Houston - Clear Lake area : Trip report (Friendswood, Bellaire: appointed, real estate market)

[MNCold]

I just got back from our visit to Clear Lake area so I wanted to share my experience with those who might be looking to move to this area. Our potential employment is near by Johnson Space Center.
1. Weather: We're lucky to visit this time of year. The temparature was in low 70's in the morning, it's up to 80's in the afternoon and gets down to high 60's in the evening. It is the PERFECT weather for us. I was told that it has been like this for about 3 weeks and will be similar to this until April (with more rain in Feb/March). How cool is that? However, I have to put on a sweater whenever I stepped indoor. A/C is used to the extremely here. I don't understand why there's a need for need A/C when the temp was perfect outside and then many people had to put sweaters on. Maybe b/c energy is cheap here?
2 People: Extremely friendly, I mean genuine friendly. There's a warmth and down to earth sense that I haven't experience much in Minnesota. Sure, people are nice in MN but more in a polite way, not a true sense of warmth that I experience here. From the hotel front desk to the people on the street, Texas people seems to be laid back and enjoy being social.
I talked to a few friends who moved from Minnesota to Houston recently. They agreed with me on this.
3. Look and feel:
- Aesthetical feel: I was a bit disappointed when I first arrived. The area looked a little bland with lots of concrete. I'm used to seeing big, tall and mature trees. However, once we've got past the main roads and venture into more residential areas, there more mature trees and greener environment. We also drove around and looked for interesting buildings that have history or interesting architectural details but we didn't find much. The buildings that we saw are blands.
4. Housing:
You definitely get more for your money here as far as housing (don't forget to check out all the taxes). What really suprised me was the excellent upkeep of the old neighborhood. It's difficult to tell the old house vs. new houses b/c many old houses have been remodelled and are in tip-top shape. I'm not a fan of big house. I prefer quality and characteristic over quantity. I'm looking for 1 story home with 3-4 bedroom for ~1500 sqrt. However, I acutally don't think that I can find a nice house in a nice neighborhood here with the footprint of <2000+ for 3-4 bedrooms. The houses that saw that are zone to top Clear Creek school are all very big (>2500 sqrt). LOL, I feel like my children would get lost in these big houses. I guess this is the Texas thing that we will have to get used to.
I was impressed by Har.com but now I'm even more impressed with the qualily of Houston real estate agent. The three agents that we met during open houses are prepared, knowledgable, professional and works HARD to earn your business than any agent that I've met in Minnesota. No wonder Houston has a very stable real estate market. In Minnesota, I have seen plently of agents who hired someone else to do open house, who know nothing about the house. I'm loving Houston real estate market.
5. Entertainment:
- Restaurant: There are plenty of diversed restaurants around the area so there are choices if we don't feel like cooking for the day.
- Shopping: The Bay Brook mall is big but spread out. You can find most of the typical department stores there. Target/Walmart/SAM is Webster and also in Seabrook. I wish that we have one in Clear Lake itself.
- We visted Kemah on the Saturday night. It was packed. After driving around for 1/2hr not able to find parking, we left.
- The Clear Lake park is very nice with big playgrounds for the kids. It is also nice for sight seeing.
- We stoped the Armand Bayou Nature center but didn't find it very attractive. Also, it was lunch time so we couldn't imagine ourself walking around the 80's temparature with 2 young kids. So we left within 10 minutes there.
6. Schools:
- The top schools within Clear Creek district (Brookwood elementary, Space Center Intermediate and Clear Lake high school) are all within a short drive from each other. The zip code that are zone to these schools are 77059, which is about ~15 minutes from the freeway. Since we will be driving to Bellaire area often, we didn't want to live to far from the free way. I'm scratching my head on what to do. I hope someone can help me find a neigbhoorhood that are closed to freeway but still in the top schools within Clear Creek. Are there such a thing? Education is so important to us that I'm guessing that we might end up living in 77059 zip code and commute to Bellair for other activities).
- Daycare: We checked out 2 daycares and didn't feel impressed with any of them. Maybe I'm being too picky but I should be as a mother.
University of Exelsior building looked nice but it just seems so big and so busy shuffling the kids around. It doens't feel homey and relax.
The Growing Place in Webster: the building was old and not very cleaned.
The staff doens't seem to have lots of energy. When i arrived, the old kids were eating snack. There are a teacher sit on the same table with them, who supposed to supervise and helped the kids. However, she was busy eating her own food. Aren't they supposed to not do that until on break???? I'm going to check out other centers if we move down there.
7. Traffic: definitely live close by where you work. There are A LOT of cars (many trucks) here. The commute is not fun. It took us about close to 20 minutes for a 8 miles trip from Clear Lake right to a Vietnamese market (Hong Kong 2) during the weekend with lighter traffic. I can't imagine would it would be like with traffic jam.

