Why Dallas May Not Be For You !
So why do we think that Dallas may not be the right place for you? We are getting calls surprisingly from quite a few people who actually have never even been to Dallas, let alone to the entire state of Texas, anywhere or maybe they've come and they've only done a stopover or they've only come for a quick weekend. Why is it that maybe it isn't the right place for you? They think you move to Texas, there are all these great things about it. Everybody says Texas is great quite frankly it is, they just aren't totally sure. Let's dive into it a little bit deeper on some things you maybe want to be a little bit more aware of and some things that you maybe never even considered.
God, Guns & Country
So first off, let's talk a little bit about God and the churches around here in Texas because if you have ever been to Texas, you will know that down here in the south, people love going to church and it doesn't matter what church you go to. It doesn't matter which community you are a part of churches are up and down every street you go, there are multiple churches, big churches, little churches, and churches of every religion. So it is really nice knowing that there is a big melting pot. It doesn't matter what you believe, there is a great sense of community for people who do love going to church. You see it throughout your schools. Yes. Surprisingly, we do. We had just moved here, our daughter was in middle school at the time. She was wondering, all of her friends wanted her to go to FCA and she's like, mom, I don't know what that is and why do I need to go? They don't go to church with me. And we just made a big deal about how it didn't matter what you went to. It's just, that they're faith-based, everybody loved being able to go and have a reason to, have their Bible study, and have that community even within the school. So they went to a fellowship of Christian athletes in middle school, and she ended up having a great time meeting a lot of her friends there, it didn't matter that they didn't go to the same church. We did. It just was nice to know that they had a lot of the same values that we were teaching our own children. Then when our kids went off into high school, they had Bible studies in some of their programs and they had groups in clubs on campus that they could be a part of. Just another great reason why being a part of a nice close-knit community, realizing that it didn't matter what religion you were are part of our kids actually found a great sense of community in the schools and outside of the schools as well.
Let's talk a little bit about how Texans love their guns. We do use it a lot for the sport of it, but also we've known quite a few people who believe in the second amendment and believe in somebody's right to bear arms, especially in the real estate world. I have a number of friends who have gotten their concealed carry permits because you just kind of wanna be safe.
You know what is going on in the real world and who you might actually come in contact with. But grant. Everybody that I know is licensed and has gone through all of the proper channels for training in order to do that. On the other side of that hunting is a big deal here in Texas. At first, we were like, where do you go hunting? But we know multiple people who go out and whether it's duck season or you wanna go hunt wild boars. There are multiple places to go hunting here in Texas, and it is a big, huge thing. So in the hunting aspect of that Texans love their trucks and I, it just always floored me when we moved here.
Trucks Everywhere
There are no mountains out here or real mountains, I guess you could say. It didn't matter. There are big trucks everywhere. Even if you don't live out on a big ranch, which it's not too hard to find here in Dallas, find people with small ranches or even quite larger ranches on the outskirts of town these days. They all have trucks for when they go hunting because of the amount of gear that they have to carry, or maybe they haul their boats or their campers or their horse trailers. There are a lot of areas around here where people do have horses or stables where you can keep your horses. So you need a big old truck to haul those horses around town or to haul your boats, to take you out to the lake, and Texans do love to go out fishing. If you're not into taking your boat out on the lake, so many people are out, actually just fishing in a lot of these lakes. There are great ponds. A lot of people with some great property who have their own private small lakes, ponds, whatever you wanna call it and fishing is just a huge thing.
Love the Outdoors
We've had kids who have wanted to go into these community areas or go out to the lake and to be able to go fishing. So fishing is another big deal out here in Texas. We love our outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, camping, swimming, and lake life. We got it all and people love it.
Maybe that's not for you, maybe you're a little bit more on the city side and you do not love being outdoors. Well, Texans are huge into the outdoors. We don't have the mountains, you know, say like Colorado or Utah, but we do have lots of areas we can go hiking. I typically like to call them, Strolls through the trails and the trees, because we're not hiking up these crazy high mountains. I remember when we have been out to Colorado and into Utah and we have taken our kids hiking, of course, they're looking at us like, okay, we've gone hiking in Texas before, and that wasn't a big deal. And we take them out to these, what's typically a ski resort in the wintertime, but in the summertime, it is gorgeous. And we've spent a day out on these hiking trails up in the real mountains and our kids. Absolutely were dying because it was so exhausting, they pretty much felt like they needed a day to recover. They didn't realize it wasn't our typical Texas hiking, down through the trees, along the lakes. If that is not for you, just something to be aware of. Even in the summertime when it's hot and you wanna go hiking in between the trees, it is not as nice as going up into the mountains of some of these other areas. So something to think about hiking is not the same. And that also goes for mountain biking. We laugh that, we have been to some of these mountain areas and mountain biking is a hardcore sport. Well, here, I mean, it's, it's a sport and they do it and you see it. I just feel like it's more, going through the trees and, enjoying the outdoors, not as hardcore as you get in some of these other crazy areas.
So if that's your thing, and you're not realizing that you might be stuck out in the heat doing it, or you may not have times of the year where you truly enjoy it, like up in the mountains, maybe Texas, isn't the right place for you.
The Weather
Speaking a little bit about the weather. I know every single video people ask about the weather, I kid, you not, people are asking all the time about, tornadoes and hail and heat and humidity. So I guess that's why we talk about it a lot, but the weather here may not be right for you.
If you cannot handle the heat. We came from Arizona where the heat was brutal. I know. Talk about that all the time too, people coming from up north, and they think, oh, I can handle the heat. I'm sick of the snow. I wanna move down there and they get here and they just realize. Oh, my gosh. Does it ever cool off? We are in July of 2022, it has been abnormally hot. It got so much hotter than it usually did way earlier, that people are not enjoying it. We have a lot of pools. And things around, as I said, the lakes and stuff, but if you hate the heat, maybe this isn't the right place for you.
