Where to live between Clear Lake and Beaumont (Houston, Baytown: homeowners association, mortgage)

[BrandyDanny]

Both my husband and I are amazingly fortunate in that we have been offered career positions in Clear Lake and Beaumont, respectively. We presently own a house in the Valley (regular mansion here, but we know we cannot afford the same size and type of home anywhere else), but my husband's new company will buy the house from us (well, it will cover the mortgage at least) and help with relocation costs.

We don't know the first thing about the new area, except that we both love Houston, but don't want to do the marathon commutes. We figure that a logical compromise is to look for a house between the two commutes, and while we know there are lots of developments, mostly in Baytown, we won't be able to have the time to look for a specific house, but don't want to be forced to grab the first thing that comes along.

I noticed some realtor sites for outlying towns like Mont Belvieu, as well as outer areas of Baytown, and wondered if we could get some ideas of what these areas are like, the answers to questions which we cannot ask a realtor....

We prefer a quiet neighborhood, preferably with fenced in yards, 2+car garages, away from commercial areas and highways. Everyone wants to live in a safe area, so that's a plus, too. A kid-friendly neighborhood doesn't matter, since we don't have kids. Homeowners associations are so-so, since I'm married to a man who REALLY decorates the house for the holidays, plus we have three dogs, and we don't want to need permission to decorate our home. We'd love something with a real yard, hopefully above a quarter acre, and don't want a townhouse/manufactured house.

Anyone here can help with helpful, honest and decent answers, or refer a realtor or several realtors? We don't have the time to fly back and forth to househunt, and while we intend to do a marathon house-tour in the next few weeks, want to be able to narrow down our search to at least a town rather than several counties.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Poltracker]

That is going to be a bad commute either way. Clear Lake and Beaumont are a relatively long way from each other. I live in Deer Park and Anahuac is at least 40 minutes away on a good day. BTW you might try Anahuac as an in between spot, Mont Belview is not a bad choice either.