Looking for the Collin County Equivalent in the Houston Area? (Dallas: houses, gated)

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

There is nothing comparable to Collin County in the Houston area. Huge swathes of DFW are affluent, where as affluence in houston is mainly found in pockets.

Houston is much more blue collar where as DFW is much more white collar.

It has more to do with the layout of the Houston area and it being centered around one city. Houston doesn't have it's "Collin County" yet but the Grand Parkway corridor will become that (the entire loop). Houston still averages a higher per capita income than DFW and has many more millionaires. No, Houston won't ever be like DFW where wealth is concentrated to really just one side. Instead there will be a ring of it around the metro area once the GP is finished.

[979Texan]

Comparing Houston burbs to dallas burbs is something only morons do

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

It has more to do with the layout of the Houston area and it being centered around one city. Houston doesn't have it's "Collin County" yet but the Grand Parkway corridor will become that (the entire loop). Houston still averages a higher per capita income than DFW and has many more millionaires. No, Houston won't ever be like DFW where wealth is concentrated to really just one side. Instead there will be a ring of it around the metro area once the GP is finished.

In a sense that helps public schools. As a City Data poster pointed in another thread, all of Dallas's private schools are concentrated in a part of north Dallas. So all the Preston Hollow folks have little incentive to use the public schools, which fill with low income apartment kids.

In Houston the private schools are scattered all over the place. HISD AFAIK has been smarter in how it used the schools in rich areas, which is why River Oaks Elementary became so popular that River Oaks parents clamored to put their kids there back in the 90s!

[crone]

The towns surrounding Dallas are all incorporated.

The suburbs surrounding Houston are a disenfranchised no-man's-land. The only government Houston has is MPC rules and HOAs.

If somebody wants to put up a hoarhouse next door to you in unincorporated Harris county, they can.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by 979Texan

Comparing Houston burbs to dallas burbs is something only morons do

They're more comparable lately has Houston suburbs (TW, Sugar Land, Pearland, League City, etc.) grow. The good suburbs are just not clustered into one spot in Houston. I don't know how much of an advantage or disadvantage it is. Overall Houston suburbs are just more residential than DFW burbs due to Houston having more of the metro jobs in the city limits, especially the big ones in the core. Like if Houston was DFW, then the Energy Corridor would be in a burb, Uptown would be split up between Richmond and Cypress, and Greenspoint would be moved over to Klein.

Originally Posted by crone

The towns surrounding Dallas are all incorporated.

The suburbs surrounding Houston are a disenfranchised no-man's-land. The only government Houston has is MPC rules and HOAs.

If somebody wants to put up a hoarhouse next door to you in unincorporated Harris county, they can.

There are still ordinances for that sort of thing. I don't like all of the unincorporated areas in Houston though, especially the "Great Northwest" of Harris County where over one million people live. If these were separate cities/towns I think that part would have shaped up a lot better. The county has been working on it and the newer areas look no different than DFW suburbs, but the difference in planning in the older areas is definitely noticeable. The Woodlands is moving along with incorporation but they have a huge tax base. None of these other unincorporated areas can do anything because Houston annexed the commercial areas and will never release those.

I think the good thing now is a lot of the suburban growth is happening in actual cities now (SL, League City, Baytown, Missouri City, Pearland, etc.) and the ones that aren't are mainly in huge MPCs that act like cities. Less hodge-podge development than before unless it's parts of the north/northwest side.

[usc619]

Originally Posted by TotallyTexasBound

Good Evening,

My wife and I are considering a potential relocation from DFW to the Houston area, and have not yet enlisted the assistance of a realtor as we're still in the preliminary phase of determining the feasibility of relocating.

I'm familiar with Houston as my business takes me regularly there, but not familiar enough to know what is a good place to live. I've been scouring Zillow and HAR - hoping you could help us provide something similar to where we live now (Collin County), which is a relatively affluent collection of suburbs north of Dallas (Plano, Allen, Frisco).

We don't have kids living at home, so schools are not important, but I understand that good schools definitely help stability and ease of resale in a property, and I like the community pride of having good schools. We enjoy going out to local restaurants a couple of nights a week (not chains) and take in a few entertainment events a month (ball game, musical, etc..) - so we don't want to live too far out where those activities become difficult. On a daily basis we like getting out and walking or riding our bicycles, so access to sidewalks or a trail system is a quality of life requirement.

I'll be working in the Energy Corridor area, my wife has some flexibility to where she offices. Budget is $400,000 to $600,000 and prefer newer build (less than 10 years, or substantially updated) for the amenities and energy efficiency. I'd like to live within 30-45 minutes of work with reasonable working hours, obviously closer the better - but willing to trade off a little longer commute for a better quality of life when home.

