How is Houston for the gun lovers?

[shyi3t]

Originally Posted by Majk

Just researched pearland last night. The wife and I looked at dozens of houses online and I gotta say prices are awesome. Even some in Houston.

I looked at houses compared to ours in the same price range. On the whole, in TX you got one more bedroom and another bathroom plus a little more square footage for the same money. Property taxes were about 15-20% higher but the prices more than made up for it.
It looks like Pearland is 15-20 minutes from Houston as far as I could tell.
She'd have to find a post office around there that would take her on, so she has some flexibility as to where we can live near there.

It's just getting her to leave NE. and her family. But the cold and snow really help my cause.

We might have to call upon one or two of you TX guys when we get closer to moving. Maybe one of you can hook us up with a good realtor and maybe offer some suggestions on where to live.
We've been to Houston a couple of times and San Antonio, but never paid enough attention as to living and working there. I will say it is true, southern people are more friendlier. I have family near Fort Worth and whenever we visited they called me a yankee and expected me to be rude. I always thought that was funny when I was a kid.

my mom (nurse) bought a condo by the medical center of houston .. right next to the reliant stadiums .. 5 minutes from downtown .. 15 minutes i think to everywhere like the malls .. she also bought another house by sugarland which is also next to a hospital .. and pretty much nice neighborhood with mini lakes .. pearland is nice too .. i've heard it has nice clean air so my brother says ..

*my dad use to work at the post office .. right by downtown houston i think

[xdmikey]

other places are better, though. It depends on what you do for a living. Austin is nice but expensive; San Antonio is cool and close to some great real estate: the Hill Country!
I grew up in Dallas and think they are full of junk! Houston has junk too but everyone gets along better
My banker is filipino and his wife is hispanic; so is my wife!
the gun shows here are good; the ranges are great!
Pearland was nice but it's small and not too conducive to what I was doing; I needed warehouse space and there wasn't any at any price. Another nice thing about Pearland: lower car insurance but lots of places require/recommend flood insurance. I rarely broke a sweat when mowing my yard-the sea breeze!
If you move there, join the citizen's police academy. It's great and if you have kids it might be helpful to know the cops-it's still kind of small town. I can tell you more off the wire.
My home will always be in Texas!
michael

[shyi3t]

Originally Posted by xdmikey

My home will always be in Texas!

+1

[Brickboy240]

Another thing to consider when researching neighborhoods in a large city like Houston - what part of town will you be working in?

Example: I live in the northwest (hwy6/290) area and if I worked in Pearland, Clear Lake City or Pasadena, it would take me an hour and a half on a good day to get to work. If I worked downtown...a good solid hour on the freeway. Think about this when chosing a neighborhood. Commuting time can be long here and with expensive gas..why put up with it if you do not have to?

Also, I was living here when Hurricane Alicia hit and the southern most parts of Houston saw ALOT more damage than the northern burbs. Another consideration to ponder. I would no live in Clear Lake City, Sugarland or Pearland only because of this. Nice enighborhoods...but when the hurricane comes...they'll get flattened first and hit harder than the north side.

Another thing to consider is schools. Do you have children? Plan to soon? The inner-city public schools in Houston are (for the most part) horrible. Most people living inside the loop send their kids to private schools. Those can be very expensive. So can affordable, safe housing closer to the city.

I have been pretty happy with our neighborhood and public schools so far. We like the northwest suburbs and theres affordable housing that is safe around here...lots of it.

It will take some research and it sounds lke you're doing it..thats good. This is a very large and diverse city and you can find whatever you want here.

As others have mentioned...it is hot here...and very humid in the summer. Moreso than many other places. If you've never been down here in June, July or August - it might shock you. Thats ok, we all have big A/C units and the winter months are very nice. Its supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow. My daughter and I are going to ride the ATV in shorts and burn a brick of 22 shells through her new 10-22 Ruger. Sounds better than shoveling snow, doesn't it?

The heat and humidity is uncomfortable but it also has its benefits. We're very green most of the year. Your garden will be great because of all the rain and we rarely see wildfires or overly hot/dry conditions. Many subtropical flowering plants thrive here and are gorgeous. Just like you learn to "work around' the snow in the north, we too have learned to deal with the heat - its not that difficult.

Let us know when you get closer to an actual move and maybe we can help you out even more. Theres lots of things the Chamber of Commerce and realtors will not tell you...but need to know.

- Brickboy240

[RobFMJ]

Originally Posted by xdmikey

My home will always be in Texas!

+2

Going to school down in Galveston (not really by choice, but I love it nonetheless), and I'm gonna wind up working in Houston. Love everything but the traffic

[StrykerDM]

Originally Posted by Brickboy240

Another thing to consider when researching neighborhoods in a large city like Houston - what part of town will you be working in?

