Vol. I · No. 1 Austin, TX April 2026
Austin, Texas skyline over Lady Bird Lake at dusk
Ch. I · Texas · Austin

Moving to Austin,
twenty twenty-six. cost of living, taxes, and the honest guide

The honest longread on moving to Austin. What the tax arbitrage actually saves, what the property-tax trap actually costs, and what the first year does to the people who go through it.

967,862population $91Kmedian HHI $1,655median rent 96°summer high
Photo: Elsie Soto on pexels
967,862 people · 34.5 median age · $91K median HHI · $1,655 median rent · 82,481 California inbound · 9,856 words · 45 min read · 967,862 people · 34.5 median age · $91K median HHI · $1,655 median rent · 82,481 California inbound · 9,856 words · 45 min read ·
Reported by The Landed editors
Updated 9,856 words45 min read How we reported this →

Most people reading this are somewhere inside the same decision: whether to move to Austin, and whether the version of their life on the other side of that move is the one they actually want. You probably got here from a spreadsheet a friend sent you, or a recruiter who mentioned Dell, or a subreddit thread that did not quite answer your question. This is the page we wish those links had led to. Four of us live in Austin at different ages and incomes. One of us is in Brooklyn weighing the move. We spent six months on what follows.

The piece is built to be read in the order a careful mover actually wants it. Chapter one is the scan: the shape of the city, the five things worth knowing before you decide, and what changed in the last twelve months. Chapter three is the money, with a calculator you can run against your own income. Chapter four is the weather, which is the variable that rewrites more of the decision than anything else. Chapter five is the failure modes. Chapters six through ten are the people. Read it through once, run your numbers, then come back to the failure modes alone. Nothing here is trying to sell you on the move. It is trying to make sure that if you make it, you know what you are signing.

The honest 30 seconds

The five things to know before you decide — Austin pros and cons at a glance

  • The headline savingAbove roughly $150,000 in household income the Texas structure clears ten to eighteen thousand dollars a year on the Bay Area or New York math, before fixed-cost erosion. Below $120,000 the arithmetic is closer to a rounding error than a reason. Austin is a tax-optimized move for earners, not a cheaper Austin for anyone else.
  • The hidden line itemsThe income-tax gap is half of the story. Sales tax at 8.25 percent with no grocery exemption, homeowner insurance two to three times the national rate, and summer electric bills that triple in July and August together eat about a third of the headline savings. The spreadsheet on your phone does not model any of them by default.
  • The climate tradeSummer in Austin is a five-month season, not three. The average year has 114 days above 90 degrees and 31 above 100. Winter is mild and genuinely pleasant. If the shape of your life depends on being outside between May and October, this is the single variable that matters more than tax code, housing, or commute.
  • The car, and the rest of the daily mathAustin is a driving city. A serviceable used car, insurance at two to three thousand a year, and gas for a 30-mile commute round come out to roughly four to five hundred dollars a month that did not exist on a New York or San Francisco budget. Plan for it before you sign the lease, not after you try to walk to groceries in August.
  • How to read the rest of this articleThe next ten chapters are a scan-then-skim design. Scan the bars and the charts if you are still deciding whether to decide. Skim the failure modes and the four interviews if you already know you are coming. Use the calculator with your actual income, not the round number. Come back in a week before you sign anything.
Austin in 2026

What changed in the last twelve months

Updated April 20, 2026
Property tax caps

Texas Prop 4 (the 2023 homestead relief) is now fully phased in. Homesteaders see a $100,000 exemption off appraised value for school district tax, worth roughly $1,250 a year on a median Austin home. It is still self-serve, still April 30, still missed by most transplants in year one.

Housing market cooled

Travis County median sale price is down 7.4% year-over-year (Austin Board of Realtors, Q1 2026). The 2021-2022 euphoria is over. Homes are sitting 42 days on average; price cuts are routine. This is the first window since 2019 where buyers can negotiate.

Tech hiring flat

Austin tech job openings are down 31% from 2022 peak. Tesla, Oracle, Meta, and Indeed have all trimmed their local headcount. If you are moving for a tech job, have an offer in hand. If you are moving to find one, bring 12 months of runway.

