Hi all, newbie to property and Houston here

[Andrew Porter]

Hey everyone,

I've just moved to Houston from Australia but I'm originally from the UK. I'm excited to be in a local market when it appears that prices aren't crazily high and, judging by the new place I've rented the rental prices are quite high compared to the buying price (when comparing to London or Australia of course) so there should be some decent yields out there.

I'm new to property in general also so have been blitzing through some podcasts and books and hope to have better knowledge by the time my credit rating has a chance to build over a year or so.

In addition to the above education it would great to get some Houston specific information so if anyone can share some good links for reading up, any charts/graphs of historic house prices, area guide links, work out if prices/yields here are currently perceived to be high/low or anything in general you feel would be a help.

Differences for me coming from the UK would be that public transport links are very important when deciding where to invest, where as here it doesn't seem to have much relevance as everyone drives but I imagine other fundamentals like Jobs, schools, shops, non-flood areas are still as important. I'd also be keen to find out peoples opinions on whether Houston has enough diversification in the job market or if it's too dependent on the oil industry and if that gets replaced/winds down in 25-60 years (a debatable point I know) would the housing market still stand up or would you get another Detroit-like scenario where the demise of the car industry destroyed house prices?

Thanks and with some help hopefully I'll also be replacing some of my British terminology with some Texan :)

Andrew