Maybe you want the four seasons, maybe you enjoy having real snow in the winter. We do get a little bit of snow. You might see it once, maybe twice a year, but it might last a day or two. It doesn't last for months on end. I remember being up in the north, even in the wintertime, if it's not totally snowing all the time, you actually see snow on the mountains all season long.
Whereas here in Texas, it might snow and you might see it for a day, but then it's gone. It's all melted because the sun comes out and it is not gonna stay on the ground. And you get wintertime where everything looks dead and dreary and you just don't enjoy being outside. At least in other places, you can actually get out and enjoy the snow. You can drive up to the mountains and go skiing or sledding. Whereas here in Texas, it just gets kind of dark and gross, if you really do enjoy your four seasons, we really don't have it here. Yes. It's green. So our leaves change in the fall and it's pretty in the spring. Everything blooms and it's pretty as well, true four seasons here in Texas, we have hot and then it quickly changes in the fall, and then it's dead all season and you don't have the pretty snow to balance out how pretty it is here in Texas.
Beaches Aren’t All That
Another thing that people don't realize here in Texas, obviously in the Dallas area, we don't have a beach, but down in the Southern part of Texas, it's along the coast, it's along the Gulf. Well, it is brown, dirty water, and we grew up going to the beaches of California in our family, and in my husband's family and those beaches, everybody wanted to go to California to get out of the heat.
They wanted to go over there and enjoy the nice weather and our kids love surfing and boogie boarding. Down in the Gulf, it's kind of brown dingy water. It's hot and my boys have no waves. So they were like, why do we have to come here? This is the most boring beach ever. And it's hot. It's super hot. So yeah, you can get a, take a 4, 6, 8-hour drive down to Southern Texas, but it is not the beaches that you're used to and to get anywhere else to whether it's the east coast or the west coast is going to take a really long drive or you best just get booked those airline tickets to make traveling even easier because those of us who do love real beaches with real waves. You ain't gonna get that in Texas.
Not as Affordable as it Was
So we also get a lot of people who are relocating here for work, thinking that I can work from home and so I'll move to Texas because it is so much more affordable. They're realizing that maybe the average price point isn't as cheap as we thought it was. The average price point here in Texas is up over $400,000 right now, you can get some of the more rundown homes in the $300,000 range. If you wanna be on the outskirts, in some of the smaller cities, outside of Dallas or the suburbs, but pretty much in the main suburbs where people are wanting to move, the average price point is already into the low $500,000. So it's not quite as affordable as it once was. If you are wanting to get into the lower price points, you are wanting to get much further outside of town in order to be able to afford that, and because there has been so much growth here in Texas. That's why our price points are just continuing to go up because it is a great place for people to live. If maybe you're coming from the east coast or the west coast and your price point is much higher and you can afford that, that's totally a different thing, as opposed to some people who are just thinking, Hey, I can get a great deal in Texas.
Well, the entire Dallas Fort Worth area is so large and spread out. If you wanna be downtown or you wanna be part of the activities that you can get to easier. And you're not realizing that in order to afford what it is that you're truly looking for, you have to be, a good hour-plus away from all of the areas that you are hoping to move to.
Public Transportation
And speaking of moving here for whether it's a job or being able to get out and do things, mass transportation, maybe you're moving from somewhere like Washington DC or New York City where you have really good mass transportation, like the Metro and the subway. Yes. We have a little bit of it. We have what's called the dart, the majority of people we have talked to don't absolutely love it unless they have moved there. A lot of people still do it. And based on where you live and how convenient it is to get to the dart system or the bus system or anything like that, we do have it, it's just not run quite as efficiently as some of these other cities. In order for people to actually wanna be using it on a daily basis. More people we have found are actually really wanting to be able to live conveniently, to drive to their place of business, because they're not really loving, having to use mass transit here in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Traffic & Construction
Speaking of commuting for work, the traffic, and construction here in the Dallas area, Dallas has been growing leaps and bounds over the last few years. And the amount of construction that's going on, it seems like every freeway you get on is under construction. Keep in mind, knowing where you might need to go for work or traveling for work or traveling for fun, and where you wanna live with your kids. If you do not plan that correctly, you could be in for a really long haul on some of these freeways. Our toll roads can get expensive if you're having to drive there every single day.
So another reason for you to reach out to one of us. That way we can help you kind of determine these areas because if you pick the wrong area, you could be in for a rude awakening on how horrible your commute could be. So something to think about when moving to Texas is how much construction and traffic and commute times can actually be for somewhere that you may be considering moving to.
Tough to Retire Here
The last point we wanna touch on today is whether or not you are thinking of retiring and moving to the Dallas Fort Worth area. Something that people don't realize is how expensive our property taxes are, and if you're thinking of moving here and retiring and you're on a fixed budget and you know that a home price appreciation is going up and your property taxes could go up crazy high every year. If you are not prepared in being ready to pay for those increased property taxes every year, by being on a fixed budget. Something to think about before moving here.
Say you still wanna move here even though maybe Texas isn't right for you, but maybe you've determined, you know what? I'm going to find the perfect place for me. I know it's there in the Dallas sport worth area. Well, that's why you call us. Call us, and let us know what we can do to help you make that move here to the Dallas Fort Worth area that much easier because we have truly loved being here. We know Texas isn't for everybody, but we have loved moving here to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. So reach out, call us, text us, and send us an email. We would absolutely love to get on a Zoom call and get to know you better and let us know what we can do to help you make that move here to the Dallas area that much easier.
