RANT: Trying to buy a house right now sucks.

[RyanDistortion]

I dig the mid century modern look

[K-Bizzle]

Man, i hate austin... way too much traffic, if you do move there make sure you dont need to go north or south through the city on 35 to get to where you need to go the most.

I WFH and my wife works in Buda, the house is in south Austin.
We've already been in Austin for a month staying with friends while we house shop.
I've heard a lot of complaining about traffic but I've yet to see anything that even remotely compares to the traffic I left behind in Chicago.
I'm not sure how much of that is due to COVID or the when and where I'm driving but so far anytime I've got to cross the river north I never have issues.

I grew up in a house with a cellar in texas (it was like a 20x20 room and it was also where you had to go to access the crawl space. I know of a single home a family member (maybe it was a friend) lived at that did have an almost full size basement... but not a traditional basement, it was just a bomb shelter that was accessible from the house.

Yeah I'm not saying they don't exist, I just haven't seen a single house listed in Ausitn with them. Everything I said is based on what I was told by our realtor and what I'd read.

[trey85stang2]

Man, i hate austin... way too much traffic, if you do move there make sure you dont need to go north or south through the city on 35 to get to where you need to go the most.

I WFH and my wife works in Buda, the house is in south Austin.
We've already been in Austin for a month staying with friends while we house shop.
I've heard a lot of complaining about traffic but I've yet to see anything that even remotely compares to the traffic I left behind in Chicago.
I'm not sure how much of that is due to COVID or the when and where I'm driving but so far anytime I've got to cross the river north I never have issues.

I grew up in a house with a cellar in texas (it was like a 20x20 room and it was also where you had to go to access the crawl space. I know of a single home a family member (maybe it was a friend) lived at that did have an almost full size basement... but not a traditional basement, it was just a bomb shelter that was accessible from the house.

Yeah I'm not saying they don't exist, I just haven't seen a single house listed in Ausitn with them. Everything I said is based on what I was told by our realtor and what I'd read.

Sounds like you are good, 35 in austin just sucks, Ive never lived there but have driven through there more times than I can count. I was super excited when that toll road was opened as I got to go around it. I should add I got stuck in traffic there for a long damn time when that bridge collapsed a couple years back.

[itchyfingers]

Dude, that place looks awesome! I love all the light coming in the first floor. And there's guitars in the bedroom already!

Congrats again, man! Hope closing goes smoothly and swiftly for you guys.

[jgreenwd]

no basements in Austin?

Basements in the South are few and far between. Primarily, it comes down to 3 things:
1. Historical building habits - Given the water permeability of our soil, it was always difficult to keep moisture out. While not as hard anymore, basements don't fit the historical norm.
2. Height above the frost line - Normal practice is to build the the lowest point at least 8 feet above the frost line. In the South, the frost line is usually only a foot or 2 down. So, there was no need to dig that deep for pipes. In the North, you were already digging pretty deep, so may as well throw in a basement while you're there.
3. Bedrock - It's harder to dig through than dirt. So, the added expense wasn't really justifiable. It's usually cheaper to build UP than to build OUT or DOWN.

[crankyrayhanky]

^interesting, I was wondering why I couldn't find a house with a basement

Aweosme house yo! You are 23 minutes from me. I travel up that way for good food and LA fitness. I hope to start seeing the live bands soon...maybe we can hang when the zombie apocolypse ends

[GuitarBilly]

https://www.redfin.com/TX/Austin/5616-S-1st-St-78745/unit-1/home/173114618?utm_source=myredfin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=listings_update&riftinfo=ZXY9ZW1haWwmbD0zOTIxOTc4MCZwPWxpc3RpbmdfdXBkYXRlc19kYWlseV8yNCZhPWNsaWNrJnM9c2F2ZWRfc2VhcmNoJnQ9aW1hZ2UmZW1haWxfaWQ9MzkyMTk3ODBfMTYwMDA3NDc5Nl8xNCZ1cGRhdGVfdHlwZT00JnNhdmVkX3NlYXJjaF9pZD00NDUwNzYyMyZsaXN0aW5nX2lkPTEyNDU3MDU0MSZwcm9wZXJ0eV9pZD0xNzMxMTQ2MTgmcG9zaXRpb25fbnVtYmVyPTA=

That's really cool man. The house looks great!! Nice floors, open spaces, plenty of natural light, low maintenance backyard. This would check all the boxes for me, except that I avoid HOAs like hell, but to be honest, they're not all bad.
I think the L.A. market ruined me forever, because I think that's a great price too. This house in SoCal would be easily over a million.
On the other hand, I was looking at the listing details for this house and it says the property tax is $8k an year??? For a $499k house... wtf?? This can't be right, can it? I thought TX was a tax friendly state,but this is like NY/NJ taxes, maybe even higher...

[K-Bizzle]

Dude, that place looks awesome! I love all the light coming in the first floor. And there's guitars in the bedroom already!

Congrats again, man! Hope closing goes smoothly and swiftly for you guys.

Thanks man! So far so good. Inspection came back and there is nothing major, just standard wear on tear stuff.
The inspector we used was insanely detailed and in depth.

^interesting, I was wondering why I couldn't find a house with a basement

Aweosme house yo! You are 23 minutes from me. I travel up that way for good food and LA fitness. I hope to start seeing the live bands soon...maybe we can hang when the zombie apocolypse ends

Oh nice man, where are you located?

That's really cool man. The house looks great!! Nice floors, open spaces, plenty of natural light, low maintenance backyard. This would check all the boxes for me, except that I avoid HOAs like hell, but to be honest, they're not all bad.
I think the L.A. market ruined me forever, because I think that's a great price too. This house in SoCal would be easily over a million.
On the other hand, I was looking at the listing details for this house and it says the property tax is $8k an year??? For a $499k house... wtf?? This can't be right, can it? I thought TX was a tax friendly state,but this is like NY/NJ taxes, maybe even higher...

Yeah we had been pretty set against an HOA but when we found this place we decided to make an exception. You mentioned the low maintenance yard, the HOA dues actually include yard work for the front and the back both which is nice.
As for the taxes thats where the state gets its money, no state income tax. When we compare going from IL where we paid over $6k on an 1100 square ft condo plus 5% state income tax paying $8k on a 2200 square ft house and no income tax is a deal.
That said its Travis county which has the highest property taxes of any county in the state, the literal price we pay for living in the liberal oasis of an otherwise pretty red state.

Being that I'm full time WFH now I'm really excited to put my office/man den together. I haven't had a space to myself like that since I was single.

[crankyrayhanky]

My AZ house tax was reasonable. Texas whacks you on property taxes. The no state income tax helps but doesn;t completely offset it. Overall this area is really awesome though

BTW, don't be the person that hears someone is moving and automatically respond with a negative about that area. Surprisingly, 9/10 people did this to us when we told them we were moving, and I'm talking about neighbors and friends.
"Ugggh, that humidiy is awful" or "Ugggh that traffic". Keep in mind this is in front of our 2 young kids who were already devasted to leave their home.
Every once in a great while someone would be normal and say something positive, like "How exciting, <insert city> has amazing <insert cool knowledge".

Besides what do you think, we're going to hear about traffic from neighbor Bob and suddenly change our big plans to move despite everything done? FYI, neighbor Bob, you're not invited to join us so don't worry about it