re: What's the deal with Austin? expensive, traffic, and yard chickens?

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Went last month and the traffic made Baton Rouge's seem tame.

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Gotta know back roads...

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People told me that it is common for their neighbors to have roosters.

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lol... No.

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Wages seem kinda low compared to Houston and Chicago.

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Well, I mean, that's not really a fair comparison.

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Worst part is that the home prices have reached California level prices unless you go way out in the burbs.

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No.

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The prices on Trulia are blowing my mind.

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Yes, they are high.

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How can this be sustainable?

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As of now, roughly 150 people are moving here daily, so the demand id still high.

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At least when people pay the "sunshine tax" in California or Florida they are getting a good climate back in return. In California the tax is that it is more expensive and in Florida the tax is that the wages are low.

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And you get that here, as well.

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It seems Austin has a hipster tax.

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Stop listening to the media. The "hipsters" are soooooo blown out of proportion.

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Is the Austin bubble going to pop soon?

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No, not soon. Not with everything going on right now, and what is to come.

I lived there back when it fun. Got the hell out when all the aholes from California started invading it. It's always been a place that young people want to live.

I'm sorry but the climate and geography in Austin, while better than Houston and Dallas are nowhere near as good as coastal California or even south Florida.

Hell, Californians consider Sacramento to have a shitty climate and a boring geography yet it's leaps and bounds better than Austin. It's less humid, more consistent and within 2 hours of real mountains or a cold beach. The American River is legit, as well.

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Everyone I know who lives out there stays out there for eating, going out, activities, etc.

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Well, I live out there, and we head in all the time for dinner and other events. Maybe you just need to know different people.

And this:

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There is no point to move to the Austin area and live in any of those places.

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...is just silly.

Rummel, didn't realize you lived here.

Austin isn't what it was 10 years ago and the identity has certainly faded due to transplants. Devils cove is no longer. People built houses around a long established party cove then bitched until it was shut down. Same is happening with the 2 coves on Lake Austin now.

There are still jobs here, but the pay has dropped. This is because of so many people moving in. I changed jobs last year and the offers for senior level jobs were the pay that entry level used to be.

Housing has blown up here, you're having to overpay for everything now. I have a friend that's a realtor and she's begging us to sell our house because we'd rake in some cash. However that would go right back out as we bought something else and forced to pay too much for it.

However, there's areas that are as true Austin as it ever was. Not as many, but it still exist and it's a lot of fun. I'm not much of a downtown person anymore, but there's still some really kick arse spots that I enjoy. I was downtown last weekend and the hipster population seems to have really diminished.

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Rummel, didn't realize you lived here.

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Yep.

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Austin isn't what it was 10 years ago and the identity has certainly faded due to transplants. Devils cove is no longer. People built houses around a long established party cove then bitched until it was shut down. Same is happening with the 2 coves on Lake Austin now.

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Most cities are not what they were a decade ago. I've been here, pretty much, since 2002. Yes, things have drastically changed, but not necessarily for the worse.

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There are still jobs here, but the pay has dropped. This is because of so many people moving in. I changed jobs last year and the offers for senior level jobs were the pay that entry level used to be.

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There are a TON of jobs here - especially if you're in tech. It all depends on what you do for a living here. If you're a software dev, then you're doing well. If you're in customer support, then you have seen your pay drop. All things in between are at various point os increase or decline, but the pay is still pretty good overall.

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Housing has blown up here, you're having to overpay for everything now. I have a friend that's a realtor and she's begging us to sell our house because we'd rake in some cash. However that would go right back out as we bought something else and forced to pay too much for it.

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And this is the indicator that pay is still pretty good. Home prices have gone up pretty good over the last 3-5 years, but they're starting to get a little inflated, so I would imagine that we will start to see a modest decrease in the next couple of years, but that will also depend on what happens when the new Seton Hospital at UT opens up, and what kind of technology spawns from it. It could wind-up increasing values...

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However, there's areas that are as true Austin as it ever was. Not as many, but it still exist and it's a lot of fun. I'm not much of a downtown person anymore, but there's still some really kick arse spots that I enjoy

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Definitely! There are just new things to do.

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I was downtown last weekend and the hipster population seems to have really diminished.

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The national media loves the idea of the Austin hipster. That said, it is a fairly elusive animal...

Austin is not for me. That place is weird.

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Rummel, what suburb do you live in?

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Cedar Park

Maybe we just start with a coffee?

I don't want to wind-up at the bottom of Lake Austin with massive head trauma.