Moving to El Paso Texas in 2022 | 10 Things You Should KNOW!

Moving to El Paso Texas in 2022 | 10 Things You Should KNOW!

Leah is joining me here for the first time formally as she is now a new licensed real estate agent, which is fantastic And in this episode we wanted to talk about 10 things that you should know before moving to El Paso in 2022

So what do we got for number one number one is language Do you need to speak Spanish in order to live here? The answer to that essentially is no unless and I'll take the first part of it

No, you don't need to speak Spanish because the majority of people here actually in El Paso speak both English and Spanish and Majority of people are speaking English now Of course a lot of people that are native Spanish speakers will speak Spanish amongst themselves, which makes total sense However, my Spanish is terrible

Leah's Spanish is not very good as well either and so we haven't really had a problem with language at all But the but is if you're working in the service industry healthcare There are some people who don't speak that great of English or they speak English well enough to get by But it's not what they're comfortable speaking. And so the service industry healthcare

I'm sure there's other industries to those type of industries being bilingual is a true asset here in our community Yeah, absolutely. And what do we got for number two? Taxes is number two. This is a number two thing. I think we get asked about The the good news is that

The there aren't any state income taxes. The bad news is that property taxes are a little high here Absolutely, and I've said it a thousand times property taxes are around 3% of the appraised value of your home And what are those property taxes go to? Oh, they pay for roadways schools parks We have beautiful schools here. Some of the most beautiful most modern schools. I have seen as we've lived around the country

And El Paso is very much ahead on things like roadways and Beautiful parks whether it's an established neighborhoods or new neighborhoods that are being built Yeah, absolutely and I and I always reinforce to you know, if you want to have a growing city, you know

It takes it takes money to make a city beautiful safe and You know a great place to live you want fire and you want police and you want ambulances and all these things they take money and so property taxes are the way that El Paso essentially funds this this growth and

You know in our humble opinion The city is so amazing and what the city does with those property taxes is pretty responsible and so for us That's not too hard of a pill to swallow. So what do we got for number three? Number three is new construction and there's a lot of that happening around around the city right now

But John has some good points to make about it. Yeah there's definitely a lot of new construction in the works, but what you need to know if you're moving to El Paso this year is that Builders are still behind right between kovat between supply shortages between labor issues

Any new construction home that you get under contract on now that home is probably not going to be Completed in eight to twelve months and if you've got the time to wait, that's awesome. The problem is that Interest rates are rising. We've got a video right here about that specific point, but With interest rates rising you're not going to lock in your rate for this new home right now

you're going to lock your interest rate in at when the time it comes for you to actually pay for the home when it's Completed and by that time chances are interest rates have potentially gone up a percentage point Which is going to have a significant financial impact on you. So New construction is awesome. Everybody loves it

But right now you need to be able to wait about eight to twelve months and you need to anticipate Increasing interest rates and how that's going to affect your purchase Number four stuff to do in the city and there is a lot of things to do in the city on my favorite One of my favorites I guess I should say is the wineries

So there's wineries from here all the way to Las Cruces a number of them and it's a great road trip to go on Maybe an overnight type of a road trip great thing to do There's lots of opportunities to pamper yourself if you're into that whether that be lashes nails

spas Massages float tanks there Anything you can think of it's here There's a lot of that type of thing happening in the city right now and then not just that but a lot of outdoor stuff

To do yeah, absolutely mountain biking Hiking in the mountains. There's a huge off-road scene here Lots of people are into

Kind of just being active fitness tons of great gyms here And so, you know, we're going to talk about some other things you need to know that's going to relate to that but just as far as Is El Paso a boring place?

Absolutely, not there. Trust me. There are plenty of things to do male female young old There's there are things for everybody. So what do we got for number five traffic? Is there a lot of traffic here and we would say that in the past two years it has increased slightly But the amount of traffic here is

Significantly less than you would find in most major cities. Yeah for sure. Yeah, you're not going to If you're coming from Houston, LA, you know, New York, whatever some of these places you're gonna feel like you've landed in paradise because compared to those types of Large metropolis, you know cities

We're we're in great shape here but Leah's totally right as Our population continues to grow as El Paso becomes kind of an up-and-coming place where lots of people are coming our traffic will increase but it also kind of goes back to property taxes because

The city is forward-thinking and they're trying to expand the roads add the tollways, you know make Alternate routes, right? And so the city's on it But you know, it is fair to say that over the next couple of years. It's likely that we will see increased traffic So something to think about if you're thinking about moving to El Paso

Number six, our next topic is jobs. Are there jobs in El Paso, Texas and we're growing and Amazon is moving here. So there's a lot of job Opportunities now if you're talking about unskilled jobs Yeah competition is pretty steep

Yeah for sure unskilled labor, you know, like getting a job at McDonald's or you know a minimum-wage job at Walmart or something like that, that's tricky because minimum wage is pretty low here in Texas and There are a lot of people that are willing to do those minimum wage jobs

And so you're not only going to be making a low wage But you're going to be competing for those jobs with other people who are probably bilingual Yeah, that's a possibility as well. But what about more skilled labor? Skilled labor the job market is growing significantly as the community grows. So

doctors, lawyers, nurses, leadership roles, all of those things are growing significantly and Coming from a health care background. I can tell you nurses it pays exceptionally well in El Paso, Texas. So The job market is good It's great depending on on what your job is that you're looking for

Yeah, absolutely. And as these new employers start to enter our space whether it's Amazon We've heard about Blue Origin coming to Texas as these employers Start to potentially make the move to Texas that that's only a good thing for for the job outlet for El Paso, so

