All - what is a good salary that will ensure good standard of living in Austin Texas - , owning a 3 Bhk home in excellent school district and be able to save enough ? What are some good places to rent for good schooling ? Any pointers to help ?
Say 20 min commute
Main things are good schools and safe schools
Areas
It’s all pretty cheap around Austin area until you start looking at the quality school districts and you pay a lot there. That’s the Austin trap where it looks nice and cheap and then your kid tells you about how their day at school went and makes you wish you had spent $200k more on your house.
So a 20 min commute and great schools (which are typically in the outer parts of the city, meaning more than 20 min commute) will cost you home prices of $800k and up (Westlake Area). If you live north (Round Rock, Cedar Park) you’re looking at an hour commute but get a lot more house for your $ and great schools. Also bear in mind property taxes are really high in Austin, so $800k here is more expensive than Seattle (or likely wherever you are). You will probably have to compromise either on schools or commute, unless you get a job with a company in the Domain (which is north Austin) then you can have both much more cost effectively.
Circle C or Southwest Austin is good. You could get a decent 2500 sq ft or above Single family home for around 450k to 600k. Commute is also not bad if you work on Mopac or Southwest Austin near AMD/Freescale etc. Cumulative Household income of 200k -250K$ is plenty to lead a good life in Austin and also save a bit.
Best public HS (Westwood) is up in north Austin (look at balcones area). Easy commute to domain (Facebook, amazon) bad commute to downtown (45-hr in traffic). A 200TC is more than comfortable.
Go Warriors! (Class of ‘94)
There is SXSW saying ‘Welcome to Austin, Don’t move here’.. ppl here really don’t want anyone moving to Austin especially from California.. which is true in a way Californians moving here have just messed up the housing market since they drool over big homes & low prices...which has irked the locals all the more.. why do you Real wanna move here anyways , it’s an unpredictable weather , super hot summer, bad traffic ,any direction you drive it takes about 8hrs just to get out of Texas, closest snow place is 10hrs away, beaches are muddied... not many job opportunities it’s just a hype... please stay where you are don’t move
As always, it depends. What are you willing to commute (either to downtown or domain area)