Ok guys, some of you have met me before, and some of you haven't. Either way, I keep telling Rodger I'm coming down to 4 wheel again with him, and 3 yrs, and Xterra, and 2 Jeeps later, still haven't. SOOO..

Right now I'm about to finish my MBA, and am going back and forth between ok money at Nissan, here in Nashville, or working in Ft. Worth for a medical outsourcing company.

I know nothing about the DFW area, and would love to hear some opinions. I flew in and went to lunch, then flew directly out, so I've spent a total of about 3 hrs in DFW area. So...you could have another offroader in the area, but sadly, my fiancee is the only one with the Xterra anymore.

Talk to me about the city, where to live, is property appreciating, is the weather horrible, do the cowboys still suck, are steaks cheaper, is everyone really a Steer or a queer? is everything bigger in TX, do all cars come with longhorns on the front?, if I dig in the front yard, will up come a bubblin' crude? You know, normal everyday questions.

Thanks in advance for the replies!
John

John, that would be great if you came here!!! I only lived in Dallas area for a bit when I was with TI and that was a while ago. I am sure one of the locals will post. Walt works at Nissan up there but not sure if same location you are loking at. He has not posted here in quite some time. I will email you the latest contact info I have!

Hey John,

You better look to see where that UT color may fit in in Texas. One of them, thar schools probably has orange.

Hope life is treating you well. Good luck on the search effort.

Todd

John,

The "D/FW" area has a lot of variation and covers more than 5000 square miles. Dallas and Fort Worth are very different places. To begin with Dallas has one of the highest crime rates in the country, Fort Worth one of the lowest. The sayng here is, "Dallas is where the East ends and Fort Worth is where the west begins." If you are looking for "big city" environment then the Dallas side may be more to your liking. If you like a smaller, friendlier city, take a look at Fort Worth. Of course both the areas have surrounding suburbs and rural areas.

Regarding off road opportunites you need to be aware of the fact that considering the size of Texas, there is releitively little Public or public access property. There are certainly a number of State Parks and National Forests and Grasslands but it is not like what you find in other western states.

I have been here since 1989. I grew up in Southern California, left there in '80 spent 8 years in Arkansas. I still like Texas. There is plenty do but it is big so it's often a long drive to get to a different kind of terrain.

I agree with the above. I'd MUCH rather live over in Ft Worth or the mid-cities area (Hurst/Euless/Bedford, North Richland Hills etc etc) than in Dallas.

If you're serious about moving here - you need to come down and spend a few days driving around... each little suburb/area has its own flavor and there are definitely some that are better than others (for instance, if you find a great deal on a house in Oak Cliff (south Dallas)... don't take it. You might wake up dead.). Traffic is pretty bad (at least in Dallas) - so you'll want to live pretty close to your job... or at least keep the drive to work in mind when searching. This shouldn't be quite as big a deal in Ft Worth.

I grew up (through high school) in Bedford and liked it pretty well.

Oh - he's also right about the offroading. We have some parks to go to - and they're making more - but it's not like AZ and Cali where there is just wheeling everywhere. There is no real public land here.

It's a pretty good place to live, though... cost of living is relatively cheap, no state income tax etc. We usually get one or two winter weather events per year where it'll snow a couple inches or sleet for a day or two. It's hot as hell during the summer - but that's what Willis Haviland Carrier invented the air conditioner for.

I lived in various places around DFW from 1991-2001. Most of the time was spent north of the airport in the Lewisville (Go Farmers!) and Coppell areas and liked that best of all. You're close to everything without living in a "big city." Other places are nice, Plano for example, but it's a long haul from there to some places in the Metroplex. I liked living in Texas and would go back again.

You could also look into the east side of dallas Rowlett, Rockwall, are nice areas crime is low good school's

Thanks for the feedback guys, I should be deciding in the next couple days. My job offers are for Nissan here in Smyrna, or working for a medical outsourcing company in Ft. Worth. I may fly down next week and stay a few days in Ft Worth checking out areas and the city in general if I decide to go that route. Just looking at realtor.com, I can't tell what is what, unless it's titled FT WORTH. My job would be in downtown Ft. Worth.

Walt mentioned North of town is where the growth seems to be at. I'm mainly looking for where can I participate in some housing appreciation, decent access to activities&nightlife, and safety. I want everything right? Also, if I pin this down, if anyone has some realtor recommendations in Ft. Worth, it would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone. Any suggestions are appreciated!
John

John, We have lots of beer.

