Considering relocating to Austin, TX from CA (real estate, apartments)

[awondering]

Hello All!
My husband and I are considering moving to Texas for many reasons. We are currently living in Roseville, Ca which is a suburb of Sacramento. We are both unemployed and living with my father-in-law. Needless to say, the job prospects here are nearly non-existent. Ultimately, we are looking for an inexpensive place to live with a reasonable job market. We are used to living in extremely safe and uneventful suburbia.
I should probably mention our ages, I am 22 and DH is 24. He is looking into going to school for engineering and I am planning on being a stay-at-home mom when the time comes. We are friendly people who would appreciate friendly, outgoing neighbors.
I am wondering what the best places to live in Austin are. Is Austin safe? I like to jog outside. How is the job market? Is it an expensive place to live, in comparison to CA?
What are some VERY safe suburban areas to live in that have low unemployment, good job prospects and low living costs? We are tired of how expensive CA is!
Any help is VERY much appreciated! Thank you!!!

[cmaxmor]

Wellll......Austin has done okay with the economy in the crapper, but it hasn't done great. You can go through this forum from just the last 30 days and see many people like yourself who want to move but have no job lined up. You will also see lots of people who finally made the move here with no job and still can't find one.
If you are going to go to school, get accepted first. Then line up financial aid and housing. If you are not going to school, then I would make sure to have a job lined up or a significant amount of savings. Not to get personal, but why are you guys unemployed? It will extra hard to get a job here, even a low paying one, without experience in whatever it is you want to do.

[awondering]

Thank you for responding, cmaxmor. We are unemployed because we were both laid off from our positions. I have administrative assistant experience and my husband has managerial experience in grocery and food service. The unemployment rate here is hovering around 14%, and it especially bad in the Sacramento area because of all of the gov't lay-offs. From my research it looks like Austin's unemployment rate is around 7%. Its hard to imagine that finding a job there could be any harder than finding a job here. Most job ads for administrative assistants here get 400-600 applicants within a couple of days! Thank you for your response, but I have to hope that somewhere is better than here.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by awondering

Thank you for responding, cmaxmor. We are unemployed because we were both laid off from our positions. I have administrative assistant experience and my husband has managerial experience in grocery and food service. The unemployment rate here is hovering around 14%, and it especially bad in the Sacramento area because of all of the gov't lay-offs. From my research it looks like Austin's unemployment rate is around 7%. Its hard to imagine that finding a job there could be any harder than finding a job here. Most job ads for administrative assistants here get 400-600 applicants within a couple of days! Thank you for your response, but I have to hope that somewhere is better than here.

whole foods is opening a couple of new locations, I hear that they are a great place to work.

Austin is extremely safe and has a ton of affordable california like suburbs (unfortunately). The towns up north are cedar park/leander, west are dripping springs, lakeway and south you dont actually need to be in a different city to get affordable suburbs. You can easily find a house for around $100/sq ft. and sometimes less.

I believe the new whole foods will be south and west.

[h886]

I have to agree with the others. The job prospects in Austin are probably better than in Sacramento, but that does not mean you're going to find work. There is lots of competition for every job, even jobs that many wouldn't have once wanted. You'd be competing against people with similar education, experience AND the possibility of connections in the area.

The key thing I read is that right now, you have a place to live with family (who won't let you starve.) You may not be making any money, but at least you have a roof over your head and food. If you move out here, you're going to have to pay rent and will have no assistance. Additionally, you mentioned that you wanted nice, very safe neighborhoods. Obviously those areas don't tend to be the very cheapest in town.

If one of you can find a job, then I would move. But under no circumstances would I move without an actual job lined up. Several neighbors have relatives who have tried moving out here in the hopes of finding something... and they haven't.