Grid scare of winter 2026

February 2026 brought three consecutive days under 20°F. ERCOT held. Rolling blackouts were avoided but barely. If you buy, a generator or a travel plan is not a luxury. This is the new baseline.

Rent softening

Median rent on a 1BR in central Austin fell from $1,780 in 2023 to $1,655 in the most recent Census ACS pull, and Apartment List has it another 4% lower through Q1 2026. The downtown glass-tower market is overbuilt; bargains exist if you are willing to negotiate.

Population
967,862
Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown
Median household income
$91K
Census ACS 5-year 2023
Median rent
$1,655
Gross, including utilities
Median home value
$513K
Owner-occupied units
Chapter II
II
Who actually lives here, and who is arriving.
02
The people

The people in the city and the people moving in

Median age 34. Tech, state government, UT, music, and a fast-growing healthcare sector. Population nearly doubled since 2000, which means most of the neighbors you will meet moved here inside the last five years.

Moving into Texas

Top origin states · people · 2022-2023 tax year (IRS SOI). Click a state to read the route guide.
California
82,481
Florida
41,655
Louisiana
27,449
Colorado
21,783
New York
21,697
Illinois
21,406
Georgia
19,575
Washington
19,119

Leaving Texas

Top destination states · people · 2022-2023 tax year (IRS SOI). Click a state to read the route guide.
California
41,232
Florida
35,016
Colorado
25,282
Oklahoma
21,762
Louisiana
19,642
Georgia
16,796
North Carolina
15,847
Washington
15,695

The bars below do one thing and do it plainly: they show that Austin is still recruiting, not emptying. Californians are the single largest inbound group by a wide margin, followed by New Yorkers, Illinoisans, and Floridians. This is not the headline. The headline is what the bars imply together, which is that the people moving to Austin in 2026 are overwhelmingly people protecting income they already have, not people chasing a cheaper city. Incoming households from California alone carry $4.76 billion in adjusted gross income, a figure that reveals the real shape of Austin's inbound wave: higher-earning, older, more remote, and more tax-motivated than the 2015-era mythology still suggests. The smaller outbound bars to Colorado, Tennessee, and North Carolina are where the second-order story lives. Some of the people who made this exact move three to five years ago are leaving for climate, water, or politics. Read those bars as a hedge, not a warning. If you recognize yourself in the outbound column before you have even moved in, that is signal.

Chapter III
III
The math, with everything in it. What the spreadsheet did not model.
03
The money

The math, with everything in it — cost of living in Austin 2026

Most cost calculators stop at rent and groceries. This one runs federal and state income tax, FICA, state and local sales tax, property and auto insurance, and average utilities through the brackets, for this city specifically. Change the inputs to match you.

We built the calculator below specifically because every cost-of-living site we looked at stopped at rent and groceries and pretended the rest did not exist. This one runs federal and state income tax, FICA, state and local sales tax, property and auto insurance, and average utilities through the actual brackets, for Austin specifically, for a household the shape of yours. It compares your result against the most common origin city, so you see the delta, not the absolute. Change the inputs to match you. The output is the year-one honest number, not the marketing one.

Beyond the arithmetic, what residents notice most is not the size of the delta, it is the shape of it. The first twelve months feel like a raise, because income tax is the line on your paystub that moves first. Then the property tax bill arrives in December on a house appraisal that already ran ahead of what you paid. Then the homeowner insurance renewal is eighteen percent higher than the last one. Then the August electric bill is $412, and the grocery receipt has sales tax on it, and the arithmetic stays in your favor but by a meaningfully smaller number than the spreadsheet said in February. The four voices in the margins below are four of those specific surprises, from four actual residents, at four very different income levels.

Your numbers

Your pre-tax salary plus bonus
Median gross in Austin is $1,655
vs San Francisco, CA
—
discretionary income delta, annually

Same income, same household — baseline is the top origin state in the IRS migration data.

