John,

The south-central part of the metroplex is growing fast too... I had a brand new 1734sq ft house built for $135k down here in south Arlington... since you asked about house appreciation, I can tell you my builder is already charging roughly $15k more for my exact house now and I've only been here since last May... there are new housing developments and schools springing up in my area (76002) like wildfire... and speaking of schools, if that's important to you if you're gonna have kids later on, the district with the best rep around here is the Mansfield ISD (several brand new schools)... btw Mansfield borders Arlington to the SW... and from here it's a straight shot up 287 to downtown FTW. You can prolly get there in 20-25 minutes...

most people around here would probably tell you the outskirts of town are the "better" places to live just because of newer housing and there's less people around to deal with (or at the very lest that's my opinion)... I used to live in Benbrook on the SW side of FTW and it was cool (I was a kid then) but that's quite a ways from Dallas if you ever need to go there... I should probably point out that from down here in S. Arl., barring any wrecks or highway closures you could just about get to anywhere in the metroplex in 45 min or less...

and if you absolutely detest traffic, I can tell you from listening to traffic reports forever that in Tarrant county (the FTW side) the most wrecks and seemingly the most traffic and congestion happens on the N/NE side of loop 820 and sometimes on I-35W and around the SE side where 820 and I-20 meet... and the number of wrecks on the highway in Dallas county outnumber Tarrant county prolly 5 to 1(?)

as far as weather goes, it's not unusual for the weather to change dramatically from one day to the next but it's nothing to worry about... we are currently in a 'mini-drought' I guess you'd say so if you're looking for a house please do yourself a favor and get a sprinkler system or you're gonna spend LOTS of time watering your yard. Last week I got 3 inches of rain in 24 hrs and the ground/grass was bone dry the next day... it never does get really cold here... but it does get hot quite often (and I'm talking about 95-100+ degrees hot too, not the 'Yankee hot' where people die of heat stroke at 90 freakin' degrees!) so be prepared for that...

you mentioned the night life... downtown Ft. Worth at night time is gorgeous and a really fun place to be, especially on the weekends, and I totally appreciate the free parking garage! there's some good bars (i like the Library), a few movie theaters, the Bass Hall... well let me put it this way. The only time I go to Dallas instead of Ft. Worth for fun/entertainment is when I go to a Deep Ellum club for a concert because there aren't too many actual clubs that I know of in FTW...

Ok, I know this has been incredibly long but the last thing I wanted to mention was that if you would like fairly quick access to DFW airport don't forget to check out the north part of Arlington (north of I-30) I'm really not being partial the Arl. here because real estate is all about location right? Well that area is almost the direct center of the metroplex and there are some very nice housing options there. I wanted to move there but it was just out of my price range. It's prolly 15 minutes to the airport from there...

And for real, the last thing I'm saying is this:

I don't go shouting "Texas is better than everywhere else!" or anything like that, but I'm as Texan as you can get, down to the bone, whether I look it or not (I don't). I've lived here all my life and everytime I go somewhere else for more than 3-5 days I get so homesick I can't stand it. I was born here and I'll die here. Period. It's part of who I am. I'd say the only thing wrong with Texas (haha that's almost sacrilege!) if there could ever be anything wrong is the Rocky Mountains aren't right out our back doors and it takes too long to get to other places when you do want to get away.

OK I'm done! Hope my suggestions and opinions help you formulate one of your own and facilitate your decisions...