Where would you move to....

[jmcclain01]

If you stay in the north side of the lake or up towards where the rivers come in to LBJ, properties can be had for a good price with good land. Get in the south side, by the resort, and that’s where you run into the $5 mm plus houses. Lake Marble Falls is a great riding lake, and never busy, but it’s tiny.


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[jslayde1]

I'll throw my 2 cents in on LBJ - really a pretty awesome lake, nice homes, constant level, all the stuff mentioned before. However, the weekends are stupid busy - at least during the peak summer season. When we were there, we tried to go out on the weekend and ended up putting the boat up - didn't even go out the rest of the weekend. We have small kids and it just wasn't much fun - I mean boats going all over the place, in every direction, pulling tubes , wakeboarding, surfing, speed boats....everyone just going all over the place. It just seemed chaotic...my wife (and I felt the same) said "get me out of here", so we put the boat up until Monday.

Now, during the week it was awesome. The rivers seemed to always be glass - not many boats out...it was really nice.

PK (possum kingdom) is by far our favorite lake. We used to (now live on Nasworthy) go to PK all the time. Its an awesome lake. Retirement on PK is the dream for us. It is not a constant level lake, and it does get pretty low during droughts - but the lake is still usable. I have seen docks sitting on the ground on the North side and in the channel was still 30 to 40 ft deep - South side of the lake has always been good. 90+ ft deep around the dam. It can get busy during the weekend, especially around Hells Gate - but nothing like LBJ. At least in my opinion...

[civilgee]

I guess I’ll represent the South. Lake Tuscaloosa is owned by the city so water depth does not fluctuate much. Mild winters and hot summers. I’m 1 1/2 hours from airport. $500k gets you on the lake, but not pimp style. Also, smith Lake which is north of Birmingham. Love the clean and deep water of Smith Lake, but depth fluctuates a bunch.


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[cnote]

Just wanted to put this question out to the TO world -- if you could move to waterfront property to be able to surf year round, where would it be?

We're strongly considering moving away from the Denver area -- we love Denver, just don't like putting an expensive boat in storage. This is probably a 2-3 year plan, however, I'm getting to the point of starting to think about buying a final property (retirement is about 25 years away).

Our current leading idea is somewhere in the Austin area; we have family in Arizona; though we're really wide open to ideas, hence the callout.

Here are the 'must-haves' we're trying to keep in consideration:

• Dockable lake front property, ability to build a trolley/boat house
• Minimal HOA intrusion
• Willing to custom build if we can't find the house we want
• Total budget, either buying or building, will probably cap at about $500k
• Minimum 1 acre, prefer 2-5
• Ability to boat year round (we'll go out in 50*/50*)
• Within 45-60min of a decent metropolitan area for the wife's work
• Within 1-1.5hours of an international airport for my work
• Other things I'm not thinking of???

PK in North TX is my "home" lake, have a property and am out there regularly since the late 80s since i worked at the scout camp there. Love it. It’s also one of the most scenic and picturesque in TX. These days $500k is still doable, but probably rare to find the acreage you're looking for without going to lake access only spots (Hog Bend) or west side. There are lots of multi-million $ places on the lake as well, generally as you get closer to the dam, but it's a 60 mile long lake so there's LOTS of shoreline, much still undeveloped. You're probably going to want to be looking south (dam-side) of Costello island.

A few other considerations, some repeats of others:

It still gets cold (below freezing) in winter months often enough where everyone without an outboard is winterized from about December through early March. But hard freezes while rare can even come outside that range in November and early April. Lake itself doesn't freeze, but it's in the 50s for sure. My last surf day is usually in November, too cold for me after that (though this year went surfing last week in 3/2 shorty, 70 - 65)

PK is a very deep lake in general. 90' plus in places, and most of the channel (it's a reservoir on the brazos river) is 60-70', often deeper. So, yes, it's subject to varying water levels being the top-most reservoir in the brazos watershed for flood and drought control. But, because it's deep, there's always surfable lake, you just have to know where to do it to avoid the trees and shallow spots when lake is low. Look for a spot with deep water dock with at least 20'. Our spot has a dock in 10' of water which normally is more than enough, but in the most recent drought (a 100 yr event - lake got to 17' below full) our dock was dry in 2013-14. But we still kept surfing in the main lake channels or deeper sloughs. The last few years we haven't been more than 1-2' low, and nothing more than 3-4 low is pretty normal.

PK is "country". Personally, I like that about it, but if you live there you're looking at a commute to any significant center of commerce. 30 min from a town of appreciable size (with a walmart), and an hour from Weatherford (suburb), 1:15 to downtown Fort Worth. 1:30 to DFW airport.

it can be a madhouse on weekends in the summer, but before 10am or so even on Saturdays and Sundays there's still a lot of good clean water. During the week it's dead, it's awesome. Pick any spot and go.

PK water is very hard. You have to be very diligent about cleaning your boat if you want to avoid etched water spots.

Hope that helps. I've been to many of the Austin area lakes as well and they're great, but those are getting more and more crowded and expensive, and seemingly more sensitive to water fluctuation. Those northwest cold water surfers are crazy!



