Posted on 10/05/2018 7:31:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There are plenty of reasons for Texas’s population boom over the past several years—the economy, immigration, Whataburger—but one that can’t be overlooked is the fact that you typically can find some space to stretch out. And thanks to a chart from real estate site Property Shark, we can see exactly how much square footage you can get in Texas, compared to the rest of the country, for $200,000.
The chart shows how much average square footage you get from a $200,000 investment in 33 U.S. cities, including the six largest in Texas—Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso. And the numbers across the state look pretty good.
Let’s start by just recapping what the study found for each city:
The order of that list, from most to least amount of square footage for your money, won’t surprise anyone who follows real estate in Texas. Austin, which has a limited supply of homes but is flooded with people, is the most expensive city. El Paso and San Antonio, where that relationship tends to be flipped, are among not just the most affordable cities in Texas, but in the entire country. Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth split the difference, finding themselves in the middle of the pack both in Texas and the U.S.
Looking at the numbers in the context of the rest of the country, though, helps explain the boom that we’ve seen throughout the state. Austin’s average of 1,341-square feet per $200,000 makes the city seem expensive and overpriced to people in parts of the state where your money goes a lot further. But it’s a downright bargain compared to cities in the northeast and the West Coast. When Austinites take the leap from renting to buying, they might notice that properties they’re interested in are swarmed with bids from California, often for more than the asking price. Why? Because 1,341-square feet is an impossible, luxurious dream to people out there. $200,000 in San Francisco gets you a measly 260-square feet, and the numbers don’t get much better throughout the rest of the state’s coast: San Jose will give you 376-square feet, San Diego 496-square feet, Los Angeles 501-square feet. If property is three to four times as expensive where you’re from, then even Austin’s relatively high property values seem like a stone-cold bargain by comparison. (Let’s not even get started on Manhattan, where $200,000 will get you 126-square feet, commonly known in Texas as a small closet.)
Extrapolating further from this data, it seems that cities where $200,000 you fetch between 1,1100–2,100-square feet are the ones experiencing the greatest population booms: According to Census data released in March, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix are the metro areas with the largest gains between 2016-2017 (Orlando and Austin came in at number eight and number nine, respectively). Seattle (where you get 525-square feet for your money) and Washington, D.C. (where it’s 423-square feet) were the only cities in the top ten that offered fewer than 1,100-square feet for $200,000. (Pricing date for the other two metro areas, Tampa and the inland California city of Riverside, wasn’t available.) Other fast-growing metro areas like Charlotte, Las Vegas, and Nashville similarly fall within the same price window.
| 2017 Rank | 2016 Rank | Metropolitan Area | 2017 Population | 2016 Population | Numeric Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas | 7,399,662 | 7,253,424 | 146,238 |
| 2 | 2 | Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas | 6,892,427 | 6,798,010 | 94,417 |
| 3 | 3 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia | 5,884,736 | 5,795,723 | 89,013 |
| 4 | 4 | Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona | 4,737,270 | 4,648,498 | 88,772 |
| 5 | 11 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia | 6,216,589 | 6,150,681 | 65,908 |
| 6 | 6 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington | 3,867,046 | 3,802,660 | 64,386 |
| 7 | 13 | Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California | 4,580,670 | 4,523,653 | 57,017 |
| 8 | 8 | Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida | 2,509,831 | 2,453,333 | 56,498 |
| 9 | 9 | Austin-Round Rock, Texas | 2,115,827 | 2,060,558 | 55,269 |
| 10 | 7 | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida | 3,091,399 | 3,036,525 | 54,874 |
Low real estate prices don’t necessarily mean that a city is growing or shrinking, though. Cleveland, which gives property owners the most bang for their buck (3,769-square feet) has shrunk every year this decade. San Antonio, which places third on the list, boasted a growth of nearly 25,000 people over a twelve-month period between 2016 and 2017. El Paso, which places second, grew by only 2,780 people in that year. The sweet spot may be somewhere in the middle, in other words, but there’s not as much to learn by looking at the margins.
Sky high here in West Texas!
We pay almost $6,000 a year on a 1,300 sf duplex in DuPage County. It’s ridiculous.
Very soon you can color us gone.
Good luck.
L
I pay almost 3 times that amount for a little over 2000 sq. ft. in Collin County.
Here, north of lib Austin, a half million gets you about 1200 sq ft. Our CA imports have never met a tax they didn’t love. Property tax has gone up 10% every year for the past 25 years.
In Palo Alto, it gets you a second front door.
Sky high in the Texas Hill Country. There’s no such thing as a $200k house. Taxes are ridiculous.
I keep an eye on our local assessor site and see they’ve mysteriously enlarged our house by 500+ sq ft.
How awful. Here in central Alabama we have 43 acres, 1500 sq. foot house, two professionally built barns, and a small covered arena. Our taxes are less than $1000 per year.
whoa...that’s obscene. I suppose it depends where in DuPage
I have an approx. 60 year old house - 1100 sf on approx .5 acre - with the senior citizen exemption - 4800 per year taxes in DuPage - in the older section of a town just north and west of North & Gary.
My son over 6k per year in the newer part of the same town,
My daughter is paying approx $5k for 700 sf in - cook county - apartment building to condo conversion.
No question that the graduated income tax will replace the fixed income tax.
We are so hosed...
Here, in the country north of Austin, TX, we pay about $1000 in property tax for every 100 sq ft.
You can buy whole neighborhoods in Detroit for 200k.
$10,000 for a 1,000 sq ft place???????????
4100 sq ft here in north OKC, cost - $240K. Property taxes $3500/yr. Wooded .75 acre lot. We totally remodeled it and it is a beautiful house. I laugh at my east and west coast coworkers that couldn’t buy a 600 sq ft apartment for $240K.
You can buy whole neighborhoods [of property tax bills, city-mandated repairs responsibilities, inability to evict non-rent-paying tenants, city fines, and more liabilities] in Detroit for 200k.
Or did you mean $1,000 per 1,000 sq ft?
RE: You can buy whole neighborhoods in Detroit for 200k.
Yes, but how much do you have to spend on bolts, locks and armored doors ? :)
Still paying $5000?
You didn’t move to the country for real. We’re paying $22 for 8 acres with electric and a cabin on it. When we get the real house built, that will go up to about $250.
Once we do that, we’ll move the cabin to the adjoining 7.5 acres that we just bought but that will stay at $20 for property taxes because it will stay off grid.
Yes, this is per year. In the Ozarks of MO right next to the Mark Twain National Forest. Four miles of gravel to get to bumpy asphalt and another four to get to smooth asphalt State Road. 24 miles total to get to nearest small town.
Here is North Florida $250,000 will purchase a 3,071 square foot brick home on 6.72 acres, with four bedrooms, two kitchens, three baths, a great room, and two wells.
In California, it all depends on when you bought your property. Property taxes are set at 1% of purchase price with a max 2% per year increase. If you bought your house for $250,000 in 1983, your taxes are very reasonable (they doubled from $2,500 per year to $5,000 per year in 35 years). BUT, if you buy the same house today for $2,500,000, you will pay $25,000 per year.
Of course, the big question is “Will the same house sell for $25 million in the year 2053 (35 years from now)?” If you believe another 10X is possible, then buying today makes sense.
I can personally attest that in 1983 when we bought our house there was no way on God’s green earth we anticipated what has happened in Silicon Valley. Anybody who proclaimed prices would go up 10X in 35 years was a kook.
North and Gary.... wow.
Army Trail and County Farm here. We should grab a beer sometime. JTs is nice. Good food, $3.00 PBRs...
LOL
PM me if you’re interested.
Best of luck to you.
L
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