[Gata]

We were in your shoes a year ago. Hubby who grew up in SD when CA was the Golden State decided enough is enough and we started looking at Austin. Granted we have a second home in a tropical paradise, so scorching summers wouldn’t bother us. We bought a place in Austin with straight cash, in a great school district. You are right property taxes are 2-3%, very high for CA standards. However, because home values are lower we are paying less here than in our home in SD. Also, public schools here are as good as private schools, and I am very picky about where my daughter goes to school (she was going to private school in Del Mar before). There are also amazing private schools. Now Texas is not CA, so if I didn’t have a second home near the beach I would be missing the ocean. UT is a great school, diverse but still catering to Texan residents ( unlike UC, sadly). I would say keep your home in Oceanside until you guys settle in Austin just to make sure everybody is happy. My husband and daughter prefer it here over SD. I like the ocean, but CA’s is too cold anyway, so HI is better for me. Financially, Austin is way better than SD any day of the week. Just a teaser: my SUV in SD cost me $700 to register the first year, here it is only $62.50 (and there are no penalties for late registration). There is no perfect place, so you’ll have to weigh in all options and go for what suits your family circumstances. Austin is getting expensive though, so be ready to pay asking price and quickly. But we see CA license plates almost daily, it’s so funny. We have met people who came here from CA and different States for the same reasons mentioned about CA: lower cost of living but also sustainable future (water wise), employment future for kids, and relative safety (don’t mess with TX lol). And all of them are upper middle class or well off, despite what you see in the media. To give you an example, one of our friends traded an apartment in Manhattan with spectacular views for a home in the coveted 78704 zip code in Austin. Btw, there is abundant rain here, we just got 17 inches in two days last week (no flooding though but something to watch for when house hunting here ). Good luck to y’all!!

[Gata]

Housing market is due for a correction, prices are unsustainable when work is moving to other States/countries. A friend of mine who is a QCT senior engineer is scouting for a home in ATX as a result of this layoff. He is Mr. SD. QCT is hiring in TX, and opening a new design center. I believe many layoffs will come from SD, and hiring will occur in lower cost areas (such as India, ATX).

[Gata]

I’ve been following Pigginton’s blogs for some time — very informative and smart comments. I thought I would make my first comment on this topic, as we have basically re-designed our life around the outrageously high tuition costs in the US. For anyone who hasn’t, I highly recommend watching Ivory Tower, the CNN documentary about Ivy League v other schools – it basically supports the argument that Ivy League schools are overpriced, and I agree. I attended a top-tier law school and graduated with honors, finished my LLM with the highest GPA (for which I received an award), all debt free. Now we are focusing on UT Austin for our daughter, who has expressed an interest in pursuing an engineering degree. We’ve given up on UC, due to budget costs and the seemingly prevailing policy of accepting more out-of-staters who bring the bigger $$. UT Austin ranks 8th for engineering (not as high as UCB, but realistically I don’t think our daughter would get in with an 8% acceptance rate mostly met by out-of-staters or foreigners); it’s considered a “public ivy”, and tuition is only $10k/ year for engineering. We sold our San Diego home last year for asking price and bought a house in Austin to qualify for in-state tuition, where she/we will live during her college years. We managed to find a loophole to get an ag exemption on property taxes, which be in effect in 5 years, basically our current property taxes will finance her tuition. Assuming she gets accepted, her degree will be high quality, she will be debt free, and we can pass on real estate to her, which will provide a starting point for her life. And if she doesn’t get accepted into UT Austin, we could sell the house at a profit (it’s paid off) and pay her tuition wherever she ends up (including an ivy school if that was her choice). And my husband and I will retire in our home in HI knowing that our daughter will be financially stable and debt-free, which, to us, is more important than an Ivy League degree, but which doesn’t necessarily result from it. Most importantly, all this moving around was our daughter’s decision – she prefers HI and Austin over SD. Go figure…

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