dthondatune

Hi there!

As the title states, I'm on my way to relocating to the South Eastern part of Texas.
To be honest I know little to nothing about Austin or Houston, and would like to see if everyone could give me some insight into the place I'm moving to.

What's the area like?
What kind of places do people goto on the weekends?
Is everyone friendly and open to newcomers?
What are the best places to live in Austin or Houston (prefer suburbs of the city)?
How's the weather... are the summers brutally hot?
Are there lots of jobs down there?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Just so you all know... I'm making this move with my wife, and we're doing it on our own. In other words we're not going down there because of a career situation. We just like what we've heard about Texas so far. We're both 27 years of age, and we like to go out to clubs, bars, whatever. We also like the outdoors: hiking, biking, climbing, swimming.. all that stuff.

Thanks!
-Dan

medicalstudent

I love Houston! But if you're more interested in clubbing and more outdoors activity, Austin's the way to go. Houston has plenty of that too, but Austin also has the UT crowd. Plenty of lakes around Houston, Austin, and inbetween if you're into boating, jetskiing, or fishing. Terrain is kind of flat, so hiking sucks. If you're into trackday runs, there's a few racetracks around SE Houston to check out too. There's a huge S2000 community in Houston, but we all fled to www.s2kca.com

and yes, summers are hot

dthondatune

Have YOU been stung by Africanized Bees, or Fire Ants???


No, but seriously. How bad is the Fire Ant and African Bee situation? What if I am looking at a house in a community like Pearland or Sugarland?

Common everyone! 32 views...only one post???

alleykat

[QUOTE=dthondatune,Feb 20 2007, 06:49 PM]Have YOU been stung by Africanized Bees, or Fire Ants???


No, but seriously. How bad is the Fire Ant and African Bee situation? What if I am looking at a house in a community like Pearland or Sugarland?

Common everyone!

dthondatune

LOL. My wife and I were watching a TLC show called "THE BIG STING."
Just as we werre browsing the internet looking for housing in the Houston area....BAM! They start talking about Fire ants and Killer bees... my wifey freaked-out


What are some good areas to live in, closer to the city?
We are looking to move into a suburb-type area, with a roomy house.
From what we've seen in Sugarland and Pearland, you can get a 4-5 bedroom house in the 180k price range.

Is that reasonable?
What are the major realestate offices out there? \
Anyone know a good realtor?

cycl0ne

I get fire ants in my yard at times. Not like I get devoured when I step outside. Easy enough to see a little mound starting and dump some ant killer on it. Probably wouldn't be a problem if I bothered to spread ant control stuff in the spring.

Houston is huge, so where you look may depend on where your job is unless you want to drive and hour and a half to work. Houses are real affordable compared to where you're coming from. It will be more expensive to live inside the loop (I-610) than anywhere outside of it, but that's living more in the city than suburbs.

If you haven't seen already, check out www.har.com to look at houses. At least in my area some of the more common real estate companies are Prudential Gary Greene and Remax.

alleykat

My house was $129ish brand new.3 bedrooms/2 baths/2 car garage.In my neighborhood you can get a 2 story house for way less than $180k.The process wasnt even hard.Im only 22 and me & my wife figured it out.lol.But yeah,you dont wanna get a house in Pearland and end up working like in Humble!

Here is a pic of my car in the subdivision.The 2 storys in the background are like $138k+ brand new built the way you like.Hell,we didnt even need to put a down payment.Thanks to our credit.This is off beltway 8 & wallisville.Karno & BlueMonde have been over here before.
http://i19.tinypic.com/2e1dtz6.jpg

1black_lude

Alex do you live in the neighborhood behind the walmart? I have another friend that lives in that area and those houses look familiar.

neway I live in humble area (beltway 8 and wilson) NE of Houston and its nice. I bought my house when I was 19 (now 21) and it is 3bed/2bath/2car garage 1 story and it was 145k (alot of upgrades). They are building alot of new buisnesses in the area as well expamle fast food places, banks, walmart, ect. And as far as ants I to get a few ant hills in my yard during the summer time and thats about it. Bees cant remeber the last time I saw one. Hope you find a good area to live. Any reason for the big move?

alleykat

I cant remember last time I saw an ant I think I saw a bee at a park,not sure.Yeah my house is very close to the walmart but its on the other side of wallisville.Its a new subdivision called Sonoma Ranch.Its like 5 minutes away from BW8,but still off wallisville.

Goodluck in your search.

dthondatune

The big reason I want to move is that I've wanted to relocate and move to a warm, clean, sunny area for as long as I can remember.
I hate snow... take it away. Maybe after a few years of sunny weather, I'll take a trip to the Utah for some snowboarding.
You all own 3 bedrooms houses, before you're 25. Over here in Jersey the same house would cost 400k+. No joke.
Lookup houses in Ridgewood, NJ and you'll see what I mean.

We looked at Georgia, Florida, California, Virginia, and some other places.
All those areas had one big problem, or lacked something we were looking for.

I've lived in the North East my whole life, and my wife was raised in New York.
We're ready for a change, our style.