First and formost, most of the state of Texas is Waste Land. Go west and it isn't worth the dirt that you drive on. Second. Real Estate Values have toped in places like Dallas and Houston. Regardless of what "Residents" say. Just pull up the MLS and do a CMA. Also look at how much inventory the City of houston is holding in new projects/homes In Fact, Houston money is leaving faster than you can shout...GET OUT OF DODGE. They are moving into the Hill Country. Places like Boerne Tx. HAL set a trend. Oil and Gas companies are looking to re-locate to DUBIA. They may leave some of the opertations behind but it will hurt the Texas Economy eventually. OIL isn't as abundent as the day's of "DALLAS" tv show. Ranchland is being sold like crazy from the South area of Texas up to San Antonio. TRAN-TEXAS CORRIDOR... .enough said. San Antonio is a hot market place but has it's problems. 70% of the population is Tex-mex and 80% of them are un-educated. Hence, SA is the "Call Center Capital", cheap wages, (average wage is 35 thosand and average home is 120k.) However, Disney, Microsoft, and the PGA are coming. PGA village will be live by 2008/9. Disney, by 2010 or so. SA is probably the one spot where Real Estate will continue to appreciate, for the next few years. Austin, is HIP but it has slowed as well. Round Rock and Lake Travis are where a lot of Real Estate can boom but the City of Austin has a few loft projects on 2nd but nothing huge. It is a nice city however and a great place to meet the intellectual crowd. Dallas Players are comig into SA and working on Commerical Projects and telling me that Dallas is "Fully Vested" at the moment. Sub Prime has hit Texas Hard and TREC and TRELA are releasing numbers that are such as "50% of the banckruptcy cases in SA are Forclosures. One thing I noticed about Texas, is that no matter what the "Facts" are, they are PROUD and definilty want to be a LONE STAR STATE. If you don't bleed Orange.....you don't bleed. One Final observation.. Texan's are mad as hell because Yankee's like me have come to the LONE STAR STATE and are getting a piece of the new "GOLD RUSH". But hey, TEXAS may be the only place $$$$ can be made while the East and West, take a breath for a few years.
Citywide Wi-Fi Network Approved in Houston HOUSTON -- Houston City Council approved a plan on Wednesday to build a public wireless network that will provide discounted Internet access citywide, KPRC Local 2 reported. Mayor Bill White announced that EarthLink, Inc. was chosen to build a citywide wireless broadband network in February. The Wi-Fi mesh network will provide affordable, high-speed Internet access for those in Houston in five years, officials said. The service will be free in 5 percent of the city's public areas, but the remainder of the city would be subject to fees of $10 to $12 per month. Deputy Director of Information Technology Janis Jefferson said the system should be completed in two years. When it goes into effect, Houston will have the largest Wi-Fi network in the country, covering nearly all of the city's 600 square miles by spring of 2009. The wireless ordinance approved two separate contracts with Earthlink. The first is a citywide broadband license agreement and the second is a wireless service agreement for five years worth up to $2.5 million.
My wife and I live in Los Angeles, but are looking to buy a house. I'm a software manager (telecommuting), she is a Librarian. We're looking to move to Altanta or The Woodlands. She has family in Dallas, but there are tons of jobs for her in Houston, I have family in Atlanta, we like them both. Looking for affordable housing with good school districts, nice greenbelt or lake view, etc. Just from our research, we're finding many houses that in Los Angeles (even now) would be 2 million houses going for 300k or less in both Atlanta and The Woodlands. We just went house hunting in Atlanta last weekend and found some great possibilities, and are heading to The Woodlands/Houston in about 3 weeks to house-hunt as well. I guess it is a personal decision, just wonder anyone who has lived/knows people in Houston/Woodlands if you like it or not, things to watch out for etc. We actually like Austin quite a bit, having lived there 2 years, but the job situation there is much worse so we've mostly ruled it out for that reason.
Ike has screwed up things for a bit, I don't know anyone with electricity. After we get thru this, we really should do another "get together" if only for the socialization factor.
The Woodlands is nice, especially if you don't have to go downtown everyday (very long drive). If you're looking for a part of town with lots of trees you should also take a look at Kingwood. However, as demonstrated this last weekend, living in a hurricane zone with a bunch of tall trees around your house is asking for trouble. I live in a newer area just south of Kingwood and my yard didn't have any trees over 5 yrs old so I was lucky. The only thing I lost was my fence.
My wife and I were both raised in The Woodlands. Both of our families still live there but we currentley live in midtown since we both work downtown. My wife was able to go into downtown and tour the damage to her building today. Her office is located on the 35th floor of a building located between the Exxon and former Enron buildings. At her location they had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph. Our townhouse next to downtown only suffered minor damage. My office also took a decent hit, its right next to the Chase building that's being shown all over the news with its windows blown out. I won't be allowed back to my office until next Monday, so I currently don't know the extent of the damage. http://s471.photobucket.com/albums/rr74/hurricane_ike_2008/?albumview=grid