<p>I was just wondering how high the cost of living was in Houston? I know it is all relative but is it as high as say L.A. or San Fran?? Just curious. Thanks.</p>
<p>The cost of living here is significantly less than in SF and east coast cities. Not only is housing cheaper, you will be happy to know that Houston has an abundance of reasonably priced restaurants of all kinds.</p>
<p>If you can live as far out as the suburbs, housing is just plain DIRT CHEAP. Basically, you can get a home out here for about 150k-200k that would typically cost over 2 million dollars in certain parts of cali or new york.</p>
<p>you can find anything in houston...and its cheaper</p>
<p>cost of living is about 10% below national average; for comparison, LA is about 40% above national average.</p>
<p>EVERYTHING in Houston is way cheaper than California or the East Coast, especially if you shop outside the loop.</p>
<p>Aren't the property taxes much lower too?</p>
<p>How about renting off-campus apartments? </p>
<p>(Anyone have any experience with that?)</p>
<p>DD rented a efficiency only 4-5 blocks from Rice for $625 - all bills paid, and only a 9 month lease. She doesn't have a car, so this worked fine. There were cheaper (and nicer) options especially if you have roommates - we saw possibilities of only $450 or so a month including utilites w/ roommates. Lots of options close to campus, and some bigger complexes a little farther away - one with a shuttle service to Rice and the med center. We figured that it could actually be a couple of thousand dollars cheaper to live off campus... but DD is back on campus this semester because she likes to be right in the center of things.</p>
<p>you might check har.com to see what kind of properties are available for rent and sale in the areas surrounding rice. Rice is in area 17 of their maps.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I was just wondering if the costs were as much as my hometown. Since we live on an island the price of everything practically doubles because of shipping especially food. I was just hoping that Houson would be more affordable.</p>
<p>Ok, yeah, so it generally costs much less to live in Houston, over say, San Francisco; but you have to measure everything in terms of appeal, there are many $5-15m houses around the rice area, but even this really nice area of Houston isn't as nice as many parts of San Francisco which are less expensive. The level of culture, the weather, crime rate, etc. are all worse than San Francisco or Boston, Austin, [insert great city here]. So, for what you get, Houston is kind of expensive. </p>
<p>That said, my 90k crapshack would go for about 400k in LA, sans the smog and traffic.</p>
<p>Check the Rice Online housing guide to find prices of places close to Rice. If you get a couple of roommates it can be inexpensive. (It can be cheaper than Rice R&B even without a roommate.)</p>