Houston to Lafayette (Baton Rouge: foreclosures, how much, buying a house)

[monkio]

Just wondering if anyone on this board has lived in Houston and moved back to Lafayette. My husband and I have no family in Houston, moved here 13yrs ago for better jobs. Thinking about starting a family and moving back to our hometown of Lafayette. We both have professional jobs (RN and Librarian), just wonder if we'd regret leaving Houston. Really only have a few friends and our jobs keeping us in Houston. Has anyone moved back to Lafayette and had regrets? Or advice? Thanks.

[annie_himself]

I've lived there and moved back to Baton Rouge. I'm in my 20s so, Baton Rouge is boring to me for the most part. I don't know why you would miss Houston unless you like the big city amenities. What do you like about Houston that you think you may miss? Where do you live? I'm gonna take a swing and say Spring?

[Innotech]

Lafayette is growing like crazy. Plenty of amenities and vastly different from what you left 13 years ago.
Even more restaurants, a whole foods coming, lots of shopping and interesting stuff going on.
I think youll be pleasantly surprised by what you find now.

[Schoolmate1959]

Is there a trader joes in lafeyette yet or a whole foods??? Wegmans??

Where does everyone work, downtown or everywhere anywhere? lol

thanks

[Innotech]

Originally Posted by Schoolmate1959

Is there a trader joes in lafeyette yet or a whole foods??? Wegmans??

Where does everyone work, downtown or everywhere anywhere? lol

thanks

Trader joes -no
Wegmans- no
Whole Foods yes

Also a Costco and three Rouses markets which is a Louisiana franchise fairly upscale market similar to Whole Foods

People work all over the place. Theres no specific region really. Its kind of pandemonium during the day.
Downtown might surprise you with how much there is to do, despite how small it is.

[victimofGM]

As an RN there are plenty of hospitals hiring.

[bpollen]

It's the age old question: Big city or small city?

I'm considering moving to Lafayette, now that I've retired. I'm going to look at houses in Lafayette and in Tyler, TX. I wouldn't regard Lafayette as a place to make the big bucks and build up a retirement account, unless you're one of the execs in the energy business. It's what I'd call a medium size city.

So it depends on what lifestyle you want. You'll get paid less in Laf., but the COL is lower (although I think medical care costs may be higher; I've been researching this). Lafayette has way lower property taxes than TX. But their HO ins. is way higher than where I am (Dallas), altho probably about the same as Houston. La. also has state income tax, though it's not much.

The traffic in Houston is horrendous, and the houses were so close together with narrow streets. It was claustrophobic to me. I checked out north Houston one weekend as a possible retirement place (I like big cities), but I hated it. Then I found out that Houston's COL is probably higher than Dallas'. So Houston was out.

If you're buying a house, Lafayette's housing prices, which are usually outrageous, are reasonable now because of the energy sector problems. A number of foreclosures. So now's a good time to buy there, before the energy business picks up again.

As for me, I prefer big cities while building a career and younger. The excitement, the opportunities to meet people, the amenities available, the sites to see, the opportunity to change jobs for more money or benefits, public transportation (I would take the bus or rail to the state fair or other events---it was so convenient and less time consuming and CHEAP! A lot of people did that.) But if you don't like the particular big city you live in, that's a different story.