600-700K, would you buy a small house in University Park or a nice house in Colleyville/ Southlake (Grapevine: neighborhood, schools)

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by dwayne00

OMG that's crazy!!!!!

It's the exception for DFW (where housing is generally "cheap" compared to most other major cities), but it's not uncommon in exclusive areas in many major metro areas.

[hsw]

Suspect disproportionate % of buyers of new stuff in Southlake are middle mgrs more likely to work at lower-income, utilitarian, big co. back-offices/HQs in Plano or Irving rather than in Uptown which has the few hedgies and retired o&g guys who may prefer to have costly offices nr their residences in HP or PH and nr their favored dining/bars...the life of semi-retirement

For most cube dwellers, far more efficient to buy a new 4K sf house (w/modern HVAC, etc) on 0.3ac in Southlake than some dump or teardown attempt in HP/UP (on a similar townhouse-like lot amidst ole houses/teardowns)

Most kids w/common sense seeking lucrative careers prob seek to leave TX once done w/HS (unless aspire for o&g career) and S Lake public schools prob work just as well as HP/StMarks, in era of kindle, udacity, etc when any smart 10yo can self-educate Stanford CS/Wharton Fin undergrad from his PC in Southlake or wherever....tech has reduced cost of useful educ and leveled the career playing field in many ways...

[Dr. Jake Oil]

Originally Posted by hsw

Suspect disproportionate % of buyers of new stuff in Southlake are middle mgrs more likely to work at lower-income, utilitarian, big co. back-offices/HQs in Plano or Irving rather than in Uptown which has the few hedgies and retired o&g guys who may prefer to have costly offices nr their residences in HP or PH and nr their favored dining/bars...the life of semi-retirement

For most cube dwellers, far more efficient to buy a new 4K sf house (w/modern HVAC, etc) on 0.3ac in Southlake than some dump or teardown attempt in HP/UP (on a similar townhouse-like lot amidst ole houses/teardowns)

Most kids w/common sense seeking lucrative careers prob seek to leave TX once done w/HS (unless aspire for o&g career) and S Lake public schools prob work just as well as HP/StMarks, in era of kindle, udacity, etc when any smart 10yo can self-educate Stanford CS/Wharton Fin undergrad from his PC in Southlake or wherever....tech has reduced cost of useful educ and leveled the career playing field in many ways...

Im nt sr wt u r trng 2 say hr but the idea of who lvs n the prk cits is wrng.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

Yes. It's routinely on the same "most affluent neighborhoods" list with Chevy Chase MD, Greenwich CT, and the elite/expensive Westchester Co and Long Island NYC suburbs.

America's Most Affluent Neighborhoods - Forbes

Surprised Kenilworth's not on there (should be, going by median household income and all). When I drove briefly into HP last weekend, my first thought was "hey, reminds me of Kenilworth".

Also, I believe Westover Hills outside of FW is also at 250K median household income.

[Dr. Jake Oil]

I don't get how Westlake can be on those lists with 700 people. Just seems a bit absurd with how small that community is.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

Surprised Kenilworth's not on there (should be, going by median household income and all). When I drove briefly into HP last weekend, my first thought was "hey, reminds me of Kenilworth".

Also, I believe Westover Hills outside of FW is also at 250K median household income.

I'm a big Westover Hills fan. It's one of the most beautiful, and perfectly maintained, neighborhoods I've ever seen. The key difference between HP/UP and WH is that WH is very, very small.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by Dr. Jake Oil

I don't get how Westlake can be on those lists with 700 people. Just seems a bit absurd with how small that community is.

If you look at many (most?) of the places in that top 10, they're very tiny.

BTW, I checked, Kenilworth is down to a "mere" $224,643 in median household income, and has only 2,513 residents. Westover Hills has a population of 682 and median household income of 250,000+, dunno why it's not on the Forbes list.

Suddenly I feel really really poor.

[CREW747]

Southlake/ Colleyville 100 percent...

[EDS_]

It's not only that housing relative to income is fairly inexpensive around here. It's that plus many other "cost of living" components are less expensive around here. Taxes are a big one. Texas has the lowest overall tax burden of any big state.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by EDS_

It's not only that housing relative to income is fairly inexpensive around here. It's that plus many other "cost of living" components are less expensive around here. Taxes are a big one. Texas has the lowest overall tax burden of any big state.

Setting aside taxes, are other COL items really much lower in Dallas? I just pulled up one COL calculator to compare Dallas to Chi. Housing was a huge difference (135 in chi vs. 72 in Dal, with 100 being "average"). Other than that (listing Chicago first in all subsequent comps), food was 114 to 100 (surprised me, personally Dallas grocery prices have seemed higher), utilities were 95 to 108 (Dallas higher), transportation 119 to 102 (assume that's mainly gas price differential), health 106 to 107 and "miscellaneous" 108 to 103.

I tried another COL calculator and it kicked out very similar results (they may be drawing from the same data with just minor differences in the calc).

As for taxes, IL income taxes are a flat 5% over a low base amount (2K per "exemption", so 5% on all $ over the first 8K for a "family of four"), which is obviously the largest difference. Property taxes appear to be similar to slightly lower rates in IL, but again, housing is much cheaper so it's possible to spend much less on housing in TX. I really don't know enough about licenses/user fees to make an informed comparison in that area, and don't know enough yet to make an informed comparison about the quality of services received (libraries/parks/community center programs/whatnot). Vehicle licensing is more expensive in IL but I think we're talking $30-$40 a year per vehicle. I've commented on toll roads being considerably more prevalent and more expensive here, although they can be avoided (albeit sometimes it's highly inconvenient). Sales taxes in Chi/Cook county are the highest anywhere, ~2% higher than in Dallas, but if you live in Lake county they're ~2% lower than Dallas. HOA's appear to be far more prevalent here than in Chi.

(just checked the Tax Foundation numbers, they put "total tax burden" on Texas at 7.9% and IL at 10.0%, although this was back before IL raised their tax rate from 3% to 5%. The Tax Foundation does have their biases like any other organization, but I expect their methodology is relatively consistent among all states and for this type of data they're likely one of the best resources out there).