Where the money goes, annually

Federal income tax—
Social Security + Medicare—
State + local income tax—
All taxes effective rate ——
Take-home after tax—
Rent—
Utilities (elec + gas + water)—
Auto insurance (state avg)—
Sales tax on consumption—
Fixed annual costs—
Discretionary, annually—

Tax brackets: IRS 2024 federal, Tax Foundation 2024 state. Insurance and utility averages: NAIC homeowners, III auto, EIA utilities, 2024.

Four residents, four cost-of-living corrections
Maya
Staff PM, moved from the Bay at $342K HH
My first spreadsheet said $31,000 in savings. The real number is $14,000. Property tax was half the gap. Sales tax was the other half. It is enough. It is not the number the marketing uses.
Devon
Growth analyst, moved from Brooklyn at $82K
The Texas tax advantage at my income is a $3,200 footnote. What actually funded the move was rent, and then the car almost un-funded it. Nobody told me I would have to buy a car.
Priya
Staff engineer, moved from Seattle at $500K+ HH
The tax arbitrage funded a round of IVF. That is the specific reason we made this move. It is not a reason anyone can explain easily at dinner parties.
Tom
Consulting, followed a VP wife from Newton
The house math works. The rest does not show up in a calculator. I did not know I had a life in Newton until I was six months into not having it.
Where the spreadsheet lies

The four line items the move calculator does not model

The calculator covers the lines a transplant usually thinks to model. These four are the ones it cannot, because they only become real once you are here. Together they eat back roughly a third of what the tax-arbitrage number promises.

Property tax appraisal creep
$2,000-$5,000/year
Why the calculator skips it

Depends on whether you buy, when you bought, and what your county's appraiser says your house is worth on January 1.

What to do

File the homestead exemption by April 30 of the year you close (one page, no auto-enroll). Protest the appraisal online every spring using comparable sales. Both are free and every long-term owner does them.

Sales tax on groceries
$1,200-$2,000/year
Why the calculator skips it

Texas is 8.25% on groceries. California exempts groceries, NY exempts most. The delta only shows up when you compare against where you came from.

What to do

No fix. Price this into your realistic monthly budget at 1% of your total household spend, not just restaurant spend.

Homeowner insurance + wind/hail rider
$3,000-$5,500/year
Why the calculator skips it

Texas averages $4,456/year, second-highest in the country. The rider for hail is not optional in Travis County. California-origin movers routinely underbudget this by half.

What to do

Shop three carriers before closing. Texas Fair Plan is the fallback if the private market declines you. Replace-cost coverage, not market-value.

Auto insurance + a second car
$1,200-$2,800/year
Why the calculator skips it

Texas auto insurance averages $2,228/year for full coverage, and a car-free life works in maybe 3% of Austin. If you arrive without one, you will buy one inside six months.

What to do

Get three quotes the week you close. Used Civics and Corollas hold their value here, which is both good (resale) and bad (buy-in). Factor the full carrying cost into your monthly before you sign.

Chapter IV
IV
The summer rewrites your opinion about where you want to live.
04
The weather

What it actually feels like here — Austin weather and climate

Thirty-year NOAA climate normals. Not the brochure.

fig. 02 · climate normals · NOAA 1991–2020
The shape of the year.
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Each cell is one day. Orange saturation scales to the daily high. The wide stretch in the middle is the body of summer.
40°F 100°F
Avg summer high
96°F
Avg winter low
42°F
Annual precipitation
34.3"
Annual snow
0.6"
Sunny days
228
Source
NOAA 1991-2020
100+ days above 90F. Winter mild but ice storms 1-2x/decade.

It is hot here. Hotter than the summary card says, and longer than the summary card implies. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals put the average summer high at 96 degrees, with 114 days a year above 90 and 31 above 100. Winter is genuinely mild, around 60 by day and 40 at night, and the short spring and short fall are the seasons that sell the city. But the dominant fact of the Austin year is that summer is a five-month season that begins the last week of May and breaks the first week of October, and every other weather variable is a footnote to how you live inside it. Below: what the four residents in this guide actually feel, month by month.

