What's Texas like these days?

Oooh, I just remembered car insurance!

There are a LOT of people rolling around down here without insurance. Makes everyone else's go up.

 

It's humid as fuck, lived in Fort Worth for a year and the weather sucked. Ended up moving back to CA

 

One nice thing about NJ was snow during Xmas time. We honestly haven't had snow in two years. That's not the straw that broke the camels back but it does make living here less tolerable.

Example: My house is 2316 SQ Ft. Nice quiet neighborhood. House was well over $500k and taxes are $11,300 / year. Auto insurance for my and my wife's Acura RDX is 3300 / yr.

 

Sucks your only two towns over from me and pops pays 6500 yr in property taxes

 

That’s a big ass house... But how old is it? Age is big factor in prop taxes down here

 

It's about normal size for this area if not small. 3000 SQ FT is probably the norm. It's built in 1985 and mostly updated w/ a finished basement. Here's an older pic from google maps probably 6 yrs old or so.

 

There's no basements here. You'll have to get used to that. It's all slab foundations. Which sucks. I miss basements. A home like that would probably run around $4-500k give or take around here.

 

Can't have basements because the soil is clay and limestone. Hell, we can't even keep the street level for more than two years because it keeps swelling and shrinking.

 

Location is everything.

I was an outer looper in Houston for 10-12 years and hated it. Going anywhere took about an hour for some inexplicable reason. Didnt matter if it was a 15 mile ride into the inner loop, or a 50 mile hike down to Clear Lake, it almost always took about an hour. Houston itself is not a pretty city. Its flat and prone to flooding. I averaged replacing wheel bearings once a year, except for the drought years. Only two real green spaces exist - On the west side there is Memorial corridor going towards GW Bush/Bear Creek Park, and on the South the few areas around Clear Lake that Tillman Fertitta hasn't bought up yet. Everything else is concrete jungle. Hope you like strip malls.

Now I'm mid-cites DFW. It's...better than Houston, but still not my favorite. I can't really bring myself to live in Dallas proper, and Ft Worth is turning into Poser-dallas compared to what it was when I was a kid. Traffic is not quite as congested as Houston, but it is slightly more chaotic, mad-max road-ragey here.

Hill Country-that-isnt-Austin is where I want to be. (I mean, Austin and the 35 corridor is cool and all, but the traffic is atrocious. Speaking from someone who lives and breathes Houston and Dallas traffic, its atrocious.) The rural hill country, IMO is the post-card essence of what people think of when you say the word Texas. If I could figure out how to make money and live there, I would.

I would avoid anything West Texas. You have two choices there - a) live in pristine desert beauty, but it costs you a tank of gas and a 6 hour round trip to reach a decent grocery store, or b) live in Satan's crack of eternal boredom.

The barrier islands and coastal areas are great to visit, but unless you really enjoy meth, they arent the best areas to call home.

And theres the deep woods of East Texas. Its a different world. Imagine something like Alabama, but with extra self confidence.

 

LOL This post makes me want to stay right where I am.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states

 

I like to joke and complain a lot, but If I had a choice between Texas and NJ, it would be Texas. It does have its positives too. I just dont wanna say what those are. We have enough of a population boom as it is.

 

I hear ya, but I'm not the guy you don't want there so it's all good.

 

OMG, I want to "MST3K" this so bad!

Amen brother.

Where the soul goes to DIE.

I'M NOT LESS MAD - I'M RELOADING!!

Only because it has the best beer, wine, liquor, BBQ, views, and women. I married one - I know.

And yes, the traffic blows because our bypasses are toll roads and the trucking companies won't reimburse their drivers to take them. So - they go through downtown.

Midland/Odessa meets both a and b.

Not to mention seasonal agriculture jobs that pay less than a living wage under the table.

Banjos? Do I hear banjos?!?

 

Every major city in Texas is blue but the rest of Texas is red stay out of the city

 

You know why Texas hasn't fallen in to the Gulf of Mexico?

 

Oh and, if you eat waffles that aren't shaped like Texas, are you even in Texas?