Utopia take 2

   / Utopia take 2 #111  
Back on my soapbox. My personal pet peeve, makes me crazy issue is TXDOT. Here in Tyler, we have a Loop that goes around town and one super busy street called Broadway that starts in the middle of town where City Hall is, and then goes South, to where most of the businesses and shopping is located.

If you drive the Loop or Broadway during traffic hours, or lunch time, you will hit 90 percent of the lights red. Yesterday, I hit every light red.

TXDOT also built raised islands with stamped concrete and flower beds in the middle of the Loop that they said would increase safety. According to the spokseman on the radio, they cut head on fatalities in half. Then later on, while questioned by a caller, he admitted that it went from 2 deaths to one death over a 14 month period. Who measured statistics over 14 months unless you are forcing the data?

Then they built a Toll Road to relieve the traffic.

Now they want to build an overpass.

TXDOT spends tens of millions of dollars on things that create traffic, then spends more money studying the traffic, and then more money "fixing" the traffic, but never addressing the core issue of the lights being timed red at every intersection. Instead, when asked, the local City Council members that I've spoken to have told me that it's not true, the lights are random and TXDOT doesn't have the technology to time the lights. That's a lie. And that growth in the city is the cause of the traffic issues, not the lights or the islands that bottleneck traffic.

Every election there is something in there to raise taxes to fix the traffic problem. It's a never ending, self creating issue to make life uncomfortable so they can fix the problem that they have created.

If you drive through town in off hours, or super early in the morning, almost every light is green.

Sorry for the rant, this has nothing to do with where to live. It's just one of those things that I never thought of when moving here. I don't know if it would have changed my mind, it's just an issue that keeps festering for me. I have to deal with it when I'm working there, but when I can avoid it, I wont go into that city!!
 
   / Utopia take 2 #112  
From what I've seen locally, seems like it's a sellers market right now with pricing. Had a house down a road that was around 1,500 square feet with 9 acres sell for 199k. Couldn't believe someone bought it for that as it was nothing special only like 60' off the road.

My wife's co-worker who lives in Wilmington NC is selling her house (not too far from the shore line). She's moving about 15 miles more inland (she moved down to NC only a couple of years ago and had her house flooded out like very next year, and had to do major reconstruction to get it back to livable conditions).

Her house hasn't even been on the market for a full week and they are already getting full offers off the asking price. Her only problem now is she can't move into her new place for about 4 weeks.

I would just of thought with all the crap going on in our country at this moment, the real estate market would be dead...
 
   / Utopia take 2 #114  
My wife's co-worker who lives in Wilmington NC is selling her house (not too far from the shore line). She's moving about 15 miles more inland (she moved down to NC only a couple of years ago and had her house flooded out like very next year, and had to do major reconstruction to get it back to livable conditions).

Her house hasn't even been on the market for a full week and they are already getting full offers off the asking price. Her only problem now is she can't move into her new place for about 4 weeks.

I would just of thought with all the crap going on in our country at this moment, the real estate market would be dead...

SF Bay Area hasn't missed a beat either... low inventory and even lower interest rates...
 
   / Utopia take 2 #116  
I just found out that I will be back down in the Austin area again in a few months. I'm going to take a couple extra days and look in the outskirts of that area.

A couple tips for you. East of Austin is flatter, more tillable land. West is more hilly, rocky land. Usually the land west of Austin is higher $ than the land East.

Suggestions East - Round Top/LaGrange in Fayette County; Giddings in Lee County; Bryan-College Station in Brazos County; Madisonville in Madison County.

Suggestions West- Marble Falls in Burnet County; Along US 281 north and south of Marble Falls. Llano, Mason and Menard Counties are further west and are more rural, laid back and have some nice land.

I don't recommend any of the counties along IH35 north or south of Austin. Too congested and growth is terrible.

One caveat: In Texas the Mineral Rights can be severed from the Surface Rights. Even water rights can be severed. So if you are looking at any rural property determine what rights the seller has and what they will convey. It's getting harder to find a tract where the owner has 100% of the minerals and is willing to convey 100%.
Just be sure you work with a broker who knows land sales. Most of them in theses areas do pretty well.



.
 
   / Utopia take 2 #117  
A couple tips for you. East of Austin is flatter, more tillable land. West is more hilly, rocky land. Usually the land west of Austin is higher $ than the land East.

Suggestions East - Round Top/LaGrange in Fayette County; Giddings in Lee County; Bryan-College Station in Brazos County; Madisonville in Madison County.

Suggestions West- Marble Falls in Burnet County; Along US 281 north and south of Marble Falls. Llano, Mason and Menard Counties are further west and are more rural, laid back and have some nice land.

I don't recommend any of the counties along IH35 north or south of Austin. Too congested and growth is terrible.

One caveat: In Texas the Mineral Rights can be severed from the Surface Rights. Even water rights can be severed. So if you are looking at any rural property determine what rights the seller has and what they will convey. It's getting harder to find a tract where the owner has 100% of the minerals and is willing to convey 100%.
Just be sure you work with a broker who knows land sales. Most of them in theses areas do pretty well.



.

Very well stated. Yes, be sure you know what you may be purchasing. I have some mineral rights in West Texas and the oil companies are always throwing money at me to do exploration. Mineral Rights are one thing most people wouldn't want to relinquish, ever.
 
   / Utopia take 2 #118  
Very well stated. Yes, be sure you know what you may be purchasing. I have some mineral rights in West Texas and the oil companies are always throwing money at me to do exploration. Mineral Rights are one thing most people wouldn't want to relinquish, ever.

Do I have this straight...you can own a piece of property, but if someone else owns the mineral rights they can just come right in and start mining on YOUR land? That would suck.
 
   / Utopia take 2 #119  
Do I have this straight...you can own a piece of property, but if someone else owns the mineral rights they can just come right in and start mining on YOUR land? That would suck.
We had a client for a while who bought land without mineral rights... we weren't even supposed to take gravel to fix the roads. Water rights are something we take for granted in New England, and is why Nestle is able to extract billions of gallons of water to sell, without paying a penny for the right to do so.

Conservation easements are a big thing in the northern tier on New England. All they are is somebody buying the development rights so that nobody can build on the land they own.
 
   / Utopia take 2 #120  

My neighbors for a time fled to New Zealand... they were older professional couple and only came back when Obama was elected...

I had the chance to learn more and number one is they found New Zealand is very high cost with limited offerings... the great outdoors didn't hold as much appeal even for active 80 year old...

They owned a home there and the wife was employed as there is a 20 year difference in age...

They left the East Coast for NZ and he was active in Al Gore campaign. Decided to give the SF Bay Area a try before moving to Portland OR
 

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