Pros and Cons of El Paso You NEED to Know! | 2025 Edition

Pros and Cons of El Paso You NEED to Know! | 2025 Edition

So you're thinking about moving to El Paso or maybe you live here and you're thinking, should I stay? Should I go? Today, let's break down the real pros and cons of living in the Sun City from somebody who actually lives here. I'm John Peña, your real estate agent here in El Paso.

We help people buy, sell and relocate here every single day, including military families who are PCSing to Fort Bliss. So we've seen what people love and what drives them a little bit crazy. So if you want the truth, not just the hype,

here are the pros and cons of El Paso, Texas. Okay. Had to put the glasses on for this one, but let's try to roll through these. We got a lot of great ones for you. Let's start with the pro, right? Affordability and cost of living.

El Paso is still a very affordable city and the cost of living here is still very, very low. So El Paso ranks well below the national average on cost of living around 12 to 18% cheaper overall from housing to groceries to housing,

healthcare to utilities. So let's take two quick examples. Let's start with housing. Average home prices in El Paso tend to fluctuate between $240,000 to $260,000, but let's say about $255,000 for your average nice home in El Paso,

Texas. If you compare that, the Texas average overall is about $307,000. The national average is $370,000. So $255,000 versus $307,000 or even $370,000.

Big difference there. All right, now let's talk about a fun one. Here's a fun example. This one we call the taco economy. You can still get three legit street tacos and a drink for about $8 to $10 here in El Paso. Now try doing that in Austin or LA.

We're just parking near that food truck is going to cost you $8 to $10 at least. So affordability cost of living El Paso. We definitely have that as a big pro and then pretty much everybody who lives here I think would pretty much agree with that. All right,

now let's pivot to a con. No doubt in my humble opinion, the biggest con about El Paso and a lot of Texas cities is the high property taxes. Okay, we just made a video. So if you're really interested in this, check out the last video that we just put out. We talked about it.

The thumbnail is you're paying way too much. All right, but property taxes in El Paso, the effective tax rate is about 2.5 to 2.6%. Okay. That means that if your home is appraised at $300,000,

you're going to pay a pay about 2.6. I think that's 7,500 to $7,800 a year in property taxes. All right. Why? Because Texas doesn't have any state income tax. And so cities and counties have to rely on the money generated from property

taxes to fund everything. Right? So this one, this one, this one is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of folks. All right. Now in the defense of property taxes,

a lot of that money does go to things that are good and worthwhile, primarily the school districts. Right. And we're going to talk about schools a little bit later, but there are certainly if, if, if you live here, you kind of know,

sometimes it can be frustrating because you pay all this money in property taxes, but then you don't really see the payoffs. You know, you, you're driving down the bumpy roads. Um, you know, uh, something isn't working or you're,

you're just having a hard time identifying where those property tax dollars are going. Okay. So property taxes, no doubt about it. Um, a big con here in El Paso, Texas. All right, next up, let's take the next pro. And this one is really, really important to, to,

to all of us. And that is safety crime. Okay. Now, despite what sometimes the media might portray El Paso still consistently ranks as one of the safest cities in the country. Wallet Hub recently ranked the top,

the largest 148 cities in the country. And it ranked the different cities, uh, as far as how they were doing in air pollution and handling the budget and crime El Paso ranked number 27 in safety.

So there were only 26 other cities in the country, large cities that ranked better than us in safety. I always tell people this when they call me about relocating and they might have concerns about safety or crime.

El Paso has a massive law enforcement present from local state regional police to, uh, border patrol to FBI. Since we're on the border, we have a lot of law enforcement. And you have to remember the main demographic in El Paso is young families.

Okay. So El Paso is inherently a family oriented, safe place. So we've consistently had one of the lowest crime rates for all us cities with populations over 500,000. And here's a good stat.

The crime index, you want a lower number here. As of November of last year, El Paso's crime index was about 100 for 1,496. Keep this in mind, Houston, 3,419 way higher, Dallas, 3,369, San Antonio,

2,921, Austin, 2,455. Remember you want that lower number. If you want safety, low crime, you can't beat El Paso. Okay. And let's go ahead and pivot into a con right from there.

One of the big cons I think for El Paso is that we're pretty isolated from other major cities. And we have limited what we might call big city amenities. So if you're the kind of person who likes, you know,

maybe to take like a quick road trip to a fun city on the weekend, well you better pack up the snacks and you better have a full tank of gas because it's going to take you a while to get to the next biggest city. 10 hours to Austin, nine to Dallas, six to Albuquerque, four to Tucson.

Okay. So we're kind of geographically isolated. So it, it, uh, it makes it so such that, you know, if you want to just hit a concert in, you know, a city that's a couple hours away, like I said, you better have snacks and you better have a full tank or two. Okay.

Going on this route here, uh, about a con, the airport, limited direct flights. Now, super easy to fly in and out of, but limited direct flights. Now big city amenities. To be honest, some people, especially, uh,

people who are native El Pasoans really think that El Paso is kind of boring. And I think why they say that is because we don't have a lot of the big cool things that other cities might have. Like we don't have a, a big sports team. We don't have an NBA, an ML, a baseball team.

We don't have a football team, a major football team. We kind of get passed up for, um, festivals and like big touring concerts. Uh, people just kind of fly over us like literally. Right. So, you know,

Taylor Swift isn't coming to El Paso. Um, the, the big name concerts and festivals that, that other cities are going to get, unfortunately we're not going to get. So there is certainly a case to be made that the entertainment options in El

Paso are definitely a little bit on the limited side. Okay. Let's pivot back now to a pro. I mentioned this a little bit with the property taxes, but our schools and our education system,

El Paso schools offer both excellence and a very culturally enriching experience for the students. Okay. Now a lot of that property tax money you can literally see in the schools of El Paso, because from elementary to middle to high schools,

our schools, many of them are new. They're modern, they're updated and they're very attractive to look at. And they're servicing our students, I think very, very well. So we do have very nice schools and let's talk about how they perform.

