College Student transferring from CA to Austin TX (Houston, Spring: transplants, apartment)
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So I am a 20 year old college student looking to move to Austin TEXAS! I am a small town CA girl. Born and raised in CA. I absolutely love CA and honestly believe it is perfect considering we have the beach and mountains so close by (approx. 1.5/2 hours away from where I live) Although I love CA and all my family lives here I am ready for that next step and really want to go to my dream college which is University of Texas at Austin. Considering I won't be a TX resident I am hoping to establish residency by living and working there for a year (2017) and then entering UT in the Spring or fall of 2018. I plan on staying in TX and not moving back to CA. IF I ever do move back it won't be for A LONG TIME AFTER.
I do work now (as a receptionist at a doctors office) while going to school as a full time student, I do have bills (although not as large as rent since I am still at home) so I partly understand the struggle and how hard it will be at first. I'm looking for a reasonably priced apartment. I don't care about the night life, not much of a partier. But I do love running trails, outdoor type stuff, and of course being near shopping areas would be nice.
So basically I won't know anyone besides one person (a friend who lives a couple hours away from Austin).
Are there any tips for a young adult like me moving out for the first time?
How I should go about apartment hunting?
Best area for a young adult?
How to go about finding roommates (for cheaper rent)?
Pro's and con's of Austin?
How's Austin weather?
ALSO which areas are prone to flooding??? I would LOVE to keep clear of renting near those types of areas lol.
Which jobs could provide the best benefits/pay for a young adult living alone?
Thank you all so much in advanced! I really appreciate this whole forum website. Definitely helps out a ton!
So I am a 20 year old college student looking to move to Austin TEXAS! I am a small town CA girl. Born and raised in CA. I absolutely love CA and honestly believe it is perfect considering we have the beach and mountains so close by (approx. 1.5/2 hours away from where I live) Although I love CA and all my family lives here I am ready for that next step and really want to go to my dream college which is University of Texas at Austin. Considering I won't be a TX resident I am hoping to establish residency by living and working there for a year (2017) and then entering UT in the Spring or fall of 2018. I plan on staying in TX and not moving back to CA. IF I ever do move back it won't be for A LONG TIME AFTER.
I do work now (as a receptionist at a doctors office) while going to school as a full time student, I do have bills (although not as large as rent since I am still at home) so I partly understand the struggle and how hard it will be at first. I'm looking for a reasonably priced apartment. I don't care about the night life, not much of a partier. But I do love running trails, outdoor type stuff, and of course being near shopping areas would be nice.
So basically I won't know anyone besides one person (a friend who lives a couple hours away from Austin).
Are there any tips for a young adult like me moving out for the first time?
How I should go about apartment hunting?
Best area for a young adult?
How to go about finding roommates (for cheaper rent)?
Pro's and con's of Austin?
How's Austin weather?
ALSO which areas are prone to flooding??? I would LOVE to keep clear of renting near those types of areas lol.
Which jobs could provide the best benefits/pay for a young adult living alone?
Thank you all so much in advanced! I really appreciate this whole forum website. Definitely helps out a ton!
The first thing you should be asking yourself is if your test scores and GPA would make it likely for you to be accepted into UT. Texas is a selective university, with the largest majority of undergrads auto admitted directly from Texas high schools because their GPAs placed them in the top 7% of their class. Non-auto admit GPA and test score stats get into the lower end of the neighborhood of the Cal and UCLA admission stats. Will you be able to compete with those?
Flooding fears are exaggerated. Rent price fears are not. This is not a budget town rent wise. The average one bedroom rent as of October was $1236. There are many lower, but there's no way of telling whether you'd like their condition or location. I really don't know what the best way to for a transplant to find a roommate would be. I'd use an apartment locator to find an apartment though. They're free.
Wages are very depressed because it's the trendy town everyone wants to move to and many are willing to take lower pay to be here. With your entry level skills and education, I'm sure you'll be able to find a job but be aware that the pay may be a lot less than you're expecting. Combine that with high rents and it may be a financial struggle, especially for someone who's been living at home previously.
You will find the weather here both significantly warmer and colder than you are used to. Everything from humid summer days over 100 degrees and winter nights in the low 20s.
You will find the weather here both significantly warmer and colder than you are used to. Everything from humid summer days over 100 degrees and winter nights in the low 20s.
That depends on where in Ca she is moving from. 1 1/2 to 2 hours from the beach puts her more inland, and Ca weather away from the coast can be very similar to Austin. I recently moved from Sacramento and found the summer to be just as hot, with maybe a few more days over a 100 and slightly more humid. I think there was only one day that I felt the humidity was crazy. This winter (which I don't know how normal it is) is pretty much winter in the Sacramento area.
You never said where from CA you are...it can make a big difference 1 1/2 to 2 hours from the beach is definitely inland. But inland Sacramento and inland El Centro are very different climes. There's a good chance things are very much dryer that far in, so you will have to learn to deal with a little humidity but not a lot (not like Houston). I personally love that it's not dry-you-into-a-prune weather here except for a few days here and there.
Are there any tips for a young adult like me moving out for the first time?
Have you established credit? It would help to show a good track record for paying bills.
