Best Smallish Texas Town to Move Business and Family

[StealthRabbit]

Snakes don't limit outdoor activities.

Rare to see them
More rare to encounter them.

Keeping their favorite habitat to a minimum helps. (wood and brush piles)
Chicken coops (fresh eggs) need to have very good snake prevention (buried fine mesh wire around perimeter)
High water can displace them for a few weeks. (to your yard / shop)

In 60 yrs of rural living, I prefer to be within 15 min to town / parts / groc / fuel / medical / college, but still rural.
Plenty of choices in Texas.

Try a few out for awhile. (stay with locals when visiting, NOT hotels.) https://wikitravel.org/en/Hospitality_exchange
Visit the venues, stores, and services you would utilize if living there.

[supfromthesite]

There are good private schools in many of these towns are close by, so that is something to consider too.

Out of all of the hill country, my guess is that New Braunfels has the best (public) schools.

Then again, it is sort of not even a small town anymore :/

[jackalope48]

Little more detail on the business type would help.

Biggest issue I see is the schools and growing community vs. lots of land, shop in the back, and large lot.

Like most places the better schools with growing populations are suburbs. Suburbs also have smaller lots and very restrictive zoning that can knock out a home based manufacturing business.

For example here's a listing for a house I thought of near me in Corpus:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...IWQ1tw#photo36

It checks all your boxes. School district is good. 5 acre lot. Has a pond. 15 minutes from the beach 10 to the boat launch for the Laguna. Under your budget threshold. In a midsize city with entertainment but in a rural area of it. There is a naval air base nearby which limits density of development(won't go suburban) and also provides an influx of people. It's even in the more libertarian part of town in a 50/50 R/D city. 5 minutes to the big city park for kid's sports. Heck the mall is 10 minutes away.

Big caveat is the business. If it's e-commerce don't think that's a problem but zoning is going to heavily restrict shop space in any area with zoning. I was on our ZBA that grants variances and this is the part of town where the neighbors don't really care but it is something you'd have to apply for. Had a funny day once where someone in this neighborhood asked for a variance for a 6k sq. ft. palapa to house their turtles, RV and pottery studio, no one cared and we gave it to them. Case before them was from the canal community on the Island five minutes away and they wanted a variance from the color palette on the zoning overlay the neighborhood had shoehorned the city into passing. Green shutters brought fifty people out to whine.

Truly rural areas will avoid the zoning issue but by their nature the schools won't be good, they won't be growing, and culture will be nearly non existent. Lot's of the "edge" type places you'll look at near growing cities with good schools won't be rural 10 years after you buy.

Like I led with more clarity on the type and operation of the business would help.

Some others in the same neighborhood.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-65100?view=qv

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-29647?view=qv

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by JudgeSmayles

Interesting about the uneven schooling. Thank you! I think we'll need to look for something not quite suburban, but not quite rural. Perhaps smaller town not too far from cities (which is why Hill Country seems to fit).

You can look them up on sites like Niche. For example

Midway (south suburbs and exurbs of Waco):Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site] According to state test scores, 67% of students are at least proficient in math and 63% in reading.

or Crawford (west of Waco):Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site According to state test scores, 75% of students are at least proficient in math and 75% in reading.

Versus....

Mexia (east of Waco) Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site "According to state test scores, 32% of students are at least proficient in math and 37% in reading."

or Mart (south east of Waco)Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site According to state test scores, 30% of students are at least proficient in math and 27% in reading.

And decide for yourself which school environment is best suited for your kids. Which districts are going to devote their resources to accelerated programs, and which are going to devote themselves to remedial programs. I don't think there is anywhere in OR or WA where you will see that kind of discrepancy within a few miles between adjoining districts.

[JudgeSmayles]

Thank you everyone. Lots of good info and links to check.