Questions about College Station (Houston, Bryan: sales, rentals, vehicle registration)

[Bufford]

Thinking about relocating to the College Station area. It's been about 18 years since I've been there. Probably has changed a lot! Could someone tell me if you have emissions check in your county. Also is vehicle registration a set fee for all or does it depend on the vehicle? Is your sales tax also on food? I've heard that the job market is good there compared to other places. Is this true? Thanks in advance for your help,

[wade_word]

What do you plan to do when you get there? What are you looking for?

[John Shaft]

There are now FOUR Freebirds locations in B/CS. Probably the most important thing to know.

[Bufford]

Originally Posted by John Shaft

There are now FOUR Freebirds locations in B/CS. Probably the most important thing to know.

What are Freebirds?

[jeffari-al-texani]

Originally Posted by Bufford

What are Freebirds?

It's a restaurant...they serve burritos that are larger than your arm!!!

[streetscenes]

Originally Posted by John Shaft

There are now FOUR Freebirds locations in B/CS. Probably the most important thing to know.

4 Freebirds in BCS. That's alot of rice and beans, damn. I think the original in Goleta near UCSB is now gone.

[Synopsis]

I don't know about College Station per say, but I like Texas A&M. It's a great University.

[lonestar2007]

Originally Posted by Bufford

Thinking about relocating to the College Station area. It's been about 18 years since I've been there. Probably has changed a lot! Could someone tell me if you have emissions check in your county. Also is vehicle registration a set fee for all or does it depend on the vehicle? Is your sales tax also on food? I've heard that the job market is good there compared to other places. Is this true? Thanks in advance for your help,

I can tell you the vehicle registration fee depends on the vehicle. You also will be required to have a safety inspection yearly, but I don't know if they're requiring the emissions test or not, but I think they're trying to get it to be a requirement all over the state, I know they finally got us a few years ago (Johnson County). Hopefully someone in the area will let you know.

You will be taxed on prepared food, i.e. fast foods, restaurants, and also some food items (but not many) in the grocery stores.

Maybe someone in the area can help you out on the job situation, but Texas overall is faring a lot better in these bad times than most of the nation, I think.

[john4355]

I live in Bryan. As of now, you don't have to get an emissions test for vehicles, just a yearly safety test.

[tstone]

If you drive around CS you'll probably notice many of the locally-owned businesses are gone, replaced by slews of chain stores & restaurants, with a couple laser hair removal centers snuck in there. This development has been going on like crazy over the past 12 years at least. CS, outside of A&M, almost feels like an extremely far-flung suburb of Houston nowadays. Pretty generic.

Unemployment is super-low and always has been... anyone can get a job at one of these establishments while living there. The constant turnover of students hires staff ensures plenty of jobs. There is work @ A&M as staff too, but the pay isn't always great. A&M doesn't have any competition from other like establishments except maybe Blinn. If you don't have a PhD or know someone in a professional business, CS can be a very stagnant place. Look in these articles:

college station underemployment - Google Search

Call me pessimstic or whatever other adjective I've been labeled with regarding the info I post about this town, but the truth is right there and everyone knows it.

On the positive side, nice rentals can be found cheap. Dirt cheap!! It doesn't take much to be somewhat comfortable there, and it's easy to turn content. CS is somewhat of a trap in that regard.

I will say CS was great when I went to school there, until about age 23. When I started adult life there, it sucked. The problem was all mine though, having too high career ambitions and too aggressive an attitude. Hence why I'm not there anymore.