Living in Austin Texas Pros and Cons | Why You Should Move to Austin
Living in Austin Texas Pros and Cons | This blog post is about the pros and cons of life in Austin, Texas. Stay until the end because I will tell you a truth about Austin that most people don’t know.
I’m a real estate agent in Austin. My name is Tiffany Moore. Every week, I make YouTube videos and write blogs about what it’s like to live, work, eat, sleep, play, breathe, live, and love in Austin, Texas.
People worldwide call me daily to tell me they are coming to Austin, central Texas, or places like Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, and even San Antonio. I love it so much. It makes me happy big time.
If you’re considering moving to Austin, reach out to me. I’ve got your back when you move to Austin.
Let’s start with the negatives. The traffic is the first problem. Austin has bad traffic. Austin was a small town that didn’t want to grow, but it did. In fact, more than a million people are living in Austin.
This is the eleventh place in the country to do it. Austin is a fairly large city. However, our roads haven’t been built to keep up with that many people.
Traffic jams will occur if you’re going from north to south or south to north in Austin. You’ll have to sit and wait for a while. You could also plan your trips to avoid rush hour. So rush hour will be crazy, but you should be fine if you’re going north to south or south to north around noon or even around 10:00 PM.
We are trying to fix traffic by making our light train system bigger. So now we have a tiny light rail. In Austin, we also have a good bus system. But there isn’t a good way to get around if you live outside or in those areas.
The heat is the second bad thing about living in Austin. Austin is really hot. Austin is a hot place with a lot of humidity. So, our summers are long and hot, and our winters are short and mild. But it’s hot in the summer.
Last year, there were 88 days when it was over 100 degrees. That’s for July, August, and most of September. Every year, I think, “Oh, it’s going to start getting cooler, and the summer will get better. We can go back outside.” No, it’s like six more weeks of summer.
We should have Groundhog Day in the summer. Austin should have it in August instead of February. It’s hot here, but it’s not always hot. As I said, our winters are short and mild.
Austin does get snow from time to time. We got 0.2 inches of snow in January, our snowiest month. So be careful and bring parkas. It’s going to snow here.
The lines are the third bad thing about Austin. A trip to Austin isn’t complete if you don’t wait in line for something. And by waiting in line, I mean to order a burger, pizza, beer, or just about anything else.
So you can’t just walk up to a bar and order when the waiter looks your way. Instead, signs above the bar say things like “Line forms here for beer” and “Line forms here for burgers.” So just get used to having to wait.
In Austin, that’s how we do everything. I am curious to know who came up with this idea. I dislike it. We don’t need lines for everything, but that’s how it is. So just get used to having to wait.
The home market is our last con for Austin. This is also a pro, so we’ll discuss it briefly. However, there is a big negative.
So Austin’s home market is crazy. Our living costs are 60% higher than the national average, which makes the cost of living in Austin 20% higher than the national average.
So it’s getting to the point where all the cool people who used to be able to keep Austin weird, like musicians and artists and the people who cook your food and our teachers, can’t really afford to live here anymore.
So they have to move out to the suburbs, which makes it harder for them to get back and forth and do what they do.
To buy a home in Austin, you must move quickly. Now is a good time to sell in Austin. If you find a house you like, you’ll likely have to compete with a few others to get it. And you’ll have to pay more than what it’s listed for.
Okay, we’ve talked about the bad things. Now let’s talk about the good things and what makes a living in Austin great.
The number one pro about Austin is that there are so many ways to have fun there. If you like being outside, we’ve got trails for running, climbing, walking, and mountain biking. The Colorado River runs through the city. It’s been dammed off, so we have a lot of lakes where you can boat, stand-up paddleboard, and even fish.
Austin likes to be outside a lot. So, many places have cool patios, great margaritas, and great beers for cooling off. Austin is a city where you can have a lot of fun outside.
And if you’d rather stay inside, we have a lot of great movie houses where you can get great food and drinks and watch independent films, old movies, and other things that aren’t shown at every movie theater. So, you might have analysis paralysis trying to figure out what to do. This is great because there are so many cool things to do here.
The second good thing about living in Austin is that it benefits small businesses. So these businesses do well here, and it’s because there’s a community around them that helps them.
All the good stuff, like restaurants, sewing shops, bakeries, and services. The small people do it on their own or with the help of a few donors and make something from the heart. Those are the kinds of businesses that do well in Austin.
So, yes, we have Walmart, Carrabba’s, and all the big names, but it’s the small businesses with heart and soul and people with roots in the community that Austinites love to visit and support. So, if you want to start a small business, you should definitely think about Austin.
Live music is the third good thing about living in Austin. Austin is the best place in the world to see live music. You’ve probably heard that before. If you didn’t, you heard it here first. In Austin, you could see a show every single night.
Austin has a lot of people who love artists and musicians, so when musicians come here, they love the crowds. They love putting on shows for us. Everyone keeps coming back, which is why we have such a big range of music. You can see almost anyone you can think of or have ever heard of. They will be in Austin.
The craft beer scene is the fourth good thing about living in Austin. Texas was slow to get into the craft beer business and grow it. But in the last few years, breweries have been popping up everywhere in Austin.
So, the town has more than 60 breweries. You could go to a different one every weekend for a year and still not see them all. And by the end of the year, Austin will have about 70 brewers.
So, there are a lot of different kinds of beer and breweries here, from big ones to tiny ones that only sell beer in their tap room to people in their neighborhood. Many of them have food, food trucks, and things like pet adoption and art markets.
Craft brewers are such an important part of life in Austin. They are a big part of what keeps Austin weird and brings people together. Seeing this part of Austin’s business grow and work together is cool.
The home market in Austin is the fifth good thing about living there. I know I said that was a bad thing, but it’s also a good thing. Hear me out.
When you buy a home in Austin, you’re set. The value of your home keeps going up, but your mortgage payment stays the same. And when you’re ready to sell, just look at these offers and choose the one that works best for you.
Austin’s a big seller’s market. It’s been a long time. It’s gonna keep being a seller’s market. Putting money into Austin real estate right now is a great idea.
I will tell you the truth about Austin, that most people don’t know and that I didn’t know until a few years after we moved here. Austin is crazy about Willie Nelson.
In 1972, Willie played a show here. Many people say that was the day the music scene in Austin changed for good. A few years later, he did a test TV show where he played live music on TV. And that led to Austin City Limits, the longest-running music show in U.S. history.
Just look for it on YouTube if you have yet to see it. It’s a great show. And it’s such a cool part of the past of Austin music and the Austin community.
Austin loves Willie so much that there is an eight-foot-tall, one-ton bronze statue of him in front of the Moody Theater at Austin City Limits. It is on Willie Nelson Boulevard and was first shown to the public on April 20, 2013.
If you know anything about Willie Nelson, you know why that date is important. On April 29, Willie’s birthday, our neighborhood radio station plays nothing but Willie’s songs all day long. Austin is crazy about Willie Nelson.
We discussed the good and bad things about living in Austin, Texas, today. But if you don’t like Austin and want to find a place outside of the city to do what you love and are enthusiastic about, contact me.
We’re here to help you find the best place for you. So you’re not stuck in traffic for hours when you could be playing music on your porch, running with your friends, or hanging out at your favorite local brewery.
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