bostonbubble.com

[Boston ITer]

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/08/real_estate/housing_outlook.fortune/

Looks like Boston/Cambridge are bearish again. What's got me surprised is that Bridgeport CT is more expensive than here ? How could that be? Last I'd checked, that place was dumpy and reasonably dangerous.

[Boston ITer]

Also, Austin and Houston are looking great !

That's definitely on my radar for my next career move. Nostalgia's wearing thin, people around me are not doing well financially and jobs aren't coming back to MA in mass. Perhaps I need to befriend more hedge fund types than tech workers

[balor123]

North Carolina is also looking very interesting. It is similar to Texas in many respects but doesn't have the brutally hot weather (some people like it but not me). Seems to have a better job market for tech workers right now than Austin but I think Austin may have more startups.

[Boston ITer]

Texas also has Houston which is a megapolis and that wouldn't be a bad place to be, given the fact that one may need to job hop, every five years or so. And then Dallas and Austin aren't exactly that far away if the job market disperses a bit. The Raleigh-Durham-C.H. network is still kinda a big college town suburbia than a major metropolitan area.

[balor123]

I like everything about Texas except for the weather but most Texans like Houston the least. It doesn't have the tech job market that Austin. I guess it depends on what type of job you want. I don't like jobs where I'm considered support staff.

Unless you go by NYC commute standards (where 3 hours is an acceptable drive), Austin and Dallas definitely "are that far away". They are both a 3.5-4 hour drive away. Ok for a weekend trip. Less so for a job. My ranking would be: Austin, Dallas, and then Houston.

[Boston ITer]

[balor123]

That's a good point but that benefit really applies to any low cost of living area (NC for example).

[Boston ITer]

Think about it this way, the reason why so many people live between New Haven CT and Washington DC is the general urban densities of the regions are where half the companies of the eastern USA are located, nevermind the ever present influences of Wall St and the Beltway.

Likewise, metaphorically speaking, Texas is similar for the Gulf/Southwest in that there are general urban densities, all within striking distances of one another with no local tax overhead so that in effect, it has a similar business magnet force much like the northeast corridor had for much for the past century. Today, the northeast is a tax/real estate disaster area, no longer a place for a business to make long term plans. As soon as a MIT/Harvard breeder is up, it immediately partners overboard and leaves the region instead of adding to it except for a Kendall mail stop (plus alumni gathering).

[melonrightcoast]

[balor123]

melonrightcoast - can you provide some actual figures? I know that as a percentage the taxes are higher there but that's also a reflection of lower house prices. I wonder if the total amount is similar. Considering that the cost of almost everything else is lower in Texas, then I'd say your getting a lot for your money. Maybe that's part of the reason why the roads are better down there and why the typical schools are also better (comparing, say, Dorchester and Roxbory schools, where more than half the residents of Boston live, to the typical schools in Austin). High taxes also discourages real estate bubbles. People there get angry when their home prices go up.

I agree with you that taxes are not really the issue though. TX has a high sales tax too by the way of about 8%. I think you can roughly boil it down the growth friendly policies. The population grows by 3% a year and the cities there grow to accommodate at least that amount. But more specifically: negative profers (cities pay for infrastructure to attract business), constant expansion of land, lack of unions and other historical baggage, centralized government (ineffective squabbling among residents), no historical baggage, emphasis on greater good (eminent domain not a problem there) / constant attention to reducing cost of living, city planning (does Boston even have planners?), expectation of change (generally positive down there), and emphasis on big business.

[balor123]

I suppose I forgot to specifically highlight debt in the historical baggage. MA has one of the highest debts per capita and that comes out of your taxes.

[melonrightcoast]

here you go balor:

the numbers i referenced for idaho, i got from here http://tax.idaho.gov/p-individuals.cfm, as I was pretty sure rates had changed since i last lived there over thirteen years ago.

regarding austin property taxes:
http://www.austin-chamber.org/DoBusiness/TaxesAndIncentives/TxProperty.html

i remembered "looking" at a property (on realtor.com) with taxes at about $10,000 and the house was listed at $450K, or something like that. that list of tax rates supports that. granted, you could pay much less than $450K in Austin and afford to send your kids to private schools if your school district was poor. the property tax rate is not what made us disqualify Austin, it was more my husband being concerned about having quality job opportunities. from my research, living expenses were generally MUCH lower in Austin. childcare sticks out in my memory as being less than half the cost of what it would be in the Boston area (not joking).

