Houston has a high COL for Texas (Dallas, San Antonio: insuring, homes)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by westhou

For a city of its size Houston is very cheap

Exactly.

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-l.../north-america
Houston #67 at 143
Dallas #41 at 158
Austin #43 at 157
Atlanta #28 at 168
Miami #10 at 204
Phoenix #46 at 155
Denver #19 at 186
Chicago #17 at 189

Houston is more expensive than #68-#77 Halifax, Canada, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Tulsa, Kansas City, Kelowna, Canada, Saskatoon, Canada, Jacksonville, Louisville and San Antonio as well as #87 Detroit.

Saw a different listing of the top 25 or so metros and only Phoenix and Detroit were lower.

[kwr]

https://www.houstoniamag.com/article...-place-to-live

https://www.lifestorage.com/blog/mov...ng-to-houston/

[asknow123]

Originally Posted by kwr

https://www.houstoniamag.com/article...-place-to-live

https://www.lifestorage.com/blog/mov...ng-to-houston/

Two good articles kwr, I especially like this quote for an explanation on home prices from the first one:


"The main reason? In the past year housing costs have skyrocketed, driven up by factors including population growth, which has increased demand for solidly middle-income housing options. Harvey has left its mark, too, putting more demand on the areas that didn’t flood during the record-shattering storm, and spiking Houston’s housing costs across the board."


The second article (lifestorage) is similar to ones I have seen before which tout Houston for having a low COL then recommend living in River Oaks... LOL

[kemahkami]

Again, nuance. Those two articles made the references based on other major metros.

[BCEagles01]

I'm a Boston native.

Houston and all of Texas is a BARGAIN.

[ganadocoog]

The problem occurs when all the transplants come in bringing their $$$ from the home equity of selling a million dollar home and having had years of a relatively inflated salary in a more expensive city. They take their $800K after selling their house and will gladly pay $500K for a bigger home with a bigger yard in Texas and put $300K in their pocket towards retirement. To them this is a great deal but in the end they are driving up the prices for native Texans who don't have massive home equity built into their homes or years of inflated salaries from transplant states. Now we just need the governance from these transplant's native states to follow and the damage to Texas will become permanent.

[jfre81]

A couple days ago, my last rounds in Houston for awhile involved my cousin, beer and myself at Hat Merchant. She lives just around the corner and her townhome on Waugh rents for $3500/mo.

She and her husband rent the house they actually own here for $4000/mo. 26th/North Main, "Heights" but not really the heights.

She grew up in Texas City like me. House is nice, but hardly luxurious. She couldn't believe she was advised to list it for that much, but some sucker from you-know-where scooped it up in a week.

They could just as easy be staying a couple blocks from where I am at the moment, in a penthouse in the (former) John Hancock Center.

[AliefNorth]

Originally Posted by BCEagles01

I'm a Boston native.

Houston and all of Texas is a BARGAIN.

Whatever

[H'ton]

Originally Posted by AliefNorth

Whatever

When you say Houston is cheap..there really are 2 Houstons.

Inside the Loop= Expensive
Outside the loop= Average to above average

[AliefNorth]

Originally Posted by H'ton

When you say Houston is cheap..there really are 2 Houstons.

Inside the Loop= Expensive
Outside the loop= Average to above average

Even areas outside the loop are not considered “cheap” anymore.