Our district and our school rankings often fall within the top five to 20% statewide here. Um, and in that recent poll or that, those rankings we talked about by wallet hub in the top 148 largest cities, El Paso ranked number 18 in education. That's pretty darn good.

Only 17 other cities ranked better. So if you have kids, um, you're, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised in addition to the public schools, which are great. We also of course have some charter and some private schools and we have a very

strong community college network in the city too, which people can take advantage of and do. So now here's a fun one that everyone I think might agree on. Here's a con traffic, bad drivers,

construction do not get El Paso and started on traffic and drivers. Um, honestly, in my humble opinion, keep in mind that I've lived in cities like Houston, Chicago where traffic is really intense. In my humble opinion,

traffic here is not that intense, but there's a lot of people that do believe that the drivers here in El Paso are not the greatest. And I mean, I can see that for sure. It's funny. Miguel and I were on our way over here and a guy was like pulling into our road

and like literally just like almost just drove right into us. Like not even in their lane. Um, so yes, are the drivers in El Paso going to win best driver awards? No, they are not. Okay. That's a fair statement.

And then the other pet peeve for a lot of people is the quality of the roads. All right. That's again, where it can be frustrating because you pay all this money in property taxes and then, you know, the roads are really bumpy and not in great condition.

And then construction. Yes. It seems to be like there is always some kind of never ending project going on taking forever. Right now they're working on the, the West side of interstate 10 trying to make that into three lanes each way.

Um, another one that comes to mind over in the East and far East, that Montana thing they've been working on forever. It seems like. So construction, bad drivers, traffic, we're going to put that in the con column. All right. Two more pros,

two more cons. This one, this was actually, this one is one of each, um, whether it's a pro and it's a con. I'll give you the pros first, 300 plus days of sunshine. That's more than Miami, San Diego, or Honolulu. So if you love the sun, if you're a sun worshiper, El Paso,

the sun city is definitely going to be a great place for you. Okay. But basically there's, um, more days for hiking, biking, running, just being outside, doing what you want to do, walk the dogs and less days zero of scraping ice off of your windshield.

You move to El Paso, you'll never have to have to shovel snow ever again. So this is a funny one, but I think it is true. We have a dry heat versus a humid heat. So if it's a hundred degrees out, but dry,

if you find shade, you're good. All right. Yeah. You're going to be okay. Trust me. I know this. I recently came from Florida. Like I said, I grew up in Houston. I know humidity. If it's a hundred degrees and humid,

you can hide in the shade all you want, but you are going to be melting. Okay. So we've got that dry heat. It's not humid. Uh, and that though I think does fairly take us to the con of weather. Yeah, it gets hot. All right. It doesn't get Phoenix hot, 110, 120s.

But in the summer, yeah, we're going to see a hundred degree temperatures. Okay. Maybe up to one Oh five, one Oh six is typically where we max out. But to me and most people, uh, the biggest con for weather is in the springtime.

March is typically the worst month. We get dust storms. Okay. I love the, uh, the, the tick tocks and everything during this time, because what everyone was doing this year is like playing like, um, the music from dune and showing, uh, El Paso that like the view out there,

front door, El Paso does get dust storms and it can get pretty gnarly. It can be, it's just a, it's just a mess. It's basically sandblasting your face, your car, your house, uh, dust gets inside and it can be, um,

not very attractive and it can be just, I don't know, a pain, I guess everything gets covered in dust. Um, dust storms, definitely having to put those in the con category. I don't know how to wrap these up. These ones I got less notes on.

All right, finally, here's our last pro and our last con pro super friendly city, family oriented. Like I said before, strong military community. Um, people don't believe me, especially we do do a lot of relocating buyers.

And I always tell people and I spouted off in these videos all the time, man, the people in El Paso, like in general are like very friendly, easygoing, laid back, just like fun people. And people are like, Oh yeah, sure. You're just trying to sell me a house.

But then once they come and visit or once they actually do move here all the time, they'll come back to me and they'll say, man, what you were saying about people being friendly is so true. Strong military community. Of course, with Fort Bliss here, large army base,

um, there's a very, very strong military community. There's a military hospital here. A lot of military, uh, retired military folks actually retire here so that they can still be part of that community. So definitely a strong military community. Um,

so between that and then kind of the, just the wholesome family vibe, El Paso really is a pleasant place to, to, uh, to live, meet your neighbors, get along with people. So that's definitely a pro. And let's wrap up with a con. And this one is legitimate.

The job market can be tricky to navigate. Number one, because in order to get, um, jobs, let's say in like retail or kind of general service jobs, you really kind of need to be bilingual.

The majority of people in El Paso are bilingual. And so a store isn't going to hire somebody like me who only speaks English. Um, because then clients who come in, who would, they of course speak English, but they might prefer to speak Spanish.

And then I'm there fumbling with my terrible Spanish. So in certain jobs being bilingual kind of is a must. Now that being said, there are other jobs, um, healthcare, transportation, things like that. Remote work of course is, is doesn't factor into this,

but there are still plenty of other, maybe, um, more technical or, um, degree related kind of fields that the job market is, is totally fine. But for some folks, the job market can definitely be a con.

So I hope that that was an honest and useful, um, video about the pros and cons. We do this video almost every year and we always try to add and tweak it a little bit. But I do think that now having lived here for a while,

that that's a pretty honest take on, uh, the pros and cons of El Paso. So if you are looking to buy, sell, relocate, please consider reaching out to us and we'll see you in the next episode.