How've ya been? If your gonna be traveling, theres all sort of places to live that are near the airport. I guess its more on what you want to spend. Ft Worth is not my fav place but they do have a few nice clubs that I've been to and the city has improved alot over the years.

Cost isn't bad compaired to alot of places and the cost of living to me isn't bad at all.

As far as a realitor, I have one for the north Dallas area but not out in Ft Worth.

My aunt is a mortgage broker (who lives in Ft. Worth... JUST west of downtown) and I'm sure she'd have some recommendations... lemme dig up her contact info.

I emailed her... will post up her contact info when she responds.

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...

Awesome info. Well...it is done, I'm coming to TX in the beginning of June. Come to find out, I'm actually going to be working out of an office in Irving, not Ft. Worth. During my seach on ziprealty.com, a realtor called me and recommended the ValleyRanch/Los Colinas area. A buddy told me it is a "dry" area, which sucks, b/c "I love beer".

I look forward to meeting some of you guys and I really appreciate the help. Any opinions arounf Irving specifically? Any nursing connections? My fiancee is an LPN, and will be either pursuing a drug rep job, or working at a local hospital or clinic. If there are any spouses or XOC members who are in teh medical field in the area, feel free to chime in.

Thanks for the help!
John

I go to a church up in the north part of Irving and that area of town is really nice as is much of Carrolton, though that is based on limited experience...

Valley Ranch/Las Colinas is a beautiful area. I've horseshowed in Las Colinas, and I considered moving out there (I'm in Austin now, and I'm moving to the Addison area, north of Dallas, in May for a series of pharmacy internships). I wanted to live near Irving when I wasn't sure if some of my internships would be in FTW, but none are...all in Irving and Dallas.

As for nursing options...Baylor Medical Center in Irving is supposed to be a great hospital.

http://www.baylorhealth.com/Locations/Hospitals/Irving/

I will be participating in an Adult Medicine rotation there. Also, most of the hospitals in Dallas are a 15-20 minute drive from Irving/Las Colinas, so if she's willing to commute it's not too far at all.

I've also lived in Texas all my life (only 24 years but hey)...18 years in Katy (west of Houston) and 6 here in Austin at THE UT ( ). If I fall in love with Dallas during this last year of pharmacy school I may stay up there for awhile. I'm of the same opinion as TexasX...I absolutely love this state and can't think of being anywhere else. Even if I leave for awhile, even if I talk badly about the weather & the traffic...I'm a Texan and that's all there is to it.

Good luck with the move, and hope that helped a little bit.

Dallas is actually pretty different from the rest of Texas. It's more of a northern city (LOTS of people from Chicago etc have moved down here with the tech boom).

Just got back yesterday, and made offers on 2 homes in Valley Ranch. One got shot down (we tried to bring it into our price range with a low offer), and the other is pending.

I'll be moving down there in less than a month. I hope to do final closing on the 19th of May!

John

John, that is good news I hope all works out as planned. Looking forward to meeting up again.

You will be here in time for a few of the planned runs and events!

Valley Ranch is a nice area... about a half hour from me.

I can't wait to get down there and get settled with Lori (my soon to be wife as of 5/18). She still has an X, but it's 2 wheel drive:( I did make her put an XOC sticker on it on a bet she lost years ago. If the Jeep is welcome, I will definitely be on some runs.

Hope to see you guys again soon!

John

John, are you saying you are getting married the 18th?? That is good news and boy are you taking some big steps.

Of course we don't ride with Jeeps this is an X club J/K we have a couple of Jeeps that are alwys showing us the ropes. We ride with Sammys and all others too... Just try and make the runs when U R settled.

Early CONGRATS on the marriage and hope to meet up with both of you soon!

Yeah, pretty busy two weeks. Graduation on the 12th, marriage on the 18th, close on house the 19th, movers show up 20th, honeymoon in there somewhere, and start new job on 12th. They originally planned on me starting on June 5th, and be in NY on the 6th for work, but that is just too much. I have to have to time to work on the Jeep!

John

Actually, Adagio, Baylor Irving is one of the worst of the hospitals in the Baylor system. Downtown is the best (and largest). I recently spent over two months in Downtown, and ended up staying in almost every hospital that they have (the main campus is divided into 7 or 8 hospitals, but all are interconnected, and it is almost like one huge building).

woah. Where the hell did you come from.