For sure, the next topic is dining. Is there good restaurants in El Paso? And yes, there are some great restaurants in El Paso, not just tacos. The tacos are amazing here and everyone wants to try tacos when they come to town the first time but there's also some amazing fine dining opportunities

Downtown especially but also on both the east and west side Yeah, absolutely. We live over on the east side of El Paso Yeah, absolutely we live over on the west side we have some of our favorite restaurants that we go to all the time we're constricted with a couple of

You know food allergy situations and we've been able to you know, find restaurants that can cater to those No problem. Same thing on the east side tons of cool hip new places coming up Also not to mention I mean it doesn't classify as fine dining. We've got a pretty raging little food truck scene So, you know as far as food goes we just had two restaurants

I believe that made the top 100 in the country, which is unbelievable So, you know little old El Paso is doing pretty good and as more people come to the city I imagine, you know, our level of cuisine will rise accordingly. So that's awesome Yeah

I'm gonna give a plug for the winery scene again and that one of our wineries in Las Cruces about 30-40 minutes from here also made that top 50 I believe of the wineries in the country There's some great dining there's a restaurant there as well to be had in the city Yeah, that's awesome and kind of you know

Piggybacking on top of that if you're a younger person or just an old person who likes to party You know one thing that you might want to know before you move to El Paso is well Is there is there any nightlife like what's what's the scene like here? And when I was doing research for this channel when we started a couple years ago

the average median age in El Paso was like Low 30s, so we've got a pretty young demographic, right? So what would you say about nightlife? There's a lot happening especially because UTEP is here. So the college scene There's there's really a neat kind of transition that maybe is happening post COVID

I think that a lot of our nightlife maybe didn't make it through COVID so well, but there's new Opportunities to to experience now whether that being play or the Mad Hatter, which is a theme bar and then also some of the long-standing

Bars in town that I have just been you know anchors within the city are doing great So there's no matter what age you are. There's a good nightlife scene here So you can have some fine dining and go out afterwards and and make an evening Yeah, and absolutely and

we've noticed too that Hispanic culture is Pretty adept at staying up late It's better than we are So like this isn't some sleepy town where you're gonna go out on a Friday night and it's gonna be dead

you know, it's you're gonna go out on a Friday night and It's gonna like pick up and it's gonna go pretty hard pretty late. So we love that You know, we might we might not be able to hang in there with that with that scene

but um, you should know especially if you're younger that that scene exists and there's a lot of frolicking and you know Socializing happening in the city definitely and the nightlife is pretty cool, too. There's a number of bars that are indoor outdoor rooftop dancing live music

Downstairs with garage doors open so you can get your winter clothes on which we're speaking of as you can see turtleneck It's been it's been chilly this week. This is probably the chilly We actually had snow here in the first week of February So you can bundle up and go downtown and and stay relatively warm but have an indoor outdoor experience for the evening

Yeah, absolutely and a quick plug as a musician. There's a good there's a good live music scene here as well You know, we get some big acts that come through the Don Haskins Center at the Southwest the stadium where they do the soccer and the baseball games They also have concerts there

And so those are epic because you know You'll go to a concert at the stadium there and you're already right in downtown and then when the concert's over 10-11 People flood out and then the bars are right there and you know, it's a scene so For the stadium which is right downtown and you know after the games

Whether that be the baseball and soccer games Everyone kind of comes out of the stadium and hits the nightlife kind of downtown for at least a short time afterward So that's another kind of community and there's a lot of community events happening into the night because again The culture here tends to to be able to to roll later than we can for sure

So there's a lot of community sponsored events that are happening in downtown as well in the nighttime. Yeah, absolutely Two more things you should know before moving to El Paso, Texas. I'm gonna let Leah take this this one yeah health care and we get a lot of questions about health care in El Paso, Texas and Kind of like traffic it it leaves a little bit to be desired, but it's not too shabby

There seems to be a shortage of doctors and nurses here So one of the things that has really been great about COVID if there's anything that's great that's come out of it is telehealth and So telehealth has been kind of revolutionized

Healthcare here is that you don't need the doctor to be right here in El Paso so you can have a primary care specialty with us rheumatology cardiology dermatology right now with telehealth there's video

Components and so as long as you don't need real tests to be happening right then and there and if you do they can send you the orders for that and you can go to one of our great hospitals, so although

General health care maybe still leaves a little bit to be desired here Emergency health care is top-notch and there are hospitals all over the city or a regional center a trauma center You know when someone gets sick or very sick or injured somewhere outside of here They helicopter them in so we have some top-notch

Emergency care medicine in the area. Yeah, and not to mention the VA hospital too is here. Yeah, definitely a big VA hospital here Yeah, so And one more thing this is a bit of a pitch, but you know hey, it's it is what it is If you're moving to El Paso, Texas, and you're seriously considering making a move one

We hope that this channel is a value-add resource for you This is why we do the channel But another reason why we do the channel is because we're real estate agents, and if you're considering Purchasing a home in El Paso, Texas. We would love to represent you we primarily do

Facilitate relocating buyers if you are considering making a move to El Paso either if you just want to talk about it And you know ask us questions by all means reach out to us I think that's a pretty good honest wrap-up of some things that if you are considering making that move in in 2022 these are some hopefully some pretty useful things for you to know and

Let's just wrap up with a little bit of Spanish banter Leah Como esta tu espanol? Muy muy mal. Y cuantos anos nosotros vivimos en Mexico?

So I mean if we can get by In El Paso with this level of Spanish speaking you know Anybody can so anyway in all seriousness. We hope that you are all doing very very well, and we will see you next time Yeah

Yeah, also we have mentioned that it's about five degrees cooler here than it is But yeah electricity lines run all the way back You