River Towns vs. Sound Towns - Transplant from Houston

[LawDog2014]

Ok - to answer the previous posts/replies:

1) Houston has 8 million people. What I pay in my neighborhood, is not necessarily common, but the area we pay is the highest taxed area in the state. On a million dollar house, you will pay about $40,000/yr in taxes. This is over looked so often when people think of Houston as a very low cost of living b/c there are so many areas with much lower taxes (think 2.4-3%) of property value.

2) As far as rental budget is concerned -I "prefer" not to pay more than $5k/mo. Anything more I pay is money I could use towards renovations on my purchase the following year. So while the $7k/mo rental may be nice, and I could justify it financially, it just doesn't make sense to throw $24k away when I could use that on, say, an upgraded kitchen or bathroom in my house that we buy the next year.

3) "...homes in the millions on teeny weeny lots.." --- I don't know what is considered small around here, but in Houston, a huge lot is 10,000-15,000 sqft. I have 11,000 sqft which is gigantic compared with the standard 7500-9000 sqft lots the majority of the city has.

Toured Larchmont today and the sidewalk factor is huge for me. It appeared to be a very walk-able town. That is key for the kids and their ability to be able to make friends, and acclimate into a totally different environment.

[malasa]

Street smart had very good points about larchmont / mamaroneck schools and general feel about the villages
For the schools .. Go and research PTA and SEPTA links on the elementary schools web sites ... You can even request the visit to the schools ...

[bg7]

40K on a 1 million house? Wow, and I thought NY had the market cornered on high property taxes.

I totally agree re. walkability. I live in Rye Neck which is part of Mamaroneck (but not part of the Mamaroneck/Larchmont schools, it has its own small school system). All the schools here are within under a square mile - and all walkable on sidewalks! Tho many of the kids bike. All their friends are within the same area so they meet and see each other all the time, or are bumping into each other at Street fairs on Mamaroneck avenue or the sports leagues in the park. The community among the kids is great, and I think part of that is because its so easy for them to see each other, no dependency on parents having to shuttle them around. So I totally second the walkable notion.

[malasa]

Regarding the rentals available in Larchmont , you can find good rentals 3-4 bedrooms up to
$6k / mo in larchmont $5K / mo could be challenging