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.
LOL. Would you have enough left over to feed the dog his dinner?
LOL. For your illegal business tenant? Or just in case you need a booby hatch to escape?
I did not make a typo.
For every 100 sq ft., we pay $1000 in property tax.
I have posted countless times on this. We used to pay about 2 weeks of income for taxes (that’s out in the country, no city taxes) but today we’re paying over 3 months of income. It’s a nothing exciting old house, 3 bd/2 b and no repairs have been done in years because every dime goes to taxes. The next door neighbor can’t retire and his wife delayed her retirement in order to stay in their late sixties wood frame house. At one time exactly half the houses on our street were up for sale due to the taxes. Most were bought up by Austinites for vacation homes which have raise our appraisals to stupid high prices. Most houses here started out as country retirement cabins but investors come in and add on which doesn’t help us life long residents. This was my family’s home and was supposed to be our retirement home. So much for that dream.
You’d be extremely lucky to get that much space in Austin for just 200k.
Maybe 300k.
Maybe.
To let in the 64 high school conquests.
Wow, I didn’t know that. They don’t reassess properties in CA? They do that in NYS. Can’t raise the tax rate? Just jack the assessment. Proper owners are screwed either way
Property taxes are the devil. They have to be one of the most communist ideas we have in this country. People just don’t seem to realize that in our “free” country you cannot, under most circumstances and in most states, own property.
Yep, and it’s not just Austin. Williamson County property taxes are high and getting higher.
NO STATE INCOME TAXES......
Brown has a proposition on the November ballot to carve up Prop 13.
I know he is after that tax structure....
RE: NO STATE INCOME TAXES......
As far as I know, there are only 7 states with no personal income tax and Tennessee isn’t one of them.
These are, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
Residents of New Hampshire and Tennessee are also spared from handing over an extra chunk of their paycheck, though they do pay tax on dividends and income from investments.
In Western MA, it gets you a small house in a good town, or a bigger house in a crappy town. Buy the small one...the schools will keep your value afloat.
I suspect high taxes were part of the reason the Baptist church gave away hundred of acres to some Katrina trash. Yeah, churches aren’t taxes but they were close to getting some of the land not hidden under “church” and had already sold off a huge portion of the ranch acreage. The Katrina bunch are building new homes left and right on the land and declaring them pastor houses. Really? Just how many “pastors” does one small church need? Oh, Uncle Billy needs a house, build him one on church land. Oh, Aunt Betty needs a house so lets name her a church elder. Oh, Cousin Bubba wants to move his brood here so we’ll name him the church grounds keeper and build him a nice new brick home on church land (much nicer than my dump). All tax free. BTW, the land is in the PRIME taxing area of the county.
The big plus is people can stay in their homes.
The big minus is people cannot move to a similar home in another location because their tax would double, triple, quadruple or more. So people are "trapped" in their homes (even with two front doors they can't get out) -- they cannot afford to move.
A state law was passed that gives homeowners who are least 55 a once-in-a-lifetime chance to transfer the property tax base from their primary residence to one of equal or lesser value. This lets longtime homeowners who have a low property tax assessment thanks to Proposition 13 avoid a potentially steep tax increase, even on a cheaper home. However, the replacement home must be either in the same county as their current home or in one of 11 counties that accept intercounty transfers of property tax assessments. El Dorado County is one of them. In the Bay Area, only San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties participate.
As you would imagine, counties do not want an influx of people bringing their low property tax with them. Who would a county want to buy a house? A retired couple bringing their $2,000 per year Prop-13-protected tax rate with them? Or a new young couple buyer who would pay $8,000 per year? So not many counties participate in the program. Some that did quit participating when they realized what was happening.
Oh my!!!!! I’m really sorry to hear how expensive this is! Really makes no sense to charge such high taxes. I thought my property tax here in California was steep!!!
Round Rock is much nicer and taxes are so much lower than Austin, total housing costs are lower.
thanks for that. I know\knew nothing about taxes comparison-wise.
I know it depends where in austin proper you live.
My daughter’s husband owned a home in an older area of austin where houses were small and older and 3 bedrooms with either a carport or a detached garage. Grand kids were born there.
Her husband bought it early cause he could see the area becoming hot and darned if it didn’t became hotter than a pistol....young couples buying the properties as tear downs.
My daughter’s family did a large addition and then they sold and moved to Round Rock.
Nice area. They were able to buy a better\newer\larger house for less money.
They’ve since moved on....
Hmmm, the assessor’s office didn’t have a problem fixing the sudden increase in sq ft. Gonna keep an even closer eye on them and see what else they fudge on. They’ve had a shed on for years that was was destroyed by a tree. Their excuse is we haven’t torn down the 2 remaining sides and one of those goes to the other shed so really only one side is still up. Oh, 25 years ago they made us count the laundry room (no closet) as a bedroom because it was “large” enough for a small bedroom. There’s no trying to get the taxes down.
Phoenix Area: My daughter bought a new build 1400 sq ft home on a small but not ridiculously small lot for about $210,000. She’s WAY OUT in the southeast valley, has a 50 minute or more commute. In order to get a new home in her price range, she couldn’t live in the central part of the Phoenix valley.
It’s a very basic home, has a “great room” instead of a dining room or family/TV room, has a kitchen table nook, two bathrooms and three bedrooms, two car garage, small back patio, base level carpet and floor tile. A few little extras: dual pane windows, extra insulation, high efficiency heat pump, no fireplace, basic granite kitchen counter tops.
Mr. Roo Roo and I live in south Tempe, a more expensive part of Tempe to live in. We’re also located in an area which has the best public school systems in the state. We have 2000 square feet a decent-sized lot, 3 bedrooms, two baths, kitchen nook and formal dining room, large living room and large TV room, fireplace, very nice landscaping, two car garage. We re-did and upgraded the inside of the house with high end cherry cupboards, premium granite, premium fixtures and travertine tile throughout the house and new high end kitchen appliances. A realtor told us our house would sell for between $360k to $370 k.
What I like most about our house is..........it’s been PAID OFF since 2000, WHEE!!!
We pay about $2000 per year in property taxes.
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