Best area for a young adult?
Honestly depends on what you are into and your priorities. You can live outside of Austin if you don't mind commuting to the downtown activities. That would help the cost of rent, but you would have to have a car. In all reality, a car is just about a necessity. I know folks who commute with a bike but still have a car for the longer jaunts that inevitably happen.
Pro's and con's of Austin?
This is so dependent on where you're coming from and what you see as pro and con
Traffic has become abysmal here in the last 8 years. People are moving to Austin in what seems to be droves. One headline at the grocery aisle said about 100 people a day are moving here. That's a lot of people to house and build/rebuild infrastructure for. Thread headlines here include titles like "Where do Old Time Austinites move?" because it's definitely changing. For some, change is a pro, for some, a con.
Pros that haven't changed:
- The great outdoors. Austin is very protective of it. The COA is working to improve it (that's a bit of a con to me, but pro for more people).
- The people are still great. I think, for the most part, people are still staying chill and friendly. I *think* I can still go into a fancy restaurant in my jeans and not have people bat an eye. But that might be changing, too.
- Austin in pretty close to the center of TX. That means, within a few hours' drive, you have a lot of very varied terrain to explore. A *lot*. The state does a great job of maintaining parks that offer a ton of activities and there are a lot of them.
- The food. It took a while for us to adjust, but we eventually got into our grocery shopping groove to find the produce and food we like to eat. It's readily available and there are lots of farmers markets in a lot of areas on different days. There's a big emphasis on local produce which I think is a huge pro.
- The restaurants. If you love food, you will have a great time with all the many options we have here. Good seafood may not be as plentiful as on the coast of CA and it might be more $ (logically), but it is possible to get.
Cons:
- Traffic.
- I suspect that we are moving to a more consumer-y culture. I may have to get dressed up in a nice dress to go to a nice restaurant soon. I want to be really wrong, though.
- Weather. This is a con for a lot of people. Not everyone can get used to a bit of humidity and temps of 110+ in August. We've gotten more rain recently, but at the height of the drought, it was so sad to see dry riverbeds with docks just sitting there. Before they were dry, they were mosquito breeding grounds which is really not great.
- Critters. Chances are, because it's more likely dry where you're from, you haven't encountered quite as many bugs as you would here in Austin. I personally don't mind (I've only had one encounter with a wild scorpion) but you may. Mosquitoes are very common outdoors from spring through fall. I think they're the worst of it because they tend to make their presence known. Same with fire ants but you can avoid them just by keeping an eye out.
- Allergies. There's a saying that if you never had allergies before, you will soon after moving here. It's the heavy population of "cedar" (they're really junipers) and the very happy oak trees that shed pollen each year. They're particularly pollen-y after a lot of rain. I personally don't get bothered (been here 8 years) but pretty much most people I know who are transplants deal with this. A friend from No. Cal. has a son who has to use a nebulizer during cedar fever season. Not fun.
I know I didn't get to all your questions since I've never been single and looking for work here in Austin. But I know that rents here are high due to population increase (supply and demand and taxes and increasing costs all that). Just one transplant's opinions
That depends on where in Ca she is moving from. 1 1/2 to 2 hours from the beach puts her more inland, and Ca weather away from the coast can be very similar to Austin. I recently moved from Sacramento and found the summer to be just as hot, with maybe a few more days over a 100 and slightly more humid. I think there was only one day that I felt the humidity was crazy. This winter (which I don't know how normal it is) is pretty much winter in the Sacramento area.
To the OP... Good luck on your move!
I took it to mean she lives 1-1/2 to two hours away from both the beach and mountains.
Could be Elsinore or Hemet or El Centro-ish (though both of the latter are probably closer to the mountains). If it's any town that uses the 91 to get to the beach then...rush hour traffic around Austin is just another day to her.
But the weather? Not so much. I think we get it nicer here in Austin because we have some relief with a little humidity. Dessert-y weather is not my bag, though. We also don't get the awful smog pile up that Riverside county gets, nor do we deal with Santa Ana winds.
As someone from CA that moved here to Austin, I wouldn't recommend it. I am, in fact so fed up with this state that I'm moving back to Cali this summer.
CONS
- Texans hate Californians. Period. They are constantly complaining about how Californians have ruined their precious lone star state;
- The state of Texas generally is not friendly to economically challenged individuals who are trying to better their economic status. In other words, if you are financially well-off and already have established a high paying career for yourself, you may succeed here and like it. However, if you are young and poor, good luck with being able to better your situation here, jobs do not pay well;
- The weather absolutely sucks compared to CA. It gets MUCH hotter then what you are used to in the summer and MUCH colder than what yo are used to in the winter. Not to mention the humidity and the allergy issue. You may not have allergies now but you will develop allergies when you move here;
- The traffic is horrific. I read that it's the third worst traffic city in the country. L.A. is first, DC is second, Austin is third. If you currently live in L.A. then you're used to much worse;
- Texan Pride. It's annoying how everyone from here insists that everything is "bigger and better" here. LOL, but they've never been anywhere else to compare it to. Please people... get over it;
- People here worship football;
- It's a red state;
- Everything is closed on Sunday;
PROS
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