Ready to leave SoCal. Where in Texas?

[KWeaver]

Quick reply from my phone


Finally looked these cities on the map and its 50 miles out of San Antonio. And three and a half hours from the Dallas area. Seems like the middle of no where no? Zillow showed some decent stuff but a lot of it said student are low income housing. And a quick google search tells me it needs to be really really low to qualify

Also the fact that there is low income housing makes me feel like it's a unsafe area to raise a kid? Any thoughts?

The "Low Income Housing" you are seeing at a lot of apartment complexes is housing built almost exclusively for College Students. Texas State University is located in San Marcos and it is a fairly large school. Obviously some parts of any town are safer than others but both of the towns I mentioned (San Marcos / New Braunsfels) are safer than most big cities. As far as being in the middle of no where? San Marcos has 60k population and New Braunsfels has 80k so they aren't small cities. Futhermore, your "50 miles from San Antonio" is misleading. Yeah New Braunsfels may technically be 30 miles away from the center of San Antonio (and San Marcos 50) but that is meaningless. San Antonio is a BIG city; over a million people in the metro area; same with Austin, 1 million+. If you look on a map San Antonio "starts" in the town of Selma (on I35 to the Northeast). What I mean by that is when you hit Selma it's no longer rural. There are strip malls, actual malls, dealerships, restaurants etc. all the way to down town. Same with the small town of Buda to the south of Austin. If you are driving north on I35 when you hit Buda you are effectively in the Austin metro area.

So "technically" Austin and San Antonio are 80 miles apart but if you include the metro areas they are closer to 40-50 miles apart. Between these two VERY LARGE cities are the smaller towns of New Braunsfels and San Marcos which are great places to live in Central Texas. You could easily get a job in one of those cities or you could live in the San Marcos area and work in South Austin or live in New Braunsfels and work in North San Antonio.

Like I said, fly into Austin and head south. Avoid Dallas/Ft Worth and Houston entirely. No point even checking them out; as someone who has spent extensive time in both (and currently lives in California) I feel pretty confident in saying you wouldn't like them. AND you would probably be forced to live in a less safe part of town in Dallas/Houston initially.

Again, I am VERY familier with Central Texas; I graduated from UT-Austin and was stationed for 3 years in San Antonio. I can probably answer any specific questions you may have about that area (same with Houston as well).

EDIT: Take a few few moments to read the Wiki entries for both San Marcos and New Braunsfels. I think you will be pleasently suprised.

 

[HardBoiledEgg]

I can believe I I didn't put this in this thread yet


But me and my son's mom are not together. But her family moved to Fort Worth. I have not yet informed her that I'm debating about moving to Texas cause I don't want to get her excited. But moral of the story is she is going to want to live in the DFW area to be with her family again. That's why initially I've been looking in that area. 30 miles from her family sounds a lot better then 350 miles


Secondly I do Uber/Lyft full time right now. I talk to a ton of people from Texas and people who orginally came from the LA area like me. Everyone says I will LOVE the DFW area and that's always where my California people live and they also love it. I actually had a ride from LAX with a woman back in town from Dallas (orginally from here) and she made the move also and loves it


She gave me a list of these cities to check out.

Plano
The Colony
Louisville
Carlton

 

[KWeaver]

I can believe I I didn't put this in this thread yet


But me and my son's mom are not together. But her family moved to Fort Worth. I have not yet informed her that I'm debating about moving to Texas cause I don't want to get her excited. But moral of the story is she is going to want to live in the DFW area to be with her family again. That's why initially I've been looking in that area. 30 miles from her family sounds a lot better then 350 miles


Secondly I do Uber/Lyft full time right now. I talk to a ton of people from Texas and people who orginally came from the LA area like me. Everyone says I will LOVE the DFW area and that's always where my California people live and they also love it. I actually had a ride from LAX with a woman back in town from Dallas (orginally from here) and she made the move also and loves it


She gave me a list of these cities to check out.