[cmaxmor]

RE: Whole foods jobs and such.
I have several friends who work at WF. They are very picky about who they hire and it is not easy to get in. They, also, have many applicants for each job. There is also a certain "friend" aspect to the hiring that may make it hard to even get in the door. If you can do it, great, but like I said....it's not easy.
RE: Unemployment rate.
It may say that it's low, but you aren't taking into account the number of students here. There are 1000's of UT students/recent grads who will work for free or at a cut rate. Just because the % is low, doesn't mean that the people are making a living wage. It isn't impossible, but without savings to back you up for a few months, it will be very difficult.
RE: Housing.
If you are youngish and want to have a social life, you are going to want to stay out of the 'burbs. There are many apartments and homes in Austin proper that would be much more suited for your age group. I speak from experience.
Here is a place you can look at rentals here in Austin:
Austin real estate search (http://austinhomesearch.com/Static/homeset.aspx - broken link)

[mark311]

Originally Posted by awondering

I am wondering what the best places to live in Austin are. Is Austin safe? I like to jog outside. How is the job market? Is it an expensive place to live, in comparison to CA?
What are some VERY safe suburban areas to live in that have low unemployment, good job prospects and low living costs? We are tired of how expensive CA is!

The Austin area definitely has less expensive housing than the more expensive areas of California. I'm wondering how cheap the suburbs of Sacramento are nowadays? You can get a nice house in a safe suburb of Austin for around $200K (or less if you don't mind living pretty far from dowtown), but you will be in a suburb. There are also homes available in the same suburbs for $400K-$500K, so it's not like there are cheap mansions in this area. I think that you can find a nice safe apartment for about $800 per month.

Almost all of the Austin suburbs are very safe. The job prospect thing is another issue. You'll have a lot of competition from college educated graduates from the high concentration of Universities in the Austin area.

[sliverbox]

At this point I'd be willing to bet that Sacramento is actually closer to being the same cost as Austin. I myself live in the Bay Area and am constantly amazed that these days there are pretty decent houses in Sacramento for $200k-$250k. One thing you really need to carefully consider is that TX has high real estate taxes. A "boring" 200k house in the Austin burbs will cost you $6,000 a year in taxes.

I too tried to get a job in Austin when I was laid off last year. I had a MUCH easier time getting a new job here in Cali versus Austin. That and the typical job I applied for in Austin paid a LOT less-as in 50% less.

Thus I would almost wager that Austin might be more expensive than Sac- all things considered.

Lastly- I would not move without a job first. Like I said- it was not at all easy for me to even get an email response from any jobs I applied for in Austin.

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by awondering

Hello All!
My husband and I are considering moving to Texas for many reasons. We are currently living in Roseville, Ca which is a suburb of Sacramento. We are both unemployed and living with my father-in-law. Needless to say, the job prospects here are nearly non-existent. Ultimately, we are looking for an inexpensive place to live with a reasonable job market. We are used to living in extremely safe and uneventful suburbia.
I should probably mention our ages, I am 22 and DH is 24. He is looking into going to school for engineering and I am planning on being a stay-at-home mom when the time comes. We are friendly people who would appreciate friendly, outgoing neighbors.
I am wondering what the best places to live in Austin are. Is Austin safe? I like to jog outside. How is the job market? Is it an expensive place to live, in comparison to CA?
What are some VERY safe suburban areas to live in that have low unemployment, good job prospects and low living costs? We are tired of how expensive CA is!
Any help is VERY much appreciated! Thank you!!!

who ISN"T moving here from california?

[hound 109]

Originally Posted by sliverbox

At this point I'd be willing to bet that Sacramento is actually closer to being the same cost as Austin. I myself live in the Bay Area and am constantly amazed that these days there are pretty decent houses in Sacramento for $200k-$250k. One thing you really need to carefully consider is that TX has high real estate taxes. A "boring" 200k house in the Austin burbs will cost you $6,000 a year in taxes.

I too tried to get a job in Austin when I was laid off last year. I had a MUCH easier time getting a new job here in Cali versus Austin. That and the typical job I applied for in Austin paid a LOT less-as in 50% less.

Thus I would almost wager that Austin might be more expensive than Sac- all things considered.

Lastly- I would not move without a job first. Like I said- it was not at all easy for me to even get an email response from any jobs I applied for in Austin.

I pretty much agree with all silverbox says.

But a 200K home (in the burbs) given the 2.2-2.6% rate will have Property Taxes closer to 4.8K - 5.2K...fwiw.