Originally Posted by robthree

One more data point: cost of living is going to be the same no matter where you are.

Hang on flamers. Hear me out.

Houston real estate is far less expensive than just about anywhere. I moved from IAH to BOS to HYA and I had major sticker shock. You can't get the kind of houses they build in The Woodlands anywhere up here. And vice versa. The sprawling 3,000 sq ft McMansions just don't exist in Mass in the quantities they have there, and not at all unless you have seven figures to spend.

But you'll pay as much in property taxes on the same $400k house in TX as you do on the $1.2M house in Mass. You'll pay the difference of your mortgage payments on homeowners insurance, flood insurance, and car insurance. You'll have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford the electric bill you'll have to cool that 3,000 sq ft house for nine months out of the year.

You'll pay less per gallon of gas in TX, but you'll spend as much because everything is farther away, and you'll spend more time in your car. With the windows up and the AC on.

MUD tax is Municipal Utility District - your water and sewer. In addition to the metered fee for use, I get an annual MUD tax bill. That just doesn't exist in MA. Or rather, its rolled into other taxes and fees.

Which is my point. You have to pay for public services. Schools, fire, police, roads, libraries, etc. Those things cost pretty much the same from one city to the next, Houston suburb, Dallas suburb, Denver suburb, Boston suburb, etc. You might save some living in the sticks. You might pay more living downtown. But no matter how they divvy up the bill, you still have to pay about the same for the same level of service, pretty much anywhere you go.