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And if someone is sure that their job is going to be the same or in the same location for 25 years (how many can say that?), whether that job is downtown or elsewhere (most people in Austin don't work downtown these days in my experience, that perception is a holdover from a time long, long ago when all businesses were "downtown" in whatever community, no longer the case these days), true economy is to live near where you work. As said, that's not always easy these days when someone can change jobs every few years and the new company might be elsewhere. I've had employers decide to move their offices from north to south (from the Northland/Mopac area, across a fence from my house, to the Rollingwood/Mopac area, in one case, because the owner of the company lived in Oak Hill and it was more convenient for them for the offices to be closer). At that time, of course, that added a whole ten minutes to my commute.
So, from that viewpoint, what's less pricey now could become pricey in future. That needs to be factored in, as well.
The mistake you are making is in your sweeping generalizations. You assume that you have factored in the cost of gas, car insurance, and maintenance and that I have not, overlooking these things because I need a big giant house in the 'burbs. I hear your distaste for the stereotypical burbclave and I don't even feel all that different about the stereotype. I think you just need to drop your 'most people in Texas' application and then you'll be making a perfectly fine point, except for your math on transportation costs. Maybe if my wife had a long commute and drove a diamond-studded, unreliable hummer.
FWIW, our situation is that I can either live in town with 1600 sq ft and then buy or rent office space for my business, adding both a commute (though probably a short one) and a whole second set of utilities ... or I could add on another 700-800 sq ft in the house, eliminate both my commute and a second location/utilities, and instead of having a second car (since both my wife and I work) replace it with a motorcycle for the odd occasion when I have to go out beyond bicycle distance during the day ... or if I've just gone stir-crazy from working at home!
Also, your original point was about San Francisco. Living in downtown Austin is possible and affordable for a relatively straightforward sacrifice of space and a not-unreasonable premium for your location. Living in downtown SF (or Brooklyn, or god forbid, NYC) is an order of magnitude more expensive.
My point being that, just as your rationale makes perfect sense for you and your SO, there are plenty of equally valid reasons not to do what you are doing that do not land you in the camp of stereotypical fat Texan with a McMansion and two giant pickup trucks that get driven all over creation. You may think that my case is an outlier because I work from home and own a business. Ten years ago (when I started) you'd have been correct -- nowadays it's more common than you might imagine.
If having an extra 700 or even 1000 square feet for the same price as living in town means that I have everything I need to coordinate a tech company with workers and clients all over the country and not have to commute anywhere, that's a good trade-off in my book.
FYI, auto and homeowner's insurance are both considerably cheaper for me in 78739 than they would be if I lived in town. The only two things that are more (and they're not tiny things) are maintenance and gas, but the latter isn't a problem for me.
I can confirm that I have many clients who are looking for a home with an office (or two!) for just that reason - they may not own the business, but they work from home, and the business is in California, or D.C., or Florida, or even in Austin and they can work from home most days of the month - even office meetings are being held virtually these days! This is something that can make my earlier point invalid - if the homeowner works from home, if their industry makes that feasible, then anywhere they buy can be equally cost-effective for them.
My point being that, just as your rationale makes perfect sense for you and your SO, there are plenty of equally valid reasons not to do what you are doing that do not land you in the camp of stereotypical fat Texan with a McMansion and two giant pickup trucks that get driven all over creation. You may think that my case is an outlier because I work from home and own a business. Ten years ago (when I started) you'd have been correct -- nowadays it's more common than you might imagine.
Yes, it's becoming more common, but working and officing at home are not yet par for the course. When more people (rather than less) telecommute, it really doesn't matter where you life, as long as you can afford it. And I am a HUGE proponent of telecommuting, lemme tell you! I strongly believe that if at all possible, people should be allowed to work at least one day from home, if not more.
OK. Tell you what then: I won't assume you're a coke-bottle-glasses, skinny-jeans wearing judgmental urbanite hipster if you don't assume that I'm a ginormous, truck-loving, mansion-needing white-bred twit.
From the people I've talked to in Circle C so far, we're not unusual in not having to commute into town. We are a bit unusual in that we don't have kids and don't plan on having them anytime soon. That is a little weird. But I think our neighbors will get over it.
OK. Tell you what then: I won't assume you're a coke-bottle-glasses, skinny-jeans wearing judgmental urbanite hipster if you don't assume that I'm a ginormous, truck-loving, mansion-needing white-bred twit.
From the people I've talked to in Circle C so far, we're not unusual in not having to commute into town. We are a bit unusual in that we don't have kids and don't plan on having them anytime soon. That is a little weird. But I think our neighbors will get over it.
No, no, that would be me! Except for the mansion-needing part (our house was built sometime in the early part of the last century and, at about 1600 sq. ft. if you don't count the attic, is the largest house we've ever lived in in the last 40 years of marriage and raising two kids). Or the white-bread part (DH has started making the most wonderful focaccia lately that just makes me wriggle, though he is working on a white sandwich loaf).
I do love my Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins diesel pickup, and drive it almost everywhere, though. Of course, I'm combining three, four, five, six trips in one every time I leave the place, many of them involving the need for a pickup bed. Do a LOT of my work from my home office. That help?
That's the big difference between Texas (and other parts of the South) and the Northeast: hardly anybody out here NEEDS a hummer or a suburban, but you see plenty of them.
I assume that there is generally more call to pick things up and move them around in your truck in Texas than in Philadelphia.
OK. Tell you what then: I won't assume you're a coke-bottle-glasses, skinny-jeans wearing judgmental urbanite hipster if you don't assume that I'm a ginormous, truck-loving, mansion-needing white-bred twit.