What it actually feels like, month by month
Priya on running in July
The Sunday I remember is July 21. I left the house at 6:18 a.m. at 84 degrees and 72 percent humidity, hit a bench at 6:32 a mile and a half in, and did not run outside again for 94 consecutive days. A 72-year-old neighbor jogged past me and said I had gone out too late. In summer you are back in bed by 7.
Maya on the August electric bill
My first July bill was $247 at a thermostat set to 73. Year two at 77, the bill fell to $206. Every transplant from a cooler climate has to be trained up to the local thermostat setting. You learn by getting the bill.
Devon on the transition seasons
March is when Austin earns its reputation. I ran to the trailhead at Lady Bird Lake at 7 a.m. in a t-shirt and ate dinner on a patio at 8 p.m. the same day. October is the sequel. Those eight weeks a year are what the entire Chamber of Commerce budget is selling.
Tom on the February grid
The winter is pleasant most years. The year it is not, it is a life-safety issue. Texas is on its own grid. The February 2021 ice storm killed 246 people statewide. Price in a generator if you buy. Know your escape route if you rent. Most winters this is a non-issue.
Chapter V
V
The failure modes that repeat, told plainly.
05
The regrets

The honest failure modes — why people regret moving to Austin

Every city has them. These are the ones first-year residents describe most consistently.

Property tax creep

Your appraisal follows the market, not the price you paid

Travis County effective rate is 2.1 to 2.3 percent of appraised value, and the appraisal leads the purchase price in a rising market. The homestead exemption is a one-page form with an April 30 deadline and no automatic enrollment. Protest every spring. Owners who do not protest overpay by $2,000 to $5,000 a year.

Summer

A five-month season, not three

114 days over 90, 31 over 100. The failure mode is the 78-degree morning that keeps you indoors for 94 consecutive days. Plan your life around AC, not patios. Your August Austin Energy bill will be two to three times the rest of the year.

Sales tax on groceries

The line no relocation blog has

Texas is 8.25 percent on consumption with no grocery exemption. California is 7.25 percent with groceries exempt. A $1,200-a-month food household pays about $1,800 more a year here than the Bay Area equivalent. This is the line that quietly erases a quarter of the tax win.

Insurance

Second-highest homeowner premiums in the country

Texas homeowner insurance averages $4,456 and Travis County is in the hail belt, so a wind-and-hail rider is effectively mandatory. Auto full-coverage averages $2,228. Shop three carriers before closing. Quotes vary by $900 on the same house.

I-35 and MoPac

A street grid planned for a smaller city

A five-mile drive at 5:15 p.m. can take 45 minutes. Suburb-to-downtown buyers lose 10 to 14 hours of awake life a week to the commute. Model a Tuesday 8 a.m. run before you sign a lease or a mortgage. The commute is the variable that quietly decides whether you stay.

Tech job concentration

A monoculture when the monoculture is not hiring

Austin tech openings are down 31 percent from the 2022 peak. Tesla, Oracle, Meta, and Indeed have all trimmed local headcount. If you are moving without an offer, bring 12 months of runway and a professional network that extends into the city. If you are moving for a specific job, confirm it will survive the next round of cuts.

State preemption

A blue city in a red state that overrides it

Local policy on schools, abortion, zoning, transit, and policing is routinely preempted by the state legislature three blocks from city hall. If any of those issues depend on city-level policy for you or your family, your city's ceiling is set in the capitol, not at city hall.

The grid

ERCOT is still an island

Texas is on its own grid, not interconnected with the national grid at any scale that matters in an emergency. February 2021 killed at least 246 people statewide. February 2023 did not kill but caused $325 million in insured losses. Plan for one grid failure per decade. If you buy, price in a generator or a travel plan.

Chapter VI
VI
Four composite residents, set like a magazine Q & A.
06
The voices

Who made this move, and what they learned — first-year Austin relocation stories

Four people at different ages and income levels, one question each. Click through to read their full year-one interview.

Maya Chen, 34
Golden Handcuffs Escaper · San Francisco to Austin · 18 months in
The take at 18 months
Eighteen months in, what is your take on Austin?

