Another "where to move" question :) (Houston, Dallas: insurance, houses)

[ShortSkirtLongJacket]

Howdy Houstonians!

Unfamiliar with the city, I'm overwhelmed doing a preliminary search on my own. Subdivisions, neighborhoods, and school districts, oh my.

Hoping you folks can help me focus in a bit.

Job location: downtown, on McKinney St. Right by Discovery Green
House: SFH, 4 BR, prefer 2 story, around 3000 sq ft, safe neighborhood
Price range: 200-300Ks
Family: Married with 4 & 6 year old; would like good solid public schools, they don't have to be top notch but it should go without saying they should be safe,
Commute: ideally 30-40 minutes including traffic (is this a laughable request? I keep hearing about Houston's traffic, I'm scared!)
Neighbors: down to earth, we find the Joneses off putting, some neighborhood kids, a good mix of people either in age, profession, ethnicity, and politics or any combination of, it does not have to be exclusively young families
Weather: would like the part of the city with no or low humidity (JK)

Any areas come to mind that have most of these traits?

I truly appreciate any insight you can provide.

Thanks y'all!

[elnina]

There is no such thing like low/no humidity part of the town.....

For other questions check on har.com

[Lost_In_Translation]

Kingwood? Most every other burb you'd want to live in is either over 40 minutes or over budget and less house.

[ShortSkirtLongJacket]

Lost_In_Translation,

Do any areas open up if I change the ceiling to 350K and flex the sq ft to 2500?

Also can you list some of the suburbs you were thinking of (with original price and sq ft) that lie outside the 40 min commute?

I should have stated in the original post that the items on list was our ideal...not absolute criteria.

Thank you for the Kingswood starting point.

Elnina,

I've tried har.com but it's limited in telling me which areas are safe, what types of neighbors we're likely to have, which schools are good and to a certain extent what the commute time is. I can map out how many miles it will be but without firsthand knowledge of how congested the traffic is, mileage is not very meaningful.

I am posting to a forum of locals so I can get a more accurate picture specific to our situation than what har.com can tell me right now.

Re: no/low humidity
I'm well aware that it doesn't exist. I was totally kidding!
JK = just kidding

[newlymarried]

Welcome!

Houston is a big place, but lets see if we can save you some energy. My DH and I started with a similar list of requirements, but unfortunately, it's very hard to get all of them. Here's where we ended up realizing the tradeoffs were:

1. We could stay between $200-300K, get a house with 3,000 sq feet, and get the good schools, but my commute to downtown was going to be more than an hour each way. (Exception... if you have the ability and willingness to do flex time of 7-4, 6-3, or 9-6. Obviously, this has downsides too.) Almost any suburb will meet these criteria. Katy, Spring, Sugarland, Kingwood, Humble, etc.

If you really have no preference of suburbs now, you might consider such things as whether you're willing to live closer to the ocean. There's the pluses, but also the negative of being in mandatory evacuation zones for hurricanes. Those maps should be available online, but I would think many of the southern suburbs would be in them. (I'm sure others can give advice exactly which ones -- it's not been an issue for me.)

2. We could stay within budget, get good schools (at least elementary), keep the commute reasonable, but end up with a smaller house. That's what we chose to do and ended up in the Oak Forest/Garden Oaks area. Our house is 1800 sq feet, 3/2. (Original 1949 home with some additions.) Other areas you could look at -- Timbergrove, Lazybrook, and surrounding areas. I'm sure others could tell you where to live closer in if you're willing to surrender square footage.

My commute is an easy 30-40 minutes (no freeways) and we feel very comfortable with the local elementaries. As we don't have kids yet, we're willing to wait out the local junior high/high schools. According to the Houston Chronicle yesterday, our local junior high is "undervalued."

I'm sure the budget would need to be raised, but there are many new-builds that probably approach 3,000 square feet in the area. They're tearing down the homes from the 1950s to build them.

3. We could raise the budget and get everything else. $400k will get you into Bellaire, which is a currently desirable neighborhood, although you want to make sure you know what schools you're zoned into. Bellaire High and its feeders are much more desirable than other schools. $300-500k will also get you into the Heights, a close in neighborhood that's probably the most trendy one in Houston.

I know you probably don't want to hear this, but my husband and I (both of whom consider ourselves knowledgeable about Houston) spent months trying to find the "magic" neighborhood that gave us all of our wants. We were unsuccessful. If you decide what you're willing to sacrifice, your search will be easier. You will also find people on this forum can give better advice once you've sort of narrowed in the search to a particular area.

As you get further along in your search for houses, I'd also be sure to check the flood plain anywhere in Houston -- flood insurance can be VERY expensive if you're in it.

Good luck!

[ToyYot]

^^^This is good advice.

[newlymarried]

A couple more thoughts:

1. You probably know Texas doesn't have state income tax. But that means the majority of the state budgets come from property taxes, which can vary wildly from neighborhood to neighborhood. HAR shows them to you, but generally the newer the neighborhood, the higher the taxes.

2. If you're considering suburbs, I would suggest you stay away from anyplace where you would need to take US 290 to work. It's the worst traffic highway by far, and they've just announced that they will be doing a multi-year construction project on it. To give you perspective, I have a friend who lives at 290 and Beltway 8. He did a few months in his company's downtown office. He found that he needed to work a 6:30-3:30 shift to keep his commute under an hour each way. If he left any later in the morning, he was at 1.5-2 hours. If he couldn't leave at 3:30, he would wait until 6:30 to avoid the traffic. There are some great neighborhoods in the area, but only if you don't need to be in downtown.

3. Whatever you narrow the search to, come visit several neighborhoods for the following reasons:
-- Houston doesn't believe in zoning, so what looks good online can be horrible in person (and vice versa)
-- You may be surprised by something you didn't think about. The Woodlands is a lovely suburb, but the "woods" are all pine trees. I spent a week in the Woodlands and was convinced I had a cold. I then left The Woodlands and realized within 2 hours that I was fine -- but the pine pollen was making me miserable. I wouldn't choose to live there for that reason.
-- Try out commutes. "Average" times don't take into account how long it takes you to get to major arteries, or delays like accidents, construction, backups at toll plazas, etc. A bad accident can easily double average commuting times.

[cheryjohns]

South of Downtown is Pearland - the first thing I thought of was the Shadow Creek Ranch subdivision.

Going north, Kingwood looks pretty far, but everyone tells me 59N moves pretty well during rush hour. It has more of a woodsy feel than Pearland.

Glad you were joking about the no/low humidity - I was going to have to suggest Dallas! : )

Newlymarried is so right concerning the exact location of the house within an area. If you get deep into Kingwood, for example, it will lengthen your commute time by quite a bit.

[ShortSkirtLongJacket]

newlymarried &cherryjohns,

Wow. THANK YOU so much for all this advice.
I appreciate the heads up on:
Mandatory Evacuation Zones
Flood plains
Flood insurance
Varying tax rates
Traffic patterns

And newlymarried, thanks for highlighting the trade offs. I expected that we'd have to compromise somewhere or another but figured I throw out my ideal bullet list and work away from there.
Your detailed feedback specific to this area is most helpful.

We're not due to arrive until January-- I wanted to give ourselves time to at least get our bearings.

[newlymarried]

Happy to be of help!

Let us know how your search turns out... and feel free to PM me if you have additional questions.