What place would you recommend and why? Places I've researched:
Riverstone - Possibly too far out of town, but area looks beautiful and appears to be a decent amount of commercial
Imperial - Not really sold on - Seems very expensive for quality of home, don't like surrounding area.
Aliana & associated area- Neighborhood looks nice, but there is no commercial activity in that area and the surrounding businesses (Dump, Port a Potty Rental, Goodwill Store) leave a lot to be desired
Any neighborhood west of 99 - I hear from peers how their commute to the Energy Corridor is awful
Parkway Terrace (Energy Corridor) - Area is relatively nice, don't understand why all the properties are in gated communities.
West Spring Branch & Memorial Area - Area looks good from Google Maps overview, like the access to the park on the river running through the area. Updated older homes seem to be on the upper end of our budget (although would save in gas & potentially taxes). Probably second favorite location to Riverstone, not as appealing to my wife.
Rice Military - Some cool properties, but way too dense. No way those property values will hold up over the long run.
Shady Acres / Heights - Love a lot of the properties, but too transitional for us
Bellaire / River Oaks / Montrose - Unfortunately we are priced out of a SFH
Westbury / Willowbend / Braeswood - Flood concerns, would rather stick to Memorial / Spring Branch

Are there any places I am leaving out - or has my internet research failed me in identifying the positives/negatives of each area? I am feeling very overwhelmed as there is no area that sticks out as someplace I'd love as much as where we live now.

Thank you.

The closest thing you'll get to Collin Co. is Sugarland or The Woodlands, but even they're mostly surrounded by unincorporated, non zoned crap. Nothing down here really compare to CC. If I were you (based on your job location), I'd concentrate in the SW Katy/Fulsher area. Cinco NW, Firethorne, Cross Creek Ranch or Cane Island all have new builds going up.

[Zoo2000]

I agree with looking in Katy. It's not as bad of a commute to the EC as it's made out to be. ~45 minutes in traffic. You have lots of activities centered around La Centerra and Uptown/Montrose, etc is ~30 minutes away on weekends when you want to come into town to explore (and 20 minutes to City Centre) If you're price point were ~800K I would recommend the Memorial around (centered on Memorial/Kirkwood) where you have tear-downs/new construction going on. Anything East of the Beltway on Memorial is too expensive, and it gets dicey going too far south.
I will second Green Trails area. You can get a nicely updated home for 500K with a pool and be close to anything you liek.

[DabOnEm]

I'm in DFW now and I have to say, people in this thread have talked about how Houston doesn't have a Collin County but how many metro areas have that large of a geographic area be all middle to upper middle class? Only areas I can think of in the US are the Peninsula (south of SF and including the SV) and 680 corridors in the Bay Area and South Orange County in the LA area. The Atlanta metro is similar to DFW where the north is way better than the south metro, but they still have sketchy parts in north Atlanta metro. The outer burbs of Chicago are nice but there are old railroad towns in between with legit hoods. The East Valley in Phoenix is a maybe, especially if you exclude Mesa (and there has been some corporate campus growth here similar to DFW). The most "run down" areas of Collin County is parts of East Plano and East McKinney, which is no where near run down, just not as high income as the neighborhoods surrounding them.

So the areas in California and perhaps the East Valley in Phoenix are the only ones that I think can compare with Collin County. Don't think its a slight on Houston and instead something unique DFW offers at the expense of the major city as resources continue to get pulled to the north. A company moving to Houston is more likely to move somewhere closer to the core to be centralized since the nicer suburbs are in all directions.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by usc619

The closest thing you'll get to Collin Co. is Sugarland or The Woodlands, but even they're mostly surrounded by unincorporated, non zoned crap. Nothing down here really compare to CC. If I were you (based on your job location), I'd concentrate in the SW Katy/Fulsher area. Cinco NW, Firethorne, Cross Creek Ranch or Cane Island all have new builds going up.

Your recommendations are all outside 99 where the OP indicated they didn't want to look for commute reasons.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

I'm in DFW now and I have to say, people in this thread have talked about how Houston doesn't have a Collin County but how many metro areas have that large of a geographic area be all middle to upper middle class? Only areas I can think of in the US are the Peninsula (south of SF and including the SV) and 680 corridors in the Bay Area and South Orange County in the LA area. The Atlanta metro is similar to DFW where the north is way better than the south metro, but they still have sketchy parts in north Atlanta metro. The outer burbs of Chicago are nice but there are old railroad towns in between with legit hoods. The East Valley in Phoenix is a maybe, especially if you exclude Mesa (and there has been some corporate campus growth here similar to DFW). The most "run down" areas of Collin County is parts of East Plano and East McKinney, which is no where near run down, just not as high income as the neighborhoods surrounding them.

So the areas in California and perhaps the East Valley in Phoenix are the only ones that I think can compare with Collin County. Don't think its a slight on Houston and instead something unique DFW offers at the expense of the major city as resources continue to get pulled to the north. A company moving to Houston is more likely to move somewhere closer to the core to be centralized since the nicer suburbs are in all directions.

I strongly agree with your last point. Going with the "outer 270-degree ring of affluence" has helped the City of Houston itself retain a lot of economic activity, whereas Dallas has lost a huge amount to the far north suburbs.

While I understand that some home buyers prefer being able to live a life more cocooned in prosperity and affluence like Collin County is able to offer owing to its huge mass of those features, I don't think Houston's model is inferior. It's good that you can go in nearly any direction here and find the suburban MPC of your dreams. Being near working class and low income areas is no big deal.