rotarygod

NAVILESRX8: I am a real estate agent here and deal with alot of relocating people. The housing market is booming here. The southwest side is very popular but the northwest side is the fasting growing. This place is big. There are alot of nice places to live. Houston is located mostly in Harris county but the suburbs of Houston extend into 5 different counties. You really need to watch out for the tax rates between them. You could see property taxes anywhere from 2.2% all the way up to 4.5% or so. Get in touch with me before you come down here. I can help you out.

NAVILESRX8

iTrader: (1)

Well....it is 1-1.5 years away....depends on what I do with my car....if I can sell it, then next year I'll be thre..if not I'll wait a little to go down there...unless I find a real good job. I will definetly look you up.......I hate New England...got to get out of here......winter's coming....I have to park my RX8 and drive the beater 4runner to work.....what fun.....

DreRX8

You'll like Houston. Let us know how it turns out--what does your family think about it?

NAVILESRX8

iTrader: (1)

The wife is excited....She is as anxious to get out of here as I am. My parents and her parents are looking to join us if it works out for us.....we will be the guinea pigs haha.

DrKillJoY

Nice pic...

Another thing that might help you figure out good locations is to download the Google Earth application. Then you can cruise around the city and see how everything is setup and what not.

allmazda

We just built a house in Katy, and we love it, we got a 3,600 sq.ft. house with a three car garage for $250k. It is quiet at night, no traffic and no lights, it is as close to living in the country, but still living in the burbs, and we are less than 15 minutes from I-10 and hwy 59.

I almost forgot, I am a Realtor as well.

rotarygod

Really. Who for?

allmazda

Keller Williams Cinco Ranch, we have talked about it at the Houston club meetings, you are with ERA correct?

rotarygod

Now I remember who you are. I don't always remember faces with forum names. Actually I just changed to Zip Realty. I love it. It is internet based. They send me all the leads (more than all) that I can handle. I work off of my home computer. I am also an employee of the company now rather than self employed so taxes won't be so bad. Business is so easy to come by here. Zip also pays to advertise for me in areas that I choose to market. It's a different way of doing things but it is really going to pay off and quickly. Depending on how happy you are where you're at you may at least want to check into it.

allmazda

email me the info @ imnot2bz2cu@yahoo.com

NAVILESRX8

iTrader: (1)

My wife is looking to do real estate, how hard and how much is it to get a realtor's license in Texas?

allmazda

If she can get a waiver I think she needs to take either 3 or 4 classes, if not it will take 6 classes. The classes run right around a $100 each. The waivers are given out for college credit, not past real estate experience. I had four years of rela estate from another state, and I had to take all 6 classes.

NAVILESRX8

iTrader: (1)

cool...is an extra fee to actually get the license once she takes the courses?

rotarygod

If you have at least 10 college credit hours, you only need 4 classes. Otherwise it is 6. They are about to change that though. Not sure when but soon you will need 6 classes minimum with college credit. Not sure how much without.

Classes are getting more and more expensive. They are up to around $140 per class now. The state exam is aroung $80 now I think and that's assuming you pass it the first time and don't have to pay again.

All in all that's not that expensive or difficult compared to college. When I got my license 4 years ago, I only needed 3 classes, classes were $120, and the state exam was $35. It's amazing how fast prices have gone up. Then you need to factor in how much money you have to pay in dues to the Houston Association of Realtors, and Supra for the electronic keyboxes. It adds up quick.

Sunbyrne

As someone who's not originally from Houston, I'm not quite as high on it as other people here so I thought you should get a balanced perspective. It's not that I dislike Houston, but I'm not blind to its flaws, and some of them are pretty serious. (Note that I've lived in Minneapolis, Ann Arbor [Michigan], Silicon Valley, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh before moving here so I have some basis for comparison.)

Pros

• Cheap to live here here, especially housing. Big points for this.
• Lots of great places to eat, wide variety of styles. Can get expensive and fattening, but mmmmmmm. My theory is that people eat out so much because it's too hot to cook.
• Lots of things to do, fun places for both kids and grownups (hurray for getting the NFL back).
• Pretty easy to find things and get around, lots of things convenient. One can learn it pretty fast.
• Hub and HQ for a major airline (Continental), so it's easy to get around the country, too, though some spots in the northeast require a change of planes in Cleveland or Newark.
• Decent job market, or so I understand.

Cons

• Horrible geography. Completely flat and featureless, not enough trees; no natural beauty to speak of--basically, ugly. Worst place I've ever lived for this, but I guess not worse than Florida.
• Weather sucks. I'm sorry, but it's just way too hot here for way too long. No real seasons, just "hot" and "not so hot." Even if you don't like snow and cold, Atlanta and California don't get snow and are a lot more moderate--it doesn't have to be this bad just to avoid snow.
• Air quality is really not good. Way too many ozone days, very bad for kids. Locals take this way less seriously than they should, which is why the problem isn't going away anytime soon.
• Sprawled out like crazy, weak public transportation. Roads clogged with unnecessarily large number of massive SUVs which have no purpose somewhere flat and snowless--not the best environment for low sports cars!\
• Horrible city engineering--you'd think with all the flooding we get here the city would get smart and design drainage better, and that's happening, but it's a recent thing. If you move here, be careful with this, but you already know that.

Beaches in Galveston are kind of a wash. They do indeed have beaches, but the water's kind of iffy and the oil platforms don't add much to the beach ambience.

Of course, we're still here after one decent opportunity to move, so obviously we don't think it's all bad. But not all great, either. Thought you should hear some from each side.

NAVILESRX8

iTrader: (1)

Wow...got to dig up this thread again. Well..I just got back from visiting.....my impressions, I love it a lot. My wife and I fell in love with Katy. Seems like a great place to bring up the kids. There is a lot to do for the kids, and the area looks awesome. I have my house for sale, and as soon as it sells we are moving down there. I'm shooting for May. I hope everything works out...I might even pick up a used RX8....I have seen very low mileage 05's for $18K.....