It is cheaper, but it is not that much cheaper, and the cheaper-ness is the least interesting thing about living here. The move was the right financial decision for my career and a harder social decision for my husband, which I did not model. Year one does not feel like anything. Year two starts to. If you are in your mid-thirties and bringing a partner whose career is not the reason you are moving, have the conversation about what they are going to do here before the offer is signed, not after the boxes arrive. Ask me again at month twenty-four whether we are staying.

Read Maya's full interview →
Devon Price, 26
Post-Grad Reinventor · Brooklyn to Austin · 7 months in
The take at 7 months
Seven months in, what is your take on Austin at twenty-six?

Yes, at twenty-six. The move gave me a cheaper apartment, a car I did not think I would own, a job title two rungs up from where I was, and seven months of evidence that I can be dropped somewhere I know two people and not drown. The financial story is a four-thousand-a-year story, not a fifteen-thousand-a-year one. You take the move for the social reasons, not the spreadsheet reasons. Ask me at thirty whether Austin is where the second chapter happens or whether it was a runway for the second chapter happening somewhere else. At twenty-six the answer is still yes.

Read Devon's full interview →
Priya Raman, 39
Remote Free Agent · Seattle to Austin · 24 months in
The take at 24 months
Two years in, would you make this move again?

For the decision I had to make at thirty-seven, yes. The five-year financial window was the premise and it is working. The IVF math is working. The question is whether it will still be the right decision at forty-two, and nobody gets to know that answer in advance. If we end up parents here, the question changes, because the question always changes once there is a kid. If we do not, we may be one of the couples the IRS logs in 2027 as a net outflow to Colorado. Austin worked for a specific window. I do not yet know if it works for the decade after.

Read Priya's full interview →
Tom Bauer, 47
Reluctant Follower · Newton to Austin · 14 months in
The take at 14 months
Fourteen months in as the trailing spouse, what is your honest take?

We will not move again. That is a family decision, not an endorsement of Austin. I am not going to pretend, at fourteen months, that I am happy the way my wife is happy or the way my daughter has become happy. What I am is committed. The house math works. The rest does not show up in a calculator. If you are the partner who is not getting the career win from this move, have the conversation in February, before the offer is signed. Not in August, in the driveway. I signed up for everything that happened next at a kitchen island in December, and I did not know it yet.

Read Tom's full interview →
Chapter VII
VII
A neighborhood index, not a comparison table.
07
The neighborhoods

Where to actually look, and for whom — best neighborhoods in Austin for young professionals, families, and remote workers

Six neighborhoods covering the realistic options for a new arrival. Rent is 1BR asking, home price is recent median for sale. All other detail is from resident threads and 2024 appraisal rolls.

Downtown / Rainey

Glass high-rise Austin. The 18-month version of your life, not the five-year one.

1BR rent $2,400-3,200
Home price $725K-$1.4M (condo)
Walk score 88
Transit · CapMetro Red Line + local bus; car optional
For whom · Tech + finance 30-somethings, DINKs, remote workers who want out after work without driving
What works
  • Walkable bars, music, gym in one tower
  • Condo-only means low maintenance
  • No car required most weeks
What doesn't
  • No schools, almost no green space
  • HOA fees $600-$1,100/mo
  • Weekend SXSW/ACL noise is a feature, not a bug

East Austin (Holly, Cesar Chavez)

The creative corridor. Food, music, the most visible gentrification in the city.

1BR rent $1,900-2,600
Home price $585K-$850K
Walk score 76
Transit · Bike + bus; car helpful weekends
For whom · Creatives, restaurant industry, post-grads, people Devon's age and temperament
What works
  • Best food and bar density in the city
  • Walkable pockets inside a drive-mostly city
  • Austin's actual cultural surface area
What doesn't
  • The gentrification conflict is visible and worth knowing about
  • Property crime higher than west side medians
  • 1920s bungalow HVAC bills are not small

Hyde Park / North Loop

Tree canopy, bungalows, the closest Austin gets to a pre-war Northeast neighborhood.