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[BlackoutATX]

First off, I don't know of any large lake in Texas that isn't busy on the weekends during the summer. I will echo everyones love for the Marble Falls area. It is one of my favorite towns in Texas. I also love Possum Kingdom. I have friends that have property out there. It is a beautiful place. But to me it is just a little too far away from "civilization" to call it a permanent home. That being said, don't rule out Lake Travis! Thats where I'm at and I love it. Yes its busy on the weekends. But everywhere is. Your also a short drive to drop in at lake Austin or any of the other surrounding lakes. You think Travis is busy? go check out Lake Austin on a Saturday. Its a washing machine. You are really going to be stretching your requirements at 500k. But deals can be found. Our property is 2.5 acres and 400ft of lakefront here on Travis. We didn't pay a whole lot more than that. That being said, we looked for 2 years and put an offer on it after it'd been on the market for 2 days. The Austin real estate market is insane. Also, prices on the Northwest side of Travis (further away from DT Austin) are significantly cheaper than the southeast side. If you can find something on Travis I think you would be in heaven. I'm 30 minutes from DT, 45 minutes to the airport, and about 10 minutes from Lakeway and Bee Cave who are basically their own cities now.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on Travis or any other lakes. I have family and friends all over the Texas lakes.

[hcooperrn]

Thanks Blackout, good to know Travis is worth looking at -- might send you a PM prior to our trip down there closer to the Spring for some pointers on where to look/check out!

[hcooperrn]

Bringing this thread back up -- my wife just accepted a position, so the move will be a reality in the next few months.

Her position is regional across Texas/OK/KS, though the heaviest concentration is in the Houston area. No offense to anyone -- probably wanting to be far enough away from the coast that hurricanes will only mean a lot of rain. Dallas or much further north are getting too close to tornado alley for me (I grew up in Kansas). In other words, we've gotten spoiled in CO where the worst we get is some snow that's gone in a few days.

Conroe and Livingston might be doable -- are they volume stable?

Also looking at Richland Chambers, anyone there currently?

[Bakes5]

My uncle has a super sweet setup on Conroe. Decent little lake but not my favorite. Shallow when I was there. One year his lake front home turned into a "beach front" home....his words. Just google "lake Conroe low water level" So, not real volume stable, has a few shallow spots that beach people who don't know about them, expensive....but, still a great little lake I would love to have a house on if I lived in Houston still and had the $$. I would be absolutely shocked if you could get anything in Conroe for $500K budget. Those houses are huge, high end and absolutely gorgeous for the most part. I don't think I could afford the taxes on one if someone gave it to me.

Regarding "only rain"....google Hurricane Harvey.

Of note, I am moving from Colorado as well and moving to Savannah in a couple of months. I have 2 yrs left in the military then I retire and can live pretty much anywhere. As much as I love Colorado, it's just getting a bit too populated. I70 is insane on the weekends almost year round. I cannot imagine what it's going to be like in 10 yrs. Still lots of awesome to be had if you know where to go and know when to go, but I am looking around. It's kinda tempting to get a sweet house on one of the lakes in Georgia or the Carolinas....or totally shift gears and get a place on the intercoastal waterway near Savannah and try the salt life for a while.

[h2o-ski]

Hurricane Harvey while for Houston was "only rain" it is one of those most likely not going to happen again. Harvey baffled meteorologist in how strong it got in a short amount of time, the fact that it stalled over south Texas and how it did not weaken like it should have when it stalled. Houston took a direct blow from Ike and came out just fine like to normally does.

[Bakes5]

The good thing about Harvey is that you now know what is going to flood and what isn't going to flood. Our old house had water to the top of the garage door.

The bad thing about Harvey is that now everybody know what is floodable and what isn't and the homes that did not flood are likely going to be a bit more expensive....I'm sure the home descriptions will read something like "Great house. Great schools. Did not flood with Harvey.."

[hcooperrn]

Didn't mean to downplay the effect of Harvey by any means -- I helped in the disaster relief coordination for my company and though remote, still felt the impact, and when I was in Houston about 6 weeks ago, still saw some of the challenges the area is facing. Just simply saying that I'd rather not be in Houston proper, or coastal for that matter -- far enough inland that the worst is hopefully brushed off unless its another monster or freak storm. All part of living in the area.

@Bakes5 -- definitely hear you on CO -- I thought it would cool down a bit when other states legalized, though the damage may already be done here. We've been spoiled and had a good run I guess? I'm just going to be thankful that our house has appreciated so much.

Conroe is definitely looking out of budget at the moment, taking a closer look at Livingston, will have to see just how far the wife will be willing to drive. Not opposed to a custom build either if the land is reasonable.

[c_hotshot]

Lake Conroe is a constant level lake. The drought several years back did make some "beach front" property and Harvey made some islands. Weekends are crazy busy and getting in a good surf session is done before 10am or late evenings...or anytime during the week.

[skiguy]

This is our little place in Cedar Creek, bought about 7 years ago for a while $169k. Put a little into but not into it more than $215k. Yard has full sod now too. Have close to an acre with 125’ of lake front.


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Cedar Creek where? Looks amazing.


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[c_hotshot]

JMC - Your place in Cedar Creek is nice!

[hcooperrn]

JMC -- just started looking much more closely at Cedar Creek yesterday, and I'm liking what I'm seeing there, it's currently at the top of my list. Close to DFW but not too close, and everything you need nearby.

What's the lake like itself? Decent depth for surfing? How often and for how long does it go down and leave docks dry? Restrictions about extending docks or dropping moorings when it gets low?