Moving to El Paso Texas 2026 Guide | Everything You Need To Know

Moving to El Paso Texas 2026 Guide | Everything You Need To Know

Welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is Alejandro Sosa. My name is John Peña and this is your complete guide to moving to El Paso 2026 edition. If you move to El Paso, you're basically joining a population of about 680,000 people, where our cost of living is 12%

below the national average. We get to about 297 sunny days per year. Median home price here is about $265,000 and the crime rate is about 14% below the national average. Fort Bliss is here, huge army base, and its economic impact

basically brings in about $28 billion a year. Okay, so El Paso is a unique, thriving, smaller city, which takes us into this next question. Alejandro, what makes El Paso different than some of the other Texas cities? It's going to be the location.

El Paso is going to be closer to Phoenix than Houston. It is located in the Chihuahuan Desert and we are a border city. We are next to Ciudad Juarez, which El Paso and Ciudad Juarez has a combined population of two and a half million people.

Now, the population doesn't grow nearly as fast as places like Houston. Yeah, for sure, and the other thing, you know, we've helped kind of hundreds of families relocate to El Paso, Texas, and you're probably like, well, what brings them there versus, say, Dallas or Austin?

Well, typically it's affordability, maybe outdoor lifestyle, kind of calm, laid-back, friendly community, so those are a couple of the things. And then, of course, another thing that does bring people here, that first one that I mentioned,

is cost of living. So, how far does your money go? So, we mentioned that basically El Paso's cost of living is 12% lower than the national average with the biggest savings, housing, and health care, all right? Obviously, as real estate agents, we're

gonna, like, tell you about the housing affordability, but here's some other stats just to keep track of. Housing costs are 32% below the national average, so median sales price at $255 to $265 more or less in El Paso, whereas the U.S. median price

is over $400,000, so pretty considerable difference. Health care runs about 5% below the national average. Of course, groceries come in 2% lower. This is interesting. Utilities are about 10%

lower than the national average. Now, one area where El Paso tracks a little bit higher is actually transportation, about 2% more because we do have some public transportation here, but El Paso is like, you gotta have a car in El Paso. Like,

it's not walkable. It's really not bikeable. Like, of course, around your neighborhood, you're going to be able to do those things, but other than that, you're going to be in a car, so those expenses are a little bit higher. Another really awesome thing, though,

about cost of living in Texas is that we don't have any state income tax, so that's going to save you some money, and then you're going to have to use that money, though, if you buy a home to offset some slightly higher property taxes, so I guess it's a little bit of a win-lose

there, so that's cost of living in El Paso. Next up, it's going to be climate and weather. Here in El Paso, we get an average of 297 days of sunshine per year. It doesn't rain much. We only get about 8.8 inches of rain per year. It doesn't really snow. If it does snow,

it's going to melt pretty quickly. Now, it's pretty dry, especially if you're coming from a climate that is very humid. It's going to take you a little bit of time. To me, it took me about two months to get used to how dry it is in here. Now, when it comes out to the temperatures,

June is going to be the warmest time of the month. Most of the temperatures are going to be mid-90s, but there's going to be a few days that it will exceed 100. It's not very common, but it's maybe like 27 days average of the year, so that happens. Now, spring and fall are the most

comfortable times of the year, in my opinion. Most of the times, we're going to be between 60s and 70s. Now, dust storms occasionally roll through. That typically starts February and March, but they're pretty brief. They don't really last that long.

Now, since we are in the desert, December does get a little cold. We average about 44 degrees, especially at night when there's a little bit of windy. It can get a little bit colder than that. Now, like I said, the snow is very brief when it does happen, and it melts pretty

quickly. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that there's basically no snow. Yeah, I mean basically, yeah. Don't count on snow if you're moving to El Paso, Texas. Okay, so next up, let's talk a little bit about the economy

and employment. This is a big one for people. They always ask us about this. So, El Paso's economy is kind of anchored by three main pillars. Okay, let's start with number one. That's Fort Bliss. Like I said, this is a very large army base right kind of in the heart of El Paso.

It basically supports about 127,000 jobs, and like I said at the beginning, contributes almost 28 billion dollars to the El Paso and the Texas economy. So, the base is home to about 28,000 active member service, and it has about 41,000 direct employees. So,

there's a lot going on at Fort Bliss, and the the cool thing about it is it kind of makes a like a recession resistant economic floor for El Paso. So, when there might be like an economic downturn nationally, El Paso actually typically does pretty

well because we've got all that income, all that movement with Fort Bliss. The second pillar is international trade and logistics basically. So, obviously being a border city, we're a major port. So, there are literally billions coming of the products

coming over the border here. So, warehousing, distribution, transportation, lots and lots of jobs there. And then, that third pillar for employment here is essentially health care and education. So, health care, we've got let's see,

University Medical Center, the Hospitals of Providence, Las Palmas Del Sol Healthcare, our major employers. And then, aside from just you know schools, the public schools, private schools, we've got UTEP here, and then a pretty expansive El Paso Community College as well

that also employs folks in El Paso. Moving on, we're going to talk about where to live in El Paso. There's many different areas in El Paso. Mainly, we're going to talk about three of the big ones. One is going to be the west side. The west side is one of the most

popular areas here in El Paso. It's an established area here that mainly is going to divide into sections, the Upper Valley, and you know what the traditional west side of El Paso. Now, it's very popular where families are looking for homes that are

your typical homes that have a lot of character, possibly you know three, four hundred thousand and up. It's a very popular area. You got Kern, which is also very historic, really, really nice neighborhood close to UTEP as well. The other area we're going to talk about

is the east side. The east side is your established area, your established neighborhoods. The more you go to the east side, the farther east you go, that's where you're going to find a lot of the new construction, which is very popular for many people, especially for