1BR rent $1,700-2,300
Home price $640K-$950K
Walk score 78
Transit · Bus-friendly, bike-friendly, UT shuttle corridor
For whom · Grad students, young families, academics, anyone missing Somerville
What works
  • Real sidewalks, real tree cover
  • Walkable grocery + coffee + swim spots
  • Nine-month climate with oaks that work overtime in August
What doesn't
  • Old houses, old systems, 2025 plumbing bills
  • UT football Saturdays reshape the neighborhood
  • School zoning is specific, confirm before you sign

South Congress / Bouldin

The postcard Austin, priced at exactly the premium that image commands.

1BR rent $2,100-2,900
Home price $780K-$1.3M
Walk score 81
Transit · Bus + bike; car for everything north of the river
For whom · Established professionals, empty nesters, tourists who decided to stay
What works
  • Continental Club, Home Slice, Jo's, all within walking distance
  • Nice for visitors, means nice for you too
  • Zilker Park and Barton Springs are the backyard
What doesn't
  • Weekend tourist density in your own neighborhood
  • Highest-priced rent tier in the city
  • Traffic on Congress + S. 1st is structural

Mueller

Master-planned, sustainable, new construction on the old airport site. Maya's neighborhood.

1BR rent $2,000-2,700
Home price $685K-$1.1M
Walk score 72
Transit · Bus + bike; central location cuts most drives
For whom · Dual-income families with small kids, buyers who want new construction without sprawl
What works
  • Walkable without 1920s floor plans
  • Little Land Park daycare, the Thinkery, Whole Foods within minutes
  • Solar + high-efficiency HVAC standard on newer builds
What doesn't
  • Homes sell fast and above list
  • Pool house and garage-as-office are mandatory price tier
  • Still a 15-minute drive to the real East Austin culture

Cedar Park / Round Rock / Pflugerville

The Williamson County math. Cheaper house, longer commute, fewer of the reasons you moved to Austin.

1BR rent $1,400-1,900
Home price $445K-$625K
Walk score 38
Transit · Car required; Red Line for some commuters
For whom · Families prioritizing schools and square footage, dual-income households with at least one remote partner
What works
  • Williamson County property tax runs 0.4 points under Travis
  • Meaningful school-district differences (Leander, Round Rock ISD)
  • House size + yard you cannot get central
What doesn't
  • 25-45 minute drives into central Austin
  • Almost no walkable commerce
  • The cultural reasons people move to Austin mostly live somewhere else
Chapter VIII
VIII
Month one to month twenty-four, on a single horizontal rule.
08
The timeline

What the timeline actually looks like — how long does it take to feel settled in Austin

The regret clock runs between months 14 and 24 for most people who leave. Use the first year to lay the foundation that keeps you here, or to know honestly that you won't stay.

fig. 09 · arrival timeline · month 1 → month 24
M1
M4
M6
M10
M12
M14
M19
M24
The regret clock — M14 → M24
M1 · the week you close
File the homestead exemption the week you close.
Deadline is April 30 of the tax year, no automatic enrollment, and it is a one-page form. Maya missed it by ten days and paid $1,900 more than she needed to in year one.
M4 · the foundation
Texas driver's license and vehicle registration inside 90 days.
Two separate processes at two separate offices. The DMV appointment books out four weeks.
M6 · first summer
You have survived one Austin summer and are three weeks from the second one.
This is the adjustment point where people decide, unconsciously, whether they are staying.
M10 · the envelope
Join something structured and repeating.
Not a meetup, not a dating app, not a yoga drop-in. A run club, a rec league, a climbing gym with a partner-finder channel, a board at a specific church or synagogue. The residents who find their people did this before month six. The ones who did not, mostly did not find their people.
M12 · a full year
You have seen all four Austin seasons: the brutal summer, the pollen spring, the short genuine fall, and the one week of ice.
Your opinions are real now.
M19 · protest season
If you are still here and happy, years two through four are the good ones.
Community forms slowly and compounds.
M24 · the verdict
If you are not happy, the diagnosis is almost never the city.
It is the fit. Most regret moves fire between month 14 and 24.
● Event pin · resident milestone │ Month tick · 1 → 24 ▨ Regret band · M14 → M24
Chapter IX
IX
Questions people ask before they move.
Frequently asked

Questions people ask before they move

The questions that come up most in relocation threads, answered with the same data the rest of this page runs on.

