Living Places around Houston?

[Thirteen]

Anyone know anything about the inner loop of Houston - close to Med. Center?
We're doing some recon work, and trying to decide where people who work in the Loop live.

Thanks guys!!

[moonlight]

Off the top of my head the area is called "Condo Land." Tons of condos full of med students and residents. Not sure if that's what you are looking for. Two income families live in Pearland. It's about a 45 minute commute.

If you'd like to talk to a wonderful agent located inside the loop for renting or buying I can PM you.

[SoonerTexan]

I know a little bit--I know it's more expensive, but the area around Rice Village is really nice. At the Baylor interview, they mentioned "Condo Land" as well

[SuzySunshine]

My sister and her husband just sold a condo and bought a house, she works at the med center. I can ask her for you but her old commute and her new commute will both be really short.

[SuzySunshine]

From my sister:

I would point them to Montrose, Midtown, West University, Bellaire, Meyerland. If they want to rent a cute little house or want to buy a house, I would send them to HAR.com

[medpedspouse]

Next to Rice Village (wich is awesome but pricey)is an area called South Gate where you can find reasonable houses. Also the Braeswood area. Condoland between Old Spanish Trail and Holly Hall is where most of the med students/Bio Med/ etc students live. If you have the $$, I second Montrose - or the Heights, West University, Bellaire.

Pearland is great but the commute is no fun. If you can afford it, I'd be an innerlooper.

[SoonerTexan]

Blech...and take the commute horror stories seriously. Houston sucks in that regard.

Houston makes it in the top of a lot of those "Worst Commutes" lists--apparently everything is bigger in Texas, even the traffic!

[Thirteen]

This is all very helpful guys - and SoonerTexan, I will totally take them seriously. From what I understand, Houston is worse than L.A. in regards to traffic.
(Get caught once, eh, okay. Get caught twice: you're a fool).

[Thirteen]

Oh, I forgot to mention that ideally (and let's face it, when is anything in medicine ideal?) we'd like access to a fenced-in yard. We have two big dogs (50 lbs. and 62 lbs.) and even though they're housebroken and very good apartment dogs (shocking!) it would be great if we had a yard.
Is this whole "live close to work/have a yard" thing a pipe dream at this point?

We've been doing the L.A. commute for years (he moreso than me) and it's grating on me a bit, so the next place we live would, in theory, be much closer to work.
...I sound incredibly naive right now.

[SoonerTexan]

Sorry for the weird bolding. Dallas has nasty traffic too--I've learned to avoid certain highways during 4-7 pm and it never surprises me when there is random traffic at 11 in the morning...but Houston has their own special kind of crazy. Imagine jammed traffic traveling at 70 mph--and no one lets you in. And there is always a mattress on fire or something in the road on I-45. And a deadly accident on the Katy Freeway. I'm surprised DF, his dad, and his siblings have survived their commute to work and school there. FIL travels over an hour one way every morning.

When I was looking into places to live in Houston while we were on the Baylor kick, I found some nice condos decently priced in the Holly Hall area--I believe they had fenced yards. Some of them looked more like townhomes. I think they were under 150K

[oceanchild]

I'm thinking that compared to the LA area, Houston's going to look pretty reasonable, even the nice parts.

[moonlight]

I think a small yard is totally doable in Houston! When is he done with residency?? I coudln't remember if he had one or two years left. ???

[SuzySunshine]

My sister and her husband just bought a house near Bellaire and it has a very nice fenced yard, definitely big enough for a dog!

[medpedspouse]

We lived on Holly Hall and had a post it sized yard for our golden and GSD. There is a dog park area next to UT-Houston housing off of Cambridge that we used to take the digs to so they could run. I think it is still there.

[Thirteen]

I think a small yard is totally doable in Houston! When is he done with residency?? I coudln't remember if he had one or two years left. ???

We've started the 12 month countdown! Hooray!!
I'm actually the one that might drag him to Houston, but that's contingent upon UT-HSC accepting me to their nursing program first.
We're just trying to figure out how soon we would need to apply for a TX med license, should that be the case.

What can I say? We overprepare like crazy people...