Plano
The Colony
Louisville
Carlton

Every town has its attributes; having said that I would never purposeful move to the DFW area unless I was offered a very large salary. But, it's understandable that you would want to be close to your kid so GL, it shouldn't be too hard to find a decent job there. All the major cities in Texas are doing fairly well.

 

[dmb]

Be the best Dad you can be. and in a short decade or three your be payed off with a "I know what you did Dad'' someday and it will all be worth it. well maybe not but, maybe they will have a time machine when your old as me.

 

[Wes7]

That list isn’t bad, but note that some of those cities - Plano especially - may not be affordable anymore. Our property values have over doubled in the last five years, especially in the northern suburbs.

I’d add to your list Richardson, Garland, Rowlett, Wylie, and Sachse. They are a little further from Fort Worth, but more affordable and still really nice to live in. You could check out the midcities area too - Hurst, Euless, Bedford, and North Richland Hills could also be good options. Honestly, there isn’t a huge difference between any of the suburbs - it is just a matter of where you want to be geographically, and which one fits your tastes and needs.

 

[Silfister]

I've always thought about it. But after recent life changes I'm thinking now is the time, start over.

Reasons why
It feels like we can't live a decent life out here. I'm 27 now with a four year old and girlfriend soon to be fiance. We both work way too damn much to be broke constantly and not even get to do anything fun or enjoy life

I'm 27 and been working since 17, never missed a day of work nor called off. I'm a hustler and a dman hard worker. No matter how much money a bring in I'm always broke. Life is way too expensive out here. A decent place is easily 1500 plus utilities and a nice area is 2k plus. I've never taken a vacation and don't have a savings account. Living out here is like we are fighting just to stay afloat. life is constantly about money and not enjoying life.

I have family that have made the move and love it. My cousin my age came from here in the same boat. Always broke and living off pennies. Four years later she saves, spoils here daughter and takes multiple vacations a year.


I recently lost my job for some BS and I think this is finally time to start over and fresh in a land that still has a dream possible. Are our thoughts of life in Texas made up? Or are you guys really as happy as you all seem out there? I'm open to all honest comments and feedback. Thank you

I'm originally from CA (college at CAL Berkeley and MBA UC Irvine) and the last place I lived was in Irvine (So Cal/ the OC) before moving around per company request. Went to Denver and now I'm in the Dallas area; I reside in the north suburbs which have gotten more expensive as the years go by. Compared to So Cal, it's still cheaper and there's no state income tax (however, they get you on higher property tax if you're a home owner). The winters are a bit colder than So Cal (with occasional ice storms), but the summers are HOT and humid and that's the biggest adjustment I had to make - if you like skeeters and fire ants this is the place - lol. They're a lot of people from out of state in my suburbs so it doesn't have quite the Southern culture as some other places in TX, but it's still different than CA (certainly not as liberal - and still can't get used to Y'all and Fixin' - lol). I came here cuz it was a way to move up in the company, but I'd never come here only own. However, compared to a lot of places, the economy is relatively robust and a variety of industries have moved into the area, ie., more jobs. As more people arrive, more congestion occurs and the drive home to the suburbs can be slow and go (but still not as bad as my commute was up and down the 405 in So Cal - the locals complain about the traffic and I just tell that they don't know what real traffic is. Several people from my company also moved to TX and in general, they seem to like it as most couldn't afford to buy a home in So Cal. I miss the ocean and the mountains, but there are several lakes in the area people go to...and for mountains, people at work recommend a road trip to AK although I've never been. As with any place, there's good and bad so you might visit here first and judge for yourself. For me, I'm trying to get back to CO, (but the cost of living is generally higher than TX, but worth it for me). PS - if you like BBQ, this is the place; also, lots of good restaurants just about everywhere you go. My little FiST beast's AC gets a workout for the summer - I spot FiSTs in DFW from time to time - at least the summer tires don't have to be changed for the winter (but stay off the roads in an ice storm; I also have a rear wheel drive truck and couldn't get it out of my driveway during my first TX ice storm - I wasn't paying attention to the weather report and after backing out of my garage I thought I'd dropped my transmission as my back wheels just spun on the iced concrete.)