterry78259]

Try San Antonio

[Rathagos]

Originally Posted by leliathomas

Any recommendations for places in West Texas? Looked at Midland; it looked pretty good, but some have said it's not as friendly as other places in Texas.

Let me start by saying we're a good distance from any major city (1 1/2 hours from Abilene, 2 1/2 hours from Midland, 3 1/2 hours from San Antonio, and 4-5 hours from Dallas, and about 5 hours from Austin). But if you don't mind the drive you might want to look at San Angelo. The town has over 100,000 people. We have a military base that employs about 10k people. There's a growing population, and in the 10 years I've lived here (I'm retired Navy), I've seen a large growth in the commercial industries.

We have an small airport that supports both American and Continental aircraft. We have a mall with most large chains (Sears, JC Penney, Dilliards, etc.). We have 2 super WalMarts, a Sam's Club (similar to Costco), Best Buy, Ross, etc.

The prices of houses has risen due to the influx of people moving here, but with the recent housing issues (which really haven't reached us yet) there are some that are sitting longer than normal. You can get a virtually new house (4 bedroom, roughly 1600 sqft) in a newer neigborhood (about 10 years old) for about $130k. You can compare that to prices in the major cities.

We were listed a couple years ago as the largest city in the US without a major interstate running through it.

People here are friendly, you can always get a "hello" walking around. We have a city Symphony and a civic Theater. We also are home to Angelo State University, which just signed on as part of the Texas Tech school system.

That all said, I wouldn't want to mislead you. As beautiful as this city is, getting a job (especially in the field of web design/development) are very hard to come by. I work specifically in that field as a contractor on the Air Force base. But I also had 20 years military experience and a clearance (the clearance being key). There are IT type jobs to be found, but the pay is not what you would normally want for that type of work. That said, another factor to remember is the low cost of living for the city. The average income is about $30k-$35k, but pricing for things in the city is adjusted accordingly, of course. As the city continues to grow, however, I believe more and more commercial industries are going to need those type services. 10 years ago we were less than 100k people. But once we hit that magical number, national companies starting looking at us (we popped up on their radar, so to speak), and they started investing here.

A link to our city paper is gosangelo.com and you can look at the ads there. In fact, I would recommend looking at the want ads for work in any city you consider.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

~Rath

[TexasHorseLady]

We pay close to $7,000 in taxes annually on our rental property in Central Austin (Barton Hills, 5 minutes from downtown). That's with no homestead exemption or anything, since we live elsewhere.

We pay maybe a quarter that for our 55 acres with a house in Williamson County because we have both homestead and ag exemptions (and cows and horses and a hay field and such for the ag).

[awecelot]

I consider Midland to be a rather friendly place. Rathagos also mentioned San Angelo, which is a beautiful city but might be a bit small/isolated for your tastes. A good way to research these cities is on the City-Data main page as well as Wikipedia. Also try a Google Image search to get an idea of the aesthetics of these cities.