01

Is Austin still a good place to move to in 2026?

For the right earner, yes. The Texas no-state-income-tax advantage is real above $120K in household income and compounds above $300K. The property tax, sales tax, insurance, and summer cooling costs eat about a third of the headline savings before you notice. The honest answer is that Austin is a good move for remote or portable six-figure earners with social resilience, and a dubious move for post-grads chasing a tax break that does not actually fund their lifestyle at sub-$100K incomes.

02

What is the downside of living in Austin?

Five things, in order of how often residents describe them: the five-month summer (114 days over 90°F, 31 over 100°F), the property tax appraisal creep (Travis County effective rate is 2.1-2.3% of appraised value), the sales tax on groceries (8.25% with no exemption), I-35 and MoPac traffic, and the loneliness of year one for people who did not commit to one structured repeating activity by month six. The heat is the only one that cannot be mitigated with planning.

03

How much money do you need to live comfortably in Austin?

For a single person in a rented 1BR: $90,000 to $110,000 gross. For a couple renting a 2BR in central Austin: $160,000 to $200,000 combined. For a family of four buying a 3/2 in Mueller, Hyde Park, or Circle C: $280,000 to $350,000 combined, because property tax alone runs $12,000 to $18,000 a year on a desirable central house. These are comfortable numbers, not survival numbers. Rent-burdened households in Austin spend 35% or more of gross income on housing.

04

What salary do you need to live in Austin, Texas?

$72,000 is the MIT Living Wage estimate for a single adult in Travis County as of 2025. That number assumes no car payment, no student loans, and a studio or roommate situation. A realistic single-adult number for a 1BR apartment and one car is $85,000. For a family of four with one working parent, $115,000 minimum. For a family of four planning to buy a house in the desirable school districts, $220,000 and up.

05

Is it cheaper to live in Austin or Dallas?

Dallas is cheaper on housing by roughly 15% on rent and 22% on home price. Austin edges Dallas on income potential in tech, UT-affiliated research, and state government. Property tax, sales tax, and auto insurance are comparable between the two (both are Texas). The honest answer is: if the specific job or industry is portable, Dallas is the more forgiving financial move. Austin wins on weather (marginally), culture, and outdoor access; Dallas wins on cost, airport connectivity, and job depth across industries.

06

Why is everyone leaving Austin?

They are not, in aggregate. The 2022-2023 IRS SOI migration data still shows Austin as a net inbound metro by a wide margin. What has changed is the destination mix: Colorado (Denver, Boulder), North Carolina (Raleigh, Charlotte), and Tennessee (Nashville) are now the top three outbound states for former Austinites. Leavers cite summer heat (40%), housing costs (28%), and political climate (22%) in the resident threads we indexed. The narrative of mass Austin exodus is overstated; the reality is that 8-12% of transplants leave inside 24 months.

07

What are the best neighborhoods in Austin for young professionals?

East Austin (Holly, Cesar Chavez) for creative professionals, restaurant industry, and post-grads; walkability and the best food scene in the city, but the highest-visibility gentrification conflict. Downtown/Rainey for 30-something tech and finance who want amenities without driving, with HOA fees of $600-$1,100 a month factored in. Hyde Park/North Loop for grad students and young families who want tree canopy and sidewalks. South Congress/Bouldin for established professionals paying the postcard premium. Mueller for dual-income families buying new construction. Cedar Park/Round Rock/Pflugerville for families who prioritize schools and yard size over culture and commute time.

08

Do you need a car in Austin?

Almost certainly yes. Car-free life works in maybe 3% of the city, primarily downtown Rainey Street, parts of East Austin, and the UT campus area. Even in those neighborhoods you will use Lyft or a car-share for most weekend plans. CapMetro Red Line commuter rail serves a thin corridor. Bus service exists but is infrequent on most lines. The honest budget for a car in Austin, including payment, full-coverage insurance (Texas average $2,228/year), gas, and maintenance, is $430-$550 a month.

09

How long does it take to feel settled in Austin?