Overall, my husband insists that we move to Houston. The people seems to be happier here and not in rush all the time that they can not stop for a chat. I should know next week whether I would get an offer to move there.

[diablo234]

Glad you enjoyed your visit.

So are you sold on moving to Houston?

[Oildog]

As a MN native I agree with much of what you have seen. Houston is a nice, affordable big city to live in.

[LostInHouston]

77058 is also zoned to Brookwood. We lived in an apartment in 77058 when we first moved here, so my daughter went to Brookwood for K... very good school, but there are others that are just as good.... Northpointe, Ed White, Bauerschlag... in fact just about every elementary school in CCISD received an exemplary (highest) TEA rating this past year.

As for daycare, we used Excelsior for our oldest two for about a year. It was ok, but not great. We didn't care for their summer program, so this past summer they went to a local gym camp for the two days my wife works. For our youngest, we opted for an in-home daycare in our neighborhood, rather than Excelsior... and couldn't be happier. We had also used a Kindercare in Webster (Sea Lark off El Camino) when we first moved here... that place was an absolute wreck.

Will your husband be working at JSC? If so, there is an onsite child care center open to all JSC employees and contractors that is highly regarded (but I don't have any personal experience with it): About SFEI

[piyf]

People don't seem to be in a rush? Ever get on the highway?


Oh and I agree about the Clear Lake area. It's great and awesome if you own a boat.

[tstone]

The weather will get colder into the winter months, as in 65/45 on average, with a range of +/- 15 degrees. It usually does not freeze here at all, being close to the bay. However the residential parts of 'Clear Lake City' are on a big concrete heat island that gets equally as hot and miserable as the rest of Houston. The reason for AC's still running now is the high humidity that makes things musty and moldy. I usually run mine well into December and it comes back on sometime in March, but even during Jan/Feb I'll run it a couple of times.

Also, I don't think you'll find the combination you want as far as house/school. The best-rated schools will have the most upscale neighborhoods w/ the largest houses feeding into them (they pay the most taxes after all). You won't find a 1500 sq ft home there. The best location to Hong Kong 2, Bellaire, Downtown, etc is along Clear Lake City Blvd near El Camino Real. It's 5 mins from I-45 and has the home sizes you're looking for, but zoned to the next-best schools. It's also the newest development in the area (15-20 yrs old) and lots of people are getting serious about keeping these homes updated as well. Quality of homes through the whole are about the same-- good to excellent.

[chris_ut]

As tstone stated you need to make sure and run your AC or your house can get mold.

[phaedra_p]

Thanks for sharing, glad you like the area!

As for schools, the Friendswood ISD is also very well-regarded, but I don't think Friendswood solves your problem of being close to the highway. I think if you want super schools in Clear Lake you will have a little bit of a trip to Bellaire.

Good luck on your decision-making.

[cheryjohns]

Originally Posted by MNCold

I just got back from our visit to Clear Lake area so I wanted to share my experience with those who might be looking to move to this area.
People: Extremely friendly, I mean genuine friendly. There's a warmth and down to earth sense that I haven't experience much in Minnesota. Sure, people are nice in MN but more in a polite way, not a true sense of warmth that I experience here. From the hotel front desk to the people on the street, Texas people seems to be laid back and enjoy being social.
I talked to a few friends who moved from Minnesota to Houston recently. They agreed with me on this.

We just had a thread here not long ago about how the transplant found Houstonians to be "fake" friendly, not genuine at all. I guess it's all about perception, and to a degree, projection. People here are friendly if you are open to it - which, evidently, you are.

[MNCold]

I'm totally sold. The question is whether we can get employment there.
I just look up the attendance zone on CCISD site. If I live in an apartment, I could get an apartment in zipcode 77058 (closer to freeway) that is zoned to Brookwood. Now for a house, the only 2 communities that feeds into Broodwood in Pine Brook and University park, both are in 77059 which is 15 min further from I45. Really strange.
So we might end up staying in an apartment then. Grhhh....
Are there elementary school hat are as good as Brookwood? I checked on greatschool.net and Brookwood got a rating of 10 while area schools near by ranging from 7-9. I don't know how important is the ranking but I wanted the best school possible. The ranking and not knowing are driving me crazy. Are there a significant difference b/t the ranking of 8 vs. 10. Any parents out there can help me out?

Why am I being so picky?