Francisco

[QUOTE=dbj1000]An example of a house very similar to ours is .........which is $295k, but which I'm sure could be had for <$250 after a little negotiation.

OMG, looking at those details made me wish i was moving to Texas! Wonder if I can get hubby to stop working in New York and move out there.......

the prices are amazing compared to where we are looking. How lovely to have a huge house at that price!!

psb182

not saying you lied at all but sometimes stuff sounds hard to belive.........just an example lingo voip $20 per month unlimited calls to USA Canada and western Euroupe ....at first that sounded hard to belive for me until I got it and signed up myself now I KNOW.......... sometimes I am pretty blunt and say whats in my head maybe some people get the wrong idea.......I suggest you stop reading my post as you are making your own assumptions of my intentions

vegas

Look at this 4010 sq ft for $243,900 and a Dart station due to be built a mile or so down the road


http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/Home...6&lnksrc=00002

TimFountain

[QUOTE=Francisco] True, but there is a downside, these houses are not always very well built (by UK standards), can be very close to the neighbours house, can sit on a small lot with virtually no backyard and cost a fortune to cool in the summer. We have a 3600 sq.ft house with lovely high ceilings, our largest MONHTLY bill so far this year was $553. We have had 3 other bills over $450. The A/C is 78 in the day and 74 at night, not exactly artic like. We looked at over 80 houses in Austin before we found one that had enough land (1/2 acre), sufficient distance from heighbours, in a quite location, with the layout we liked. Oh and the property tax, that would be $8700 PER YEAR, now just bend over, this really won't hurt much....

- Tim

vegas

[QUOTE=TimFountain] We have our A/C set to 78 all the time our highest bill was for $300 in july but I guess Austin is hotter than Tampa as our highest temperature this year was 96. As for build quality most of the houses around here are Stucco over wood. At least in Texas they are built of brick.

Englishmum

[QUOTE=TimFountain] Huh.

Our property tax is a shade under $13,000 per year for a small 3 bedroomed house (2500 sq ft including the basement LOL!) on 1/3rd acre in New Jersey (18 miles west of Manhatten). The land is worth more than the property...when we move back to the UK or Geneva in a couple of years I think our house will probably be purchased by a property developer and demolished and one of those McMansions built in its place....it's hard to decide whether or not to install a new kitchen (it has the original 1950s one) to just to not bother.

The house directly opposite mine is up for sale and their taxes are $22k per year - although of course the house is much larger but on a smaller plot of land.

Anywhere in the New York metro area has expensive property tax, although our local high school is the best in the State and a lot of money is ploughed into the local schools.

Look at the taxes (and asking price of this property on sale) this house in our town which seems to be similar to the house in the link posted by dbj1000:

http://www.burgdorff.com/search/prop...assed=1&prev=y

It's a much bigger differential on the UK's "North/South" divide isn't it LOL!

(Actually this house here is just beautiful....but look at the asking price and the taxes....OMG!!! :scared: )

http://www.burgdorff.com/search/prop...assed=1&prev=y

Maz

Just to jump in on the comparisons here. We bought our 3-bed, 2-bath house in Dec 1997 in what was then the far-west Chicago suburbs, for $150K. It's a ranch with a full basement (unfinished, still!) and we back onto a nature preserve with a lake. We could easily get $240K for it now, nice chunk of profit there. Actually probably more than that, as they're not building houses this small anymore around these parts. It's 1,600 sq ft and easily big enough for us, plus the little nipper, 2 cats and 2 guinea-pigs. I even work from home. Our annual property taxes are around the $4,500 mark, with a brand new (due to all the house-building through recent years) elementary school, middle school and high school very close by.

The thing that pees me off about property taxes is that half the money goes to the schools (actually no problem with that), and that half of that money in turn goes to the school *buses*. WTF??

I just looked on realtor.com and found a house just round the other side of our lake... so one with a view of the train tracks and power lines. It has one more bedroom than our house, and one extra toilet, and is on the market for $324K. Nuts I tell ya!

dbj1000

[QUOTE=vegas] ...built of brick? Don't you believe it, sonny!

Our house is "3/4 brick" indicating that only the back wall is faced with clapboards... but the "brick" isn't structural in the least. It doesn't hold anything up, it's just there for aesthetics. The structure behind the brick is still wood and sheet-rock.

As for air-con, the temperature you set it at makes all the difference. According to our electricity company, the difference between setting 76 and 78deg here in Dallas in the summer is 20% of your bill.

We've forced ourselves to get used to 81deg (no big deal really, it's a lovely temperature!) and our bills haven't topped $340 for 4200sq.ft, while my friends in smaller houses regularly pay >$500 per month.

CaliforniaBride

Hubby and I love Texas. We were looking at some houses there on our last trip. The prices were amazing!! Houses were a quarter the value of ours and twice the size!

vegas

[QUOTE=dbj1000] The brick must give a great deal more protection against rain penetration. The house I live in now leaked like a siv during the 3 hurricanes last year

Yorkieabroad

[QUOTE=TimFountain] Yeah, they're in Texas.....

Yorkieabroad

On the aircon costs....I couldn't believe the costs some people were quoting on the sellers disclosures when we started looking to move earlier in the year - $600+ fo 4000-45000 sqft! We're currently in 3000sqft and pay $150 average over the year gas and electric combined, with the aircon set at 71 or 72.

I spoke to the aircon servicing guy about it at the last service and he reckoned there were 2 main reasons for high bills (all else being equal - temps, house airtightness, usage etc) which were 1) keeping the equipt serviced properly, and 2) having enough aircon capacity for the house. He reckoned were were massvely overcapacity for the size of the house cos the previous owner had retrofitted big a/c units. He gave a rule of thumb for getting efficient a/c of I think 1 ton capacity per 100 hundred sqft (or was it per 1000). Apparently we were about 50% over this, but most of the builders had been fitting about half of the required......hence the high bills. Seems the energystar ratings are trying to address this, so hopefully our new house will be OK. I don't know if he was talking b/s or not, but he seemed to be on the level and know his stuff....

Big D

[QUOTE=vegas] here in Dallas we topped 530 last month for the AC!! Dont fool yourself about the bricks though, its a casing to make it look nice, when you see them build them its of wood!! They are obviously strong etc but i would agree that the quality is not the same as we are used to back in blighty - ours is 5 years old and some of the things that need changing already are surprising.

As for houses being close to each other - that is certainly true but the houses are so big you dont go to the bits that are near your neigbours!!!!!

cindyabs

Wow, and here's me fussing because my property tax assessment went by 27K in my house-my property taxes now 1300 a year.

Ray

I think you have a duff thermostat...