Im on the friggin skids right now, on the verge of having no roof.
Thinking about fire sale-ing the Z and getting the hell out of here.

What are these areas like, housing rents/prices?

There has to be somewhere I can afford to live and hold a job, nothing and I mean NOTHING is going on here. Frustrating, its just too dang expensive. :(

What do you do? It could affect where you need to look.

Austin is nice but so many college students and people that want to live there the unskilled wages are not real strong and the cost to live there is higher than most Texas standards.

Houston is very livable. Lots of opportunity.

Good luck to you.

Been in the pool biz for 17 yrs, figure I can pick something up to get me going. May not pay great but its a start.
Sales, R.E. experience, some LEO training and certs, stuff like that.
Jack of all trades. :sad:

Austin's housing prices are higher than the rest of the state. A lot of high tech companies have operations there. Austin is often referred to as the second Silicon Valley, so that should give you some idea of what types of jobs are to be found there.

South of Austin are the towns of San Marcos and New Braunfels. It seems like they can't get enough trades industry type help down there. My wife's brother lives 28 miles west/northwest of New Braunfels in Spring Branch and he says that it's almost impossible to find people willing to show up and do work such as carpentry, brick laying, welding, and other building trades type work. A lot of them show up and start jobs that they never come back to finish. It took him two weeks to get an A/C guy to come out when his central unit went kaput last year. It took over a month for him to find someone to come in and do a wood floor in his living room.

I plan on moving to that area in the next few years. I don't think I'll much of a problem finding things to do to make money. Check out Canyon Lake, Spring Branch, Startzville, Smithson Valley. It's all pretty much the same area. It's actually closer to San Antonio than it is to Austin. Austin's not bad either, but you'll have to live down in Lockhart or Bastrop and commute due to the cost of housing.