Home Improvement Tool and Toy Reviews

I just saw in the Austin American Statesman this morning that Round Rock Texas has been named the 13th safest cities in the U.S. for the second year in a row. The list of safest cities was compiled by the FBI that measured 6 different types of crimes for cities with 75,000 people or more. The city of Round Rock accredits this ranking to it’s efforts in having a good relationship between the police and the community.

While I have never had person interaction with any of the police here in Round Rock (That’s a good thing ), as a resident I do see them around and there is a sense of safety. The police officers all have their own police cars with their names on them so you start to recognize names and that in return gives a sense of security.

While looking for a place to relocate to, Round Rock stood out because they appeared to strive to work for the community. They had a lot of information on their website and any information I found on the internet about Round Rock was positive. Their effort to reach out is very apparent.

It is news like this that makes me feel glad that my family and I moved to Round Rock.

Technorati: Central Texas, Round Rock TX, Safest Cities, Texas

If you watch the news at all you know that the housing market is beginning to suffer around most of the country. The areas that seem hardest hit are those that are on the west and east coasts. Here is Central Texas we have yet to see a real slowdown in the market as new houses continue to go up all over the place.

Our neighborhood in Round Rock is in the close-out stage and I believe that there are less then 10 houses available for sale. These house have at the bare minimum had their foundations poured which a couple are already finished with grass in the front yard. It will nice when these final houses are sold and we do not have any more construction in our neighborhood.

But even as they finish our neighborhood there are model homes being built if a brand new neighborhood that is being built just to the north of us. This neighborhood is set to be priced even higher then ours.

The reason I think things are still going strong in the Austin/Round rock area is that they never really got out of control. In talking with the real estate agent that helped us get our house she said that the prices only increased about 4% a year for the last several years in our area. This is a far cry from how prices increased in California over the last 7 years.

In California the house that I paid $177,000 for in 2001 went up to $440,000 last year. It is now down to $360K. We walked way with a healthy profit from the house when we sold it in 2003 which was nice. I wish we would have been able to hold out until last year but we were hit by the dot com bust and had to sell. We learned our lesson about the economy back then which was one of the reasons we call to Central Texas.

Here we were able to get a really nice house for a reasonable price. If the economy goes bad again we will be able to hold up much better this time around and will be able to keep our house. Unfortunately even though a lot of people were affected by the dot com bust they did not learn and are setting themselves up to hurt by the next bust - the housing bubble. If the economy takes a turn for the worst and people start losing their jobs again all these people with these expensive mortgages are going to lose their houses.

I think if things do start to go bad that Central Texas will not be affected as bad as the majority of the rest of the country - that’s one of the things that makes this such a great place to live.

Technorati: Housing Market, Texas, Austin TX, Round Rock TX, Home Improvement

I came across this video that the City of Round Rock put up on YouTube. They go over all the great things about Round Rock and I have to say - they are right on. I do feel safe waking in my neighborhood at night. Also, the schools here are one of the reasons that we moved from California.

Anyway, take a look - Round Rock IS a great place to live.

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Austin TX, Texas, Moving from California, Moving to Texas

It has rained everyday for the last week here in Central Texas. Over the last few days that rain has quadrupled with flooding happening all over the Austin area. The areas that were hit the hardest are the Marble Falls and Georgetown areas. Here in Round Rock I have not seen any flooding but the few low water crossings that are here have been closed.

This is definitely the worst set of storms that I have experienced in the last year and a half that we have been here. Last night it seemed that there was a cloud that was just parked right over our house that was dumping inches of rain an hour on us. Thankfully our neighborhood is at the top of a hill so nobody around us had any issues.

I have to say that I am still glad that I moved here instead of living in California. I will take this kind of weather over an earthquake any day.

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Austin TX, Marble Falls TX, Georgetown TX, Rain, Weather, Storms, Central Texas, Texas

Things are really heating up over at The Masters House blog concerning the DR Horton Warranty Problems that I have been having. They really are not big issues but getting them fixed has become a very big deal.

It all stems from the fact that every time (yes EVERYTIME) I call them out to fix something on our new house they do not fix it correctly. They either do not finish it or they create a new issue while fixing the existing one.

Basically I had to do 4 levels up in the warranty department before I could get someone to actually get my issues addressed. Well actually they have not been addressed yet but hopefully Mike of DR Horton will come through for me.

Check out the post and let me know if you have had any issues with DR Horton.

When you move to a new area it can be difficult find stores and services in that new area.

That happened recently when my wife and I had decided that we needed to purchase a mini van. I knew the local dealers that were right around our immediate area but I always like to shop around to get the best deal (just because dealer may sell the same cards doesn’t mean they sell them for the same price).

Anyway, I ended up having to drive around looking for different dealers on my own. I wish I had know about Autotopolis. At Autotopolis the have a Car Dealership Locator and Rater all built into one site. Not only does it list the dealer in you area it also gives a Google map so you can actually see where the dealers are at.

I did a search for Toyota Dealers around Round Rock, TX and found one dealer that I did not even know about. I also found that they had a really good rating. I wish I would have known about Autotopolis before as I would have checked this dealer out also.

This website is great for anybody who has just moved to a new area or even for people that have been in the same are for a while.

This post is sponsored by Autotopolis.

Well, another cold front is here in Round Rock. Fortunately this time there isn’t any rain to go along with it to cause ice and/or snow. It is cold enough though that if it did rain that we would definitely have those things.

Over the next couple of days it is only going to get colder. Friday morning we are supposed to have a “Hard Freeze” which means that is pipe bursting weather. I will setting the outside faucets to drip just to make sure that we don’t have any surprises.

 I was running through my stats and noticed that someone was search for “Round Rock Blog” and I was pretty far down on the search engine results when I think I should be higher. See I live in Round Rock Texas and have several posts about Round Rock that I have done over the last year since moving here.

Also there are a lot of people that are moving here from all over the country and especially from California where I am from. In fact I had gotten an email from someone in California asking about some resources about Round Rock and replied with a pretty lengthy email.

Here are a couple of resources that can give you a good idea of Round Rock:

(more…)

Snow is a pretty rare thing around here in Round Rock so of course I grabbed the video camera to capture it.

Below is the video of out “snow storm” .

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Texas, Austin, Snow, Weather

That’s right we are getting snow here in Round Rock. This is a once in 10-15 year occurrence. Everything is pretty much shut down right now and I am working from home for today and possibly tomorrow.

Here are some pictures.