Dallas versus Southern California (Richardson, McKinney: college, tornado, living)

[sberdrow]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

I say this all the time, and you elude to it here then falter on the logic. If the ratio is 3:1, and you were happy with a $600K home in CA, why would you need three times more home in TX? To make an apples-to-appleas comparison, you need to compare equivalent homes. Price is irrelevant. A $200K home in TX is, by your admittance, comparable to a $600K home in CA:

- In TX, you'll pay $4500-5000 in taxes on a $200K home.
- In CA, you'll pay $6000 in taxes on a $600K home.

Since these two homes are comparable, you actually pay LESS in taxes in TX for the same type of home. Comparing a 1500 sq ft home in CA ($600K) to a 4500 sq ft home in TX ($600K) is apples-to-oranges.

Keep in mind a bigger home = bigger heating/cooling bills, more maintenance and my least favorite... more CLEANING!!! Also, so add that into your budget when shopping. As I always say, get what you NEED, not what you WANT and you'll do just fine and have lots left over to do renovations, take vacations and go to dinner/movies... those are the things that will improve your quality of life (IMO).

EXAMPLE:

There's two houses in my neighborhood of Lake Highlands (inside Dallas proper) for sale. It's inside the 635 loop and there's definitely some good things happening in the area (in 2010/2011, the Lake Highlands Town Center will be completed, which includes retail, small office space and residential... along with a new light rail station). One of the houses is ~2800 sq ft, but looks like it's in need of some updating; one is ~2200 sq ft and looks very nice, well maintained and updated (even has a metal roof - basically impervious to hail and lowers your cooling bills). Both homes are in the $275-280K range - if anyone is looking, they're both in the 75231 area code on Larkspur. We are also about 10 miles from downtown and have great freeway access (Central/75, I-635 and Northwest Highway are just minutes away). This is very affordable living "inside the loop". $101-120/sq ft (of course if you want to offer more, that's wonderful... push up my resale value please... haha). I can't imagine getting housing at this price anywhere this close to a major downtown area.

Brian

Brian, Do you actually want them relocating from cali to dallas. There is no advantage to that. Let them think that Dallas is a real hell hole and that Cali is the dream of the USA. If the prop tax keeps them out, then thats even beter. Pretty soon ya'll have to change the name Los Angedallas, Or Texifornia. On the other side of the coin, better that they filter into Dallas, than Colorado, where I will be living. I understand the math on the taxes, but theres no reason they need too.

[socketz]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

I say this all the time, and you elude to it here then falter on the logic. If the ratio is 3:1, and you were happy with a $600K home in CA, why would you need three times more home in TX? To make an apples-to-appleas comparison, you need to compare equivalent homes. Price is irrelevant. A $200K home in TX is, by your admittance, comparable to a $600K home in CA:

- In TX, you'll pay $5000-5500 in taxes on a $200K home.
- In CA, you'll pay $6000 in taxes on a $600K home.

Since these two homes are comparable, you actually pay LESS in taxes in TX for the same type of home. Comparing a 1500 sq ft home in CA ($600K) to a 4500 sq ft home in TX ($600K) is apples-to-oranges.

Keep in mind a bigger home = bigger heating/cooling bills, more maintenance and my least favorite... more CLEANING!!! Also, so add that into your budget when shopping. As I always say, get what you NEED, not what you WANT and you'll do just fine and have lots left over to do renovations, take vacations and go to dinner/movies... those are the things that will improve your quality of life (IMO).

EXAMPLE:

There's two houses in my neighborhood of Lake Highlands (inside Dallas proper) for sale. It's inside the 635 loop and there's definitely some good things happening in the area (in 2010/2011, the Lake Highlands Town Center will be completed, which includes retail, small office space and residential... along with a new light rail station). One of the houses is ~2800 sq ft, but looks like it's in need of some updating; one is ~2200 sq ft and looks very nice, well maintained and updated (even has a metal roof - basically impervious to hail and lowers your cooling bills). Both homes are in the $275-280K range - if anyone is looking, they're both in the 75231 area code on Larkspur. We are also about 10 miles from downtown and have great freeway access (Central/75, I-635 and Northwest Highway are just minutes away). This is very affordable living "inside the loop". $101-120/sq ft (of course if you want to offer more, that's wonderful... push up my resale value please... haha). I can't imagine getting housing at this price anywhere this close to a major downtown area.

Brian

I compared the 300k home I'm buying to a 900k home that's equiv.

So the logic is the same. My 650k home was 4Bdr/2Ba, 200 Sq/ft in a great school district. So if you mapped that to say something smaller in the better parts of Central Plano or West Allen, I think that you'd find it to be like 250kish.