Let us know when you get closer to an actual move and maybe we can help you out even more. Theres lots of things the Chamber of Commerce and realtors will not tell you...but need to know.

- Brickboy240

+1 Find out what side of town you'll be working at first and then go from there. I have some friends who just purchased a house down in Pearland and moved in last week, so I could inquire about their realtor, etc, if you guys ever need more info. I personally really like the area, and if I stay here for residency, I'll definetely consider purchasing property out in that area.

There's also a good local XD club here in Houston that is a good bunch of guys that gets together for some relaxed IDPA every month.

[Bearcreek]

I am over in San Antonio, if you need a little help looking around the area or have questions. We have some nice ranges here as well.

[Majk]

Originally Posted by Brickboy240

Another thing to consider when researching neighborhoods in a large city like Houston - what part of town will you be working in?

Example: I live in the northwest (hwy6/290) area and if I worked in Pearland, Clear Lake City or Pasadena, it would take me an hour and a half on a good day to get to work. If I worked downtown...a good solid hour on the freeway. Think about this when chosing a neighborhood. Commuting time can be long here and with expensive gas..why put up with it if you do not have to?

Also, I was living here when Hurricane Alicia hit and the southern most parts of Houston saw ALOT more damage than the northern burbs. Another consideration to ponder. I would no live in Clear Lake City, Sugarland or Pearland only because of this. Nice enighborhoods...but when the hurricane comes...they'll get flattened first and hit harder than the north side.

Another thing to consider is schools. Do you have children? Plan to soon? The inner-city public schools in Houston are (for the most part) horrible. Most people living inside the loop send their kids to private schools. Those can be very expensive. So can affordable, safe housing closer to the city.

I have been pretty happy with our neighborhood and public schools so far. We like the northwest suburbs and theres affordable housing that is safe around here...lots of it.

It will take some research and it sounds lke you're doing it..thats good. This is a very large and diverse city and you can find whatever you want here.

As others have mentioned...it is hot here...and very humid in the summer. Moreso than many other places. If you've never been down here in June, July or August - it might shock you. Thats ok, we all have big A/C units and the winter months are very nice. Its supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow. My daughter and I are going to ride the ATV in shorts and burn a brick of 22 shells through her new 10-22 Ruger. Sounds better than shoveling snow, doesn't it?

The heat and humidity is uncomfortable but it also has its benefits. We're very green most of the year. Your garden will be great because of all the rain and we rarely see wildfires or overly hot/dry conditions. Many subtropical flowering plants thrive here and are gorgeous. Just like you learn to "work around' the snow in the north, we too have learned to deal with the heat - its not that difficult.

Let us know when you get closer to an actual move and maybe we can help you out even more. Theres lots of things the Chamber of Commerce and realtors will not tell you...but need to know.

- Brickboy240

Thanks Brick and everybody else. We originally looked into San Antonio but we were told the housing was more expensive there.
Man the realtor that we've been talking with said pearland was only 20 min. from downtown. I know the wife doesn't want to commute too far as she is only 3 min. from work now.

We've both been there in the summer. Actually NE. has had almost as much heat lately. We hit 105-105 last year with tons of humidity.
What's 10 more degrees? Wait I'm not the one delivering the mail.

So Northwest Houston is better for living? What we kind of wanted was near Houston, but in a suburb type of living. Maybe a 15-20 min. commute for her? The only problem is we won't no what station she can go to until we are ready to move, and that won't be until we settle our three car accidents. We should be able to put 50% down on our house so it gives us some flexibility in what we can look at. It would be great to have a few voices letting us know what's good and what's bad. The realtor we've been emailing has only been giving us the expensive listings and steering us towards pearlman and said it was a quick drive to downtown Houston.

We were going to head to San Antonio with all the kids over their spring break but that happened to be during St. Patty's day and every hotel was booked, unless we wanted to pay $275 a night for each room.

So it looks like maybe June we'll be down to look. Our first settlement should be in the next 30 days.
Thanks everybody for the suggestions and help. There are allot of things to consider living in TX than Nebraska. I don't think we've ever had a hurricane. That would have never really entered my mind. I don't think the wife thought "hurricane" would enter the picture when they say "through rain, sleet or snow".

So it sounds like Pearlman is out, that commute is a deal killer.

It's funny Brick when you mention that it's going to be 70, when we last went to Houston's Rodeo three years ago, it was snowing here in NE. We flew into Mpls and it was snowing. They said it was supposed to be like 60 in Houston so we packed long pants. Well it was 80 the next day, we had to hit target for shorts. I did sell that to the wife, she can deliver the mail in shorts in February. But I didn't remind her of the heat in the summer. That'll be our secret.