[Boston ITer]

[balor123]

Thanks for the numbers. I think part of the reason why it appears cheaper is that Boston taxes businesses more to make up for it (take the recent hotel tax hike in Waltham as an example to avoid raising property taxes). That cost is passed to you indirectly through the cost of your goods and loss of jobs. You are right that it does seem like it could be much more expensive there.

Below I examined a few scenarios to get a better idea. Let's compare what it costs to get into the best school districts in both cities. Let's suppose that Wellesley has the best district here and Eanes in Austin.

You can get a newish townhome for $490k in Wellesley today which has taxes of $4.7k/year. You can get a comparable newish townhome in Eanes for $310k which has taxes of $4.6k.

Now let's look at homes. It's hard to find comparable homes between the two because they have different stock. You have a lot of "older" but still nice homes (1980s) for $350k - $400k in this area, which is what I would buy. Wellesley has some much older (1950s) not so nice homes (often on bad streets) for $500k - $700k, which I wouldn't live in (1980 is the oldest I'll go). One of the $350k homes has taxes of $7.2k. A comparable home in Wellesley runs about $630k and has taxes of $6.6k. A nicer home in Wellesley costs about $800k and has taxes of $6.8k, though I think Redfin may have this wrong. A nicer home in Austin costs $550k and has taxes of $12.5k. So it seems that in Austin a premium home ($450k+) has higher real estate taxes than here but below that threshold they are comparable.

Of course there are the other factors that you mentioned. Plumbers here charge $90/hr while there they might be $30/hr. The best daycare in San Antonio (JCC) charges $1k/mo while Bright Horizons (JCC doesn't even offer here) charges $2.2k/mo. And nights/weekends are much cheaper there as well since my parents live only 60 miles away Healthcare is also cheaper there but harder to quantify. Gas there runs about 10% - 20% less than here, insurance is similarly discounted. You also generally drive less to get things there than you do here (Target is 20min away here, 5min typical in TX). Groceries cost about 1/2 as much as here (not kidding!) and I'm comparing against the crummy Hannaford in Waltham, not the nice (only) supermarket in Wellesley. A cleaning from a maid runs about $100 here I think and maybe $30 there, though the maid here will speak English. There's no tolls there but sales tax is somewhat higher at ~8% vs ~6%. Short term capital gains tax of ~12% here and none there. Parking runs about $3/day at the airport there vs $16/day here (and you have to take a shuttle). Car maintainance and repair runs about half what it does here and cars last a lot longer there. That's probably enough - just wanted to provide some actual figures of the costs of various things.

Austin doesn't have the same size job market as Boston but the opportunities per person are greater I think (in other words, we have a lot more jobs but relatively more people fighting for them and perhaps a better pool of people to compete with). The market there also seems to be more diverse than Boston as it is now centered primarily around software. Boston has more startups by far but again only in certain areas and Austin isn't devoid of them. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make though as with a lower cost of living I wouldn't worry about short periods of unemployment like I do here.

If you don't think that old poorly maintained and designed houses and roads are "charm", then Boston will drive you crazy. I guess I'm like Bush - I want to bulldoze over the trees and replace them with parking lots I agree that North Boston development is hideous but not all new development is like that. I also agree with you that you should live somewhere else in the US at some point. My place was Boston and I now appreciate why I should have stayed in Texas Only problem is once you move elsewhere it can be very hard to move back.

[melonrightcoast]

Nice analysis! I didn't know you were from TX . I've only visited Dallas, but knew several people that lived in Austin and loved it. And if you have family there and now have a child, then the pull to go back can be quite strong (from personal experience). We moved back west for a couple years ... but then moved back to MA for many various reasons.