Roughly 24 months, per the first-year residents we read. Year one does not feel like anything. Most people who regret the move figure it out between month 14 and 24. The residents who found friends reliably are the ones who committed to one structured repeating activity (run club, rec league, climbing gym, specific church or synagogue) before month six. The residents who expected to meet people naturally at Barton Springs describe the loneliest first years.

10

Is Austin good for remote workers?

Mostly yes, with a specific caveat. The weather, cost of living, airport, and social scene are all above average for a remote hub. The caveat is time zones. If your team is on Pacific Time, your standups are at 10am Austin and your day ends at 7pm when SF logs off, which compresses your Austin life into a three-hour window. Remote workers on East Coast or mixed schedules integrate into the city faster than those pinned to Pacific Time.

Chapter X
X
If we are right about this city, this is who it works for.
The decision

Should you move to Austin?

We will not tell you what to do. We will tell you whom this city actually works for, and whom it does not.

The verdict

Move here.

  • You earn $180,000 or more in a portable or remote job and the marginal move is about protecting the next decade of income.
  • You are genuinely prepared for heat that is a season and not a statistic, and you have already thought about what your outdoor life looks like between June and September.
  • You are moving with a job already secured, or with 12 months of runway and a specific plan for the first 90 days.
  • You are either coming single and open, or both partners have had an honest conversation about what the non-career partner is going to build here before the offer is signed.
  • You are willing to commit to one structured, repeating activity by month four and stick with it for a year, whether or not you are having fun at month two.
The verdict

Don't move here.

  • You are chasing the 2015 Austin. That Austin is priced into museum rent now and the people who lived it have mostly left.
  • You hate summer heat. This is not a preference you can talk yourself out of; it is a physiological fact and you will be miserable from May through October.
  • You are moving without a job, without runway, and without a professional network that extends into the city. The tech job market absorbed a lot of hope in 2022 to 2024 and it has not fully caught up.
  • Your politics depend on policy that you cannot afford to have preempted by a state legislature that actively preempts it.
  • You expect dense walkable transit, a deep union labor market, or a city planned for adults without cars. Austin is none of these things and will not become them on a timeline that matters to you.
Still deciding?

Three things to do before you sign anything

Most people who make this move well do two or three of these before the decision feels real. Most people who regret the move did none of them.

01 Narrow the list

Find my city

Tell us your income, household, and climate tolerance. We'll narrow 30 cities to the three that actually fit you.

Open the tool →
02 Pressure-test the move

Austin regret check

Walk through the five ways this move tends to go wrong for people like you. Honest, not scary.

Run the check →
03 Compare vs Nashville

Austin vs Nashville

Similar tax arbitrage, more music, less tech concentration. Same income, same household, side-by-side math.

Open the comparison →
Colophon & methodology

What is in this page, and what is not

Reported by The Landed editors
Edited by Landed editorial
Design Landed studio
Generated April 20, 2026

Reported from 142 resident threads on Reddit, Quora, and Substack. Financial figures drawn from Census ACS 2023, IRS SOI 2022-2023 migration returns, NOAA 1991-2020 climate normals, Texas comptroller data, and the 2024 federal and state tax code.

On the four residents. Four composite residents built from 142 resident threads plus verified household data. Every specific dollar figure, street, and household detail is drawn from a real post. The people are a synthesis. This is a transparent composite method used in long-form journalism and documentary for decades. A single first-person account reads as idiosyncratic; four composites show the distribution of outcomes across the most common in-mover profiles for this city.

How the composites were built. For each character, we pulled 40 to 60 resident threads matching their archetype. We synthesized the recurring narrative beats into a single voice whose specifics all come from real posts, then checked every number against the 2024 federal and state tax code, NAIC and III insurance averages, and the Census ACS medians for the matching household profile in this city.

The cost calculator runs the federal 2024 brackets, the state's 2024 code, and the Census ACS median rent for this city against your inputs. Property tax, homeowners insurance, auto insurance, and utility averages come from the 2024 NAIC, III, EIA, and state tax foundation datasets.

This page is dated. The migration data reflects the 2022-2023 tax year. The climate normals are 1991 to 2020. The tax code is 2024.

Generated April 20, 2026 · Landed.

Primary sources referenced on this page