El Paso vs Corpus Christi (San Antonio, Galveston: real estate, insurance, houses)

[borderboy86]

I currently live in El Paso, TX and have been here since January of 2004. Before El Paso I grew up in Tucson, AZ. I hated every minute I lived in Tucson. I wanted to live in a bigger city and although El Paso probably is not bigger it feels more vibrant than Tucson. I like El Paso howver I am ready to live somewhere nicer, cleaner, and with a stronger economy. I have been seriously considering Corpus Christi, TX. I work in insurance and I am not sure how the job outlook is there. If any one can help let me know. I know Corpus is a little smaller than El Paso but I like the coast and dont mind a smaller city.

[j96g]

Big Coast city Galveston. Corpus Christi very nice, but the best beach South Padre Island. If you can't live on the island itself. Port Isabel is a nice coastal city and the beach is better than the Corpus Beach. I have been to both.

[Muhnay]

Think of Corpus as El Paso, with a beach and water. I happen to love Corpus, I try to go there every year and camp on the beach. I would suggest you drive down and check it out and do a little research.

[Marlow]

Can't tell you much about the insurance business in CC other than that premiums are high! I live in CC and in the last couple of weeks I've answered several questions about CC on these boards. You can search for those, or, if you have a particular question, I'll try to answer it.

[borderboy86]

Thanks Marlow. So far the southern end of Corpus seems to be the area to move to, although I would personally prefer to live closer to the downtown district. Is their any nice housing down there? How is the quality of life? As far as the business in town. High end shopping? Thanks for any info you can help with.

[Marlow]

There is plenty of nice housing closer to downtown, but the homes are all older. In fact, the closer to downtown, the older the house. In my neighborhood (12 min. commute to downtown) the houses were all built right after WWII. If you do a real estate search in zip code 78404 (where I live) you will find very humble homes in not-so-great neighborhoods that cost $60,000 and you'll find multi-million $ homes on Ocean Drive, and everything in between. The same is true of 78411, although those houses tend, as a rule, to be newer and a little farther out. There are some other good neighborhoods close to the bay with houses that vary greatly in price. But, if you want new construction or anything close to it you have to move to the Southside unless you want to spend $200,000 on a lot and build, or buy a tear down and build.

The quality of life is very relaxed and can sometimes be considered "manana"-ish. You can wear jeans and sandals just about anywhere you go. It's not uncommon for "executives" to disappear on a weekday afternoon to go surfing, sailing or fishing.

Traffic on the Southside can be bad, but you can get just about anywhere you to need to be in about 15 minutes.

I'm not much of a shopper so I'm not sure what constitutes "high end" but there's a Dillard's, Macy's, Jos. A. Bank and Ann Taylor loft. There are smaller clothing and houseware stores as well that seem high-end to me. But that's definitely not my forte. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive to San Antonio and I imagine you could satisfy almost shopping itch there.

It's hot and humid in the summer, but the heat should not bother you coming from El Paso. The only difference would be that in the middle of summer it doesn't cool off much at night. Lows in August are often in the low 80's. Air conditioning is a must.

There is a community college (Del Mar) and a 4-year university (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi) that played for the first time ever in the NCAA tournament today and lost, doggonit. But the program is only 8 years old so we're all real proud of them. There's also minor league baseball in a great new stadium as well as minor league hockey and an indoor football team.

I could go on and on, but am not sure exactly what information is useful to you. If you have any more specific questions I'll try to answer them.