From the people I've talked to in Circle C so far, we're not unusual in not having to commute into town. We are a bit unusual in that we don't have kids and don't plan on having them anytime soon. That is a little weird. But I think our neighbors will get over it.
LOL! Please don't do that! I am certainly no hipster. My mom grew up in Clarksville back when it didn't have paved roads or running sewer lines. When I was a kid, I lived in what most people today would consider "substandard floorspace." My childhood home — a 2/1 — was smaller than my current apartment, and my parents shared a car. We all survived.
I've lived here most of my adult life, even when the neighborhood was still considered the shady part of town where less wealthy people lived.
Some people see where I live as prime real estate, an "investment." Those may or may not be "hipsters," but I can assure you, they typically aren't local. But this is my home. Big difference.
You mentioned that your wife and you don't plan to have children, and that's a huge strike against living in certain types of areas challenging for us — not just in Austin, but in any city, in the U.S. or abroad. Downtown is too "young" and party-ish, and the 'burbs are too slow/family-oriented. There are very few neighborhoods in Austin that are ideal for couples like us.
LOL! Please don't do that! I am certainly no hipster. My mom grew up in Clarksville back when it didn't have paved roads or running sewer lines. When I was a kid, I lived in what most people today would consider "substandard floorspace." My childhood home — a 2/1 — was smaller than my current apartment, and my parents shared a car. We all survived.
I've lived here most of my adult life, even when the neighborhood was still considered the shady part of town where less wealthy people lived.
Some people see where I live as prime real estate, an "investment." Those may or may not be "hipsters," but I can assure you, they typically aren't local. But this is my home. Big difference.
You mentioned that your wife and you don't plan to have children, and that's a huge strike against living in certain types of areas challenging for us — not just in Austin, but in any city, in the U.S. or abroad. Downtown is too "young" and party-ish, and the 'burbs are too slow/family-oriented. There are very few neighborhoods in Austin that are ideal for couples like us.
Except (just popped over here from the diversity thread), one of the things about Austin that I've observed over the past 40 plus years of living here is that all sorts of people live in all sorts of neighborhoods - there's no (or didn't use to be - that might be changing as people and developers move in who are used to a more "ghettoish" arrangement) neighborhoods that are "just for" a certain demographic. Might be more families in a neighborhood near a school, for obvious reasons, but they are just as likely to be a gay couple with kids or a single parent with kids, and there's as likely to be a sprinkling of couples with no children in there as not. We raised our two all around Austin, including five minutes from downtown, quite successfully, and our neighbors in every neighborhood were a hodge podge of different kinds of folks. That's one of the things that makes Austin what it is, in my experience. People care about are you a good neighbor, not your politics, or your sexual orientation, or your marital status, or whether you have kids or not. As I said, this may be changing with the major influx of people from elsewhere with different ways of seeing the world, but that's how I've experienced it over the past four decades.
There are very few neighborhoods in Austin that are ideal for couples like us.
Sure, but I think that's because of us, not because of neighborhoods. Having people in their late 20s/early 30s with good jobs and some disposable income who don't plan on kids was unheard of until the last generation or two, and we're still a minority. I guess maybe where we differ is that I don't mind living around other people who have kids. We may not be on board for 'please show us every new picture of your baby/toddler since we were last here' but I appreciate that most people in our position do have kids and it's a huge deal for them.
One thing I like about Austin is that, even if you're in an unusual demographic, you're less likely to be the only one in that demographic regardless of your neighborhood. If I stayed where I grew up in Delaware, for example, I'd definitely be the only dude in the residential area with no kids and no commute!
As far as investments go, my in-laws (and me, to a lesser extent) have been involved in real estate investments over the last few years, and everything we've heard about Austin is that it is not a hot spot for an investment property. Not that it's bad, and I think if you really know the area you can make good money off rental properties, but if your plan is to buy, hold for a couple years, and then sell, I wouldn't look in Austin. I guess it's fine to feel protective of your 'hood when you see rich folks from out of state coming in and looking to buy a place and flip it, but I haven't seen much evidence of Austin transforming noticeably because of that.
Sure, but I think that's because of us, not because of neighborhoods. Having people in their late 20s/early 30s with good jobs and some disposable income who don't plan on kids was unheard of until the last generation or two, and we're still a minority. I guess maybe where we differ is that I don't mind living around other people who have kids. We may not be on board for 'please show us every new picture of your baby/toddler since we were last here' but I appreciate that most people in our position do have kids and it's a huge deal for them.
One thing I like about Austin is that, even if you're in an unusual demographic, you're less likely to be the only one in that demographic regardless of your neighborhood. If I stayed where I grew up in Delaware, for example, I'd definitely be the only dude in the residential area with no kids and no commute!
As far as investments go, my in-laws (and me, to a lesser extent) have been involved in real estate investments over the last few years, and everything we've heard about Austin is that it is not a hot spot for an investment property. Not that it's bad, and I think if you really know the area you can make good money off rental properties, but if your plan is to buy, hold for a couple years, and then sell, I wouldn't look in Austin. I guess it's fine to feel protective of your 'hood when you see rich folks from out of state coming in and looking to buy a place and flip it, but I haven't seen much evidence of Austin transforming noticeably because of that.
I've seen some of that happening in Clarksville. There have been a few instances of out-of-towners buying property here and leveling historic homes — OK, so these homes are on the smaller side — so they can put up a big McMansion, and it's caused a stir in our neighborhood association. With every older home that gets destroyed, the flavor of the neighborhood changes ever so slightly ...
As far as my S.O. and I are concerned, the fewer children around, the better. If you have a loud neighbor who's making a lot of noise at 2 a.m., that's an easy call — summon the police, call the landlord, get those people O-U-T. But if the neighbors have a crying baby that keeps us up all night? There's nothing that can be done except suck it up.
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