El Paso is nice - mountains, dry heat in the summer. It helps if you speak fluent Spanish. Don't be surprised if your car makes a one way trip to Mexico without you.
Houston - wet heat in the summer. Flooding can be a problem -study flood maps. Look in Fort Bend County.
Dallas - dry heat in the summer. Less than a week of snow/ice most years. Expect 30-60 days of 100 plus weather. Forget the yard - keep your house watered in the summer. Look in Collin county. If building new, consider a "safe room" for tornadoes.
If you can move anywhere, the hill country (west of Austin) is the best bet, followed by parts of east Texas.
As for the heat - you will have air conditioned housing, cars, shopping, and work.
I appreciate all the nuances of your areas! I really do. Keep these coming.
OK. Here's the low-down on Seattle. 3-4 months out of the year, it's unbeatable for weather. Mild and sunny. The bluest skys are in Seattle.
Housing is really spendy. I have a 3 bedroom house that I paid $82K for that's now worth 300-400K.
The east side of the sound is much more normal politically. Bellevue, Redmond, etc. Wealth is accepted there with a number of Ferraris, Porsches, etc. Here in the city, you hide your wealth.
It's also a huge metroplex. Seattle/Tacoma is one big city with some 1 million people. Streets are a nightmare. Lots of culture (restaurants, etc.).
I'm thinking Seattle is like San Francisco with slightly less expensive real estate and less history.
An interesting statistic, Seattle is vying to become the car-theft capital of the world. The chances of your car getting stolen here are greater here than in NYC, LA or El Paso.
I second that. Tom DeLay is your US Rep. Close to everything in Houston without having to live there. Reasonable proberty values. Many golf courses. I don't know about the cost of the golf clubs, but a membership came free (no initiation fee -- just monthlies) with our Quail Valley house. The club has changed ownership and I don't know the rules any more. But if the old rules are still in effect and you buy a home that still holds an original membership, they can pass it on to you without an initiation fee. That was the incentive for keeping up your membership.
I don't know about Quail Valley property values, but the houses still looked good when I was last there in 2000. Suger Creek (which was a little fancier when it was built) looked deteriorated by comparison. However, there are many newer subdivisions.
The homes in Quail Valley were lovely when they were built in the 1970s-80s. I'm sure some are newer. But the original ones had every amenity. I've owned much more expensive homes since without some of the amenities that were standard in my Quail Valley home.
The homes are very pretty architecturally. You can find every style imaginable. Most of the homes were started as "specs" but were sold before they were finished and customized with some pretty nice things.
I had a 2500 square foot, pink brick home with board & bat cedar siding in the rear, 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath + study home; and I had more than 35 linear feet of counterspace with a built in desk in my kitchen. Double ovens (no built in microwave because they weren't on the market in 1972 but it could be easily added as an after market item.) I have never owned such a well designed kitchen any other place.
I had full inter-com system and a built-in vacuum cleaner throughout the house, as well as the detached garage. Separate laundry room with space for a freezer, although I made another desk out there for my newspaper work. Elegant floor to ceiling arched windows upstairs and downstairs across the front (7). Only a two car garage, but many homes in the neighborhood had 3 car garages -- especially if they were located on a corner. I had 4 teenagers, so we always had a lot of cars that didn't fit in the garage. Built-in gas light and built in gas barbeque. View of the golf course.
We paid about $62k in 1972 and sold it for around $167k in 1982. Houston was hit with a terrible oil crash and property values slid drastically later that year, so we were lucky to get out when we did. I think we were the last people to get out with all of our money out of the real estate market for a while.
It's recovered now, and I imagine those houses probably sell for $200k now. However, I have a house the same age in Wisconsin (on more acreage) that isn't finished nearly as nice in some respects -- but just a little bigger and on more land -- and it would probably be priced in the $700k area, if I were to put it on the market. My daughter's home in NJ just sold for $762k, and in workmanship it doesn't hold a candle to my Ft. Bend County home, although it is about the same size and age. She did put in a granite countered kitchen, however.
There are so many subdivisions in the Fort Bend area you could probably make a really good deal. Seriously, the homes are all beautiful. Just look at a lot of them so you get a feel for prices. You don't want to over pay. Coming from an area with high values, you could get entranced with the beauty of the homes and pay too much.