[lh_newbie]

Originally Posted by sberdrow

Brian, Do you actually want them relocating from cali to dallas. There is no advantage to that. Let them think that Dallas is a real hell hole and that Cali is the dream of the USA. If the prop tax keeps them out, then thats even beter. Pretty soon ya'll have to change the name Los Angedallas, Or Texifornia. On the other side of the coin, better that they filter into Dallas, than Colorado, where I will be living. I understand the math on the taxes, but theres no reason they need too.

Oh, sorry. Dallas is a horrible place to live. Texas is hot and miserable. In fact, the whole south-west is a nasty sweat box. We have fire ants and mosquitos. It's horrible! Stay away. The roaches are so big that they eat small children for snacks. Texans use their shotgun (mounted on the back of the cab of their truck of course) to shoot foreigners from the West Coast.

Hehe. This reminds me of a song... Californication.

[sberdrow]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

Oh, sorry. Dallas is a horrible place to live. Texas is hot and miserable. In fact, the whole south-west is a nasty sweat box. We have fire ants and mosquitos. It's horrible! Stay away. The roaches are so big that they eat small children for snacks. Texans use their shotgun (mounted on the back of the cab of their truck of course) to shoot foreigners from the West Coast.

Hehe. This reminds me of a song... Californication.

Now that was gut busting funny, my wife and I laughed at that. Good job. Heres one for Colorado:

Californians, Stay way, you will hate it, the ice and snow will continue for 11 months out of the year. The elevation will burst your eardrums. The lack of humidity will dry your nose out ( you might have to get a new one). Lightning is more attracted to Californians becasue God does not want you here. The prices are cheeper here because, hell, no one wants to live here. There are not really mountains and trees, that John Denver guy was full of *#@%

[midnightbirdgirl]

Originally Posted by shannon94

Exactly!!! more bang for your buck!!

Then why do we have too few cops, the FD takes too long to respond, and water prices are through the roof, and schools are sub-par? Very little of $600,000 you pay for a home goes of that...Taxes pay for public services...
And we are taxed at a very uneven rate.

MBG

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by midnightbirdgirl

Then why do we have too few cops, the FD takes too long to respond, and water prices are through the roof, and schools are sub-par? Very little of $600,000 you pay for a home goes of that...Taxes pay for public services...
And we are taxed at a very uneven rate.

MBG

Uuuum....I was talking about Texas MBG.

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by socketz

I compared the 300k home I'm buying to a 900k home that's equiv.

.

Excuse me I believe you said 600 in your previous post. ( lol just givin ya a hard time Sockets. )

[midnightbirdgirl]

Originally Posted by shannon94

Uuuum....I was talking about Texas MBG.

Okay my bad...
MBG

[Gettin' Out of Cali]

A few things I've observed during my past week here in DFW area looking for houses.

#1 If you are coming from California, bring some Vallium so you can adapt to the driving habits of this area. This in no knock on Texans, I think it's a much better idea to actually read the little signs on the side of the road that say "SPEED LIMIT xx", it's just in California, no one pays any attention to them. Mostly in California it's "Drive Alive Under 95" from where I'm from. (And what's with this different speeds during Day and Night???)

The other thing is in most places, if you are looking for a new home, bring along your can opener. They tend to put these houses so close, I'd bet you can hear you next-door-neighbor snore at night. My Kids thought it was fun to try and touch each other's hand from one home to the next (close, but they didn't quite reach).
There is absolutely no way you could fit even the smallest of row boats between your house and the one next door.
Some of the areas actually advertise a "Zero Lot Line" as a good thing!
Don't even think about a Motor home in the side yard in most of these places.

Aside from that, there are so many choices for homes to buy here it's almost scary. We saw some houses actually under 120K that we would live in! Spend 250K+ here and you can get just about anything you want.

If like us you are looking for horse property, so far the best we have seen is in parts of Forney near, (but not in) Travis Ranch.
Most of Allen and Wylie, Parker and all around Argyle are horse areas.

Forget about Fort Worth to Weatherford as we couldn't find any decent stables. The homes on the market near Richland Hills that you can have your own horse are harder to locate than in the North/Eastern Dallas areas.

One other thing to be aware of when relocating here from Cali is not to mention if you have a home to sell elsewhere. We had several new home dealers drop us like a hot rock as soon as we said our house in California was not on the market yet. It took a while to convince them that we could do a home equity LOC and buy two (in some cases three) of these houses they were selling with no problems.

[Weird Question Mark Guy]

1 mile per 5 minutes in Los Angeles. No thanks. I noticed a bit more racial tension as well. But then theres Las Vegas

:love: