Austin ExPat Escape Plan - 2018 Version (rent, houses, neighborhoods)

[m1a1mg]

Originally Posted by cBach

The Christmas festival is wonderful, there is no Christmas festival even close to how good that festival is.

You really need to get out more.

[homeinatx]

I plan to retire in 10 years or so, and might just stay here in Austin, but increasingly I have been fantasizing about buying an old colonial home in the heart of Merida in the Yucatan: beautiful, totally walkable, friendly and chill people, spectacular food, enough amenities but still mellow, close to great beaches but far enough inland that storm surges and rising sea levels won't be a problem, and safe, a violent crime rate in 2017 a little lower than that in Austin, a good international airport, and dang your dollar goes far.

Financially, property taxes here will be a killer once I am no longer working, so if appreciation continues at a steady clip, I could sell the downtown Austin condo and have enough to buy a place in Merida and a small studio or one bedroom apartment somewhere on the north side of Chicago. Chicago is my favorite city in the U.S., except for November to April. So summers in Chicago and winters in Merida.

If I were looking for a place in the U.S., that was Austin lite. I would look seriously at Tulsa, where I have been spending some time recently. Green, hilly and a river runs through it. Downtown Tulsa reminds me of the Austin when I arrived in 2001, still too many parking lots, but a great homegrown live-music scene and a terrific burgeoning restaurant scene, (God bless millennials, a generation that knows and cares about food and coffee), comparable if not better high cultural amenities than Austin. The BOK center makes the Long Center look positively shabby. And the historic built environment in central Tulsa is much more attractive than in Austin: the oil boom in the 1920s and 30s produced a range of gorgeous Art Deco stuff. There a handful of good gay bars. No traffic to speak of, parking anywhere is a doddle, and the easiest airport in America. Plus their new riverside park reminds me of the Ladybird Hike and Bike trail, except much less crowded.

Problem it is in Oklahoma, which is right wing nutty in palpable ways. Roads are shocking. They are better in Merida. Public schools, even in the rich parts of south Tulsa are apparently terrible, and many public schools in Oklahoma are only open 4 days a week, because there is no will to raise the tax money to educate children. Also much of the north side of Tulsa looks bombed out and opioid/methy in a way that i have never seen anywhere in Texas. Plus I have been asked twice by people I have just met where I go to church: something that has never happened to me in the 17 years I have lived in Austin... I fear the hypocrisy quotient might get on my nerves after a while

All that said, I was surprised by how much I liked Tulsa, and how much it reminded me of Austin in the early 2000s.

[AguaDulce]

I lived in Austin for 32 years. I left in 2016. When it's time to leave Milwaukee (probably 2021), Lafayette is looking like a possibility for my retirement. They are a fun loving bunch there. Cajun-flavored southern hospitality with much less of the judgmental Bible-belt vibe than other southern towns. Close to New Orleans, close enough to Houston and Austin. And they even have a Whole Foods Market. (Not as good as Central Market, but pretty good.)

[cBach]

Originally Posted by AguaDulce

I lived in Austin for 32 years. I left in 2016. When it's time to leave Milwaukee (probably 2021), Lafayette is looking like a possibility for my retirement. They are a fun loving bunch there. Cajun-flavored southern hospitality with much less of the judgmental Bible-belt vibe than other southern towns. Close to New Orleans, close enough to Houston and Austin. And they even have a Whole Foods Market. (Not as good as Central Market, but pretty good.)

Why do you think you'll leave Milwaukee?

Lafayette even has a Chuy's too if you do move there!

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ch...!4d-92.0470492

[AguaDulce]

Originally Posted by cBach

Why do you think you'll leave Milwaukee?

Lafayette even has a Chuy's too if you do move there!

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ch...!4d-92.0470492

I'm just a southerner at heart. Fifth generation Texas gal. Love brought me up here. And we both want to retire somewhere warm. We're both musicians with day jobs.

[AguaDulce]

Incidentally I was born in Houston in 1965, went to junior high and high school in Victoria, and lived in Austin from 1984-2016. My people are all from East Texas and the Houston area. Cajuns and Louisiana people are kindred spirits to me.

[riaelise]

I'm a New Yorker and have only lived in the City of Austin for a year, so I guess my thoughts don't count.

My retirement dream is to buy an older home in either Georgetown or Taylor. With an acre of land. Or Marble Falls. I don't want to live in a city.

I don't want to leave Texas, and want to live a nice quiet life when I'm older, which is funny given that I was born in New York City, specifically the Bronx. I'd get laughed out of town if I said this to my fellow Bronxites.

[earthisle]

Originally Posted by riaelise

I'm a New Yorker and have only lived in the City of Austin for a year, so I guess my thoughts don't count.

My retirement dream is to buy an older home in either Georgetown or Taylor. With an acre of land. Or Marble Falls. I don't want to live in a city.

I don't want to leave Texas, and want to live a nice quiet life when I'm older, which is funny given that I was born in New York City, specifically the Bronx. I'd get laughed out of town if I said this to my fellow Bronxites.

That's interesting that you think of Georgetown and Taylor as quiet. Georgetown is split by one of the busiest highways in the country. Texas isn't really quiet anywhere except the literal middle of nowhere, every town has a highway or major road going through it.

Other states have real isolated towns and neighborhoods because of natural topography and patterns of development

[cBach]

Originally Posted by earthisle

That's interesting that you think of Georgetown and Taylor as quiet. Georgetown is split by one of the busiest highways in the country. Texas isn't really quiet anywhere except the literal middle of nowhere, every town has a highway or major road going through it.

Other states have real isolated towns and neighborhoods because of natural topography and patterns of development

Natchitoches is a quiet town - oh wait, I-49 goes through the far west side of town.

No seriously, I don't think an interstate highway disqualifies a town. If anything it makes getting out of town and going somewhere else easier.

To kind of prove my point...

Natchitoches incorporated this area west of town when I-49 went through it so they could tax the hotels and gas stations:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/I-...!4d-93.1544341

(Lot of hotels for small little town...)

But rest assured, it's downtown is still quaint and quiet:
https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7612...7i13312!8i6656

[ATX Wahine]

Originally Posted by riaelise

I'm a New Yorker and have only lived in the City of Austin for a year, so I guess my thoughts don't count.

My retirement dream is to buy an older home in either Georgetown or Taylor. With an acre of land. Or Marble Falls. I don't want to live in a city.

I don't want to leave Texas, and want to live a nice quiet life when I'm older, which is funny given that I was born in New York City, specifically the Bronx. I'd get laughed out of town if I said this to my fellow Bronxites.

I was born and raised in San Francisco - lived there 38 years - and told my native-Austinite husband when I agreed to move here 12 years ago that I HAD to at least have a bit more room than in SF. Like you, I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. We ended up on a couple acres in SW Austin - West Oak Hill. It’s everything I ever dreamed of! They will pull my dead cold body from this house - I’m never, ever moving.