PCS clients. It's a very popular area. Also, Horizon City, that's where you're going to find most of the newer homes. We call it the most bang for your buck. It's going to be that area. Very, very popular military and also people are looking for, you know, pretty, pretty new homes, new

construction homes. Another popular area is going to be the northeast. The northeast is a beautiful area by the mountains, really established neighborhoods, established communities. You're going to find some new constructions on the northeast side,

more the north side of the northeast side, that is also very popular with military folks. What we call the far east and the northeast since it's close to base. It's very popular areas. Now, there's other area called the lower valley, which is south

of I-10, south of Horizon City, which is a popular area as well, especially if you're looking for maybe more land or a little bit more, you know, far away from the city, which some people like that type of lifestyle. Yeah, absolutely. And then moving on to schools and education.

So, of course, we have a pretty extensive public school environment here. Of course, you're going to want to kind of check the schools out. It's such an important topic. Honestly, my my kids are already out of school and Alejandro doesn't have kids yet, so

we're not the experts on exactly the schools, but check out, you know, look up test scores. My understanding is that we do actually pretty well, consistently better than the national average. We also have public charter schools. They're all

like IDEAS, I-D-E-A-S. I see a ton of those. So, but like I said, do your homework. We have different school districts, the El Paso Independent School District, the Ysleta School District, the Socorro School District. So, do your research, but my understanding and

belief is that the schools here are better than average, which is awesome. And then we already mentioned UTEP is the big university here, and then we have a super extensive El Paso community college scene. So, schools, education, pretty good, but do your own research

and validate that for us. All right, moving on to if you're making the move to El Paso for the military. Basically, we get tons of people that PCS to El Paso every year. Typically, spring, early summer is the timeline when most folks are coming in.

Alejandro and I, we have helped hundreds of PCS buyers make the move to El Paso. So, making the move to El Paso, it's pretty smooth if you choose the right real estate agents. It's really important that you have somebody who can

really explain to you what those different areas are, the neighborhoods. Like I said, we're experts on all the neighborhoods and areas in El Paso. So, if you are making that move, definitely reach out to us and we can provide a little bit of

further guidance in that department. And make sure you check out our YouTube channel, Living in El Paso, Texas. We got in-depth videos of the different areas and communities so you can, you know, have a better idea of what to look for in those different neighborhoods. Yeah, that's a super, that's a great point

because it's one thing for us to be like, oh, you might like the Far East, but then just go on our channel, watch the Far East video. We've got like 2022, 23, 24, 25, like they're all updated every year. So, you can see exactly what they look like, price points, everything. Super good resource for you. So,

let's move on to just a couple of little quirky things you need to know about before you move. Number one, driver's license and vehicle registration. People ask me about this. So, let me just read this. Texas requires new residents to obtain a Texas driver's license and register their

vehicle within 30 days of establishing residency. Okay. So, make sure you remember that. Voter registration, you can register to vote online through the Texas Secretary of State website or, you know, you can go to your county election office here. Internet utilities, easy. Basically,

Spectrum, AT&T. AT&T is laying down fiber everywhere. So, it's not everywhere, everywhere, but it's coming. So, make sure, by the way, if you're finding this video useful, go to our website, PenaElPaso.com. It has even more resources for you, including guides that you can download and check out. So, that's a super good

resource for you as well. All right. So, that kind of sums it up. Let's just do some rapid fire things here and get in all of our last little points for you. In a nutshell, would you say that El Paso is a good place to live? Yeah. I think El Paso is a great option if you're looking for a safe city with

great weather and affordable living. Absolutely. Affordable living. We did some research. Basically, a single adult can live comfortably in El Paso if you're making about $55,000 to $65,000 a year. That means you're going to own your own home and you're going to be good to go. You're not going to be, you know,

hopefully living paycheck to paycheck. So, we already talked about how unbelievable the weather is, but another question that we get all the time is, is El Paso safe? Okay. Yes. Crime rates, 14% lower than the national average. Here's some more numbers. El Paso is safer than 40% of U.S. cities, according

to Neighborhood Scout crime data. So, despite being a border city, I know that El Paso sometimes gets a bad rap in the media, but you come and visit, spend a couple of days here, and you're going to see that this is a safe city. You're going to feel safe. A lot of times people are like, you know, what area should I

move to? I want a safe area. I'm like, well, pick anywhere. Like I said, come here and you'll see that for yourself. So, we kind of already talked about some of the employment situations, and to be totally honest, I think it is fair to mention that being bilingual is going to be helpful for you. Would you agree

with that? Definitely helpful, not required. A lot of people think that you need to speak Spanish in order just to survive here, and that's not the case, but it'll definitely help. Yeah, it'll definitely help. Obviously, Alejandro is bilingual. I am not, shamefully so, and I've been able to get by pretty well,

but I think that's just because as a real estate agent, it's been okay, especially since we do deal so much with relocating buyers who are also not bilingual. But, like I said, it's not a necessity, but it helps. So, that is your complete guide to moving to El Paso in 2026. Thank you so much for watching the

video. Again, check out PenaElPaso.com. Unbelievable resources there for you. If you're considering making that move to El Paso, by all means, reach out to us. We've helped hundreds of people do the exact same thing.