Sugar Land - The good, the better, and the awesome

It is all residential. It is a suburb of Houston with some office parks and shopping centers, but it is not a center of industry.

A b****. 59 south is one of the most crowded freeways coming and going in the city because it passes by the Galleria AND the medical center on its way to downtown - both big economic centers in their own right.

There are a lot of reason for the low cost housing but it mostly is because of space. Sugar Land is 30-45 minutes southwest of Houston in Ft. Bend County (most of Houston is in Harris County), so the land is cheaper and the neighborhoods tend to be master-planned communities. Cheap land and low taxes = low property values.

Hosuton is still the 4th largest city in America and home to quite a few fortune 500 companies. The economy continues to steadily grow slightly ahead of the national average. Houston is also the #1 city in America for entrepreneurial growth.

I don't live in Sugar Land because it is too far out of town for me. Lots of athletes live there and it has a decent population, but if you are living in Sugar Land, in reality, you are living in Houston. It is a suburb of Houston so you want to make sure you like the city, not just the suburb.

Probably not in Sugar Land. It is a wealthy suburb without a lot of straight up business based there. But, it probably will help in the city where corporations look for people with multi-language skills. The primary billingual language skill valued in Houston, though, is Spanish, because of the large population of Latinos and proximity to Mexico.

 

$200,000 can get you a nice townhome close to downtown Houston.

http://www.urbanliving.com/developments.cfm

 

Coming from a resident of Sugar Land for 21 years, I have nothing but good things to say about Sugar Land.

It is a very nice city that is growing unbelievably fast. It's amazing how much stuff they have put in over the last 10 years and how much more stuff that is being planned. To answer your questions:

1. It is primarily a residential area. There are neighborhoods everywhere that go from the multi-millions (Sweetwater) to very reasonable priced upper-scale houses (Sugar Creek) and there are tons of middle-income housing.

2. The commute to downtown isn't too bad, but of course you will most likely hit the morning and afternoon traffic around Kirby, in which there is major construction going on. I would say it would take 30 minutes to get to downtown w/ no traffic and anywhere from 45 minutes to 1:15 w/ traffic.

3. Dont' know too much about the Houston housing economy, but like you said, it is cheap to buy a house here compared to California or other states.

4. I think the best thing about Sugar Land is the people. Everyone is really friendly and there is a very low crime rate. I think Sugar Land is a great place to raise a family. There are a lot of good schools around here.

5. It's hard to say whether being billingual will directly help you get a job, but it definitely couldn't hurt.

 

Also keep in mind that Sugar Land encompasses a lot of "levels" of housing. There are the $200,000 homes, but there are multi-million dollar homes around there, too. Housing prices in Texas, in general and comparitively, are cheap. I used to drive from the Missouri City (neighbors Sugar Land, but is a bit closer) area to downtown Houston to work - good luck on that drive if you start it after 7am. It was a pretty bad drive about 9 or so years ago, and I doubt much has changed. But then if you live in some of California's traffic, maybe you're used to sitting in traffic most of your life. The city was named after the Imperial Sugar refinery that was started there from what I recall.

 

Not necessarily true. Houston has significant business centers in the Med Center, Greenway Plaza, the Galleria, and Westbelt, and growing business centers in outlying communities like the Woodlands and Sugar Land. The big firms are all downtown, but many medium and smaller firms and corporate jobs are all over.

 

It's not near as bad as it used to be. Every since they finished contruction on the stretch from the beltway to Sugar Land the commute hasn't been that bad. Once construction is finished inside the loop (next year?) it should make things even easier. That section slows down a lot of people, not just from the Sugar Land area. I love living out in the Sugar Land area. Also, if he were to live just outside Sugar Land in the Seinna Plantation area on Hwy 6 he could take the Fort Bend toll road. Also, a lot of people that used to take 59 in to town are taking the new West Park toll road, me included.

VWiggin,

Also, Sugar Land is not that far (10 minutes) from the other Chinatown (not the downtown version) near the Beltway and Bellaire/Beechnut roads. I'm not sure what type of job you are looking for, but speaking Chinese would be a plus if you got a job in that area.

You can find a nice home in the $200,000 range in Fort Bend County.

 

But really you could be near the water and have many of the same ammenities and prices over in the Clear Lake/League City region.

 

Actually one area to consider is Pearland. It reminds me of what Sugar Land was say about 12 years ago. Its also being developed on a master planned basis, but doesn't have a mall yet, etc. However, the commute to downtown is painless and only 20 min away.

 

59 is probably the best suburban commute you could have in Houston, aside from maybe 288 south of town. 290, I-10, 45 (North and South) are all worse.

 

There are plans to build a mall in Pearland on 288.

 

It's hard to think of it as just a suburb anymore, especially w/ everyting that's developed on Highway 6 and the new Town Square area, and the rebuilding and extending their doing w/ the mall.

It really has a personality all it's own now... and definitely makes you kind of awestruck knowing what it looked like 10 years ago.

 

Sugar Land blows.

- s(ugar) land balla

 

Don't listen to the haters. Sugar Land is a terrific place to live and raise a family. I would only live near downtown if I could afford to send my kids to private school.

I drive from Sugar Land to the Medical Center/Rice U area everyday and the commute is not bad. The only parts with traffic are the parts under construction (59 at Hwy 6 out towards Richmond and Rosenberg and 59 after greenbriar). After the construction is over, it should be a very smooth commute.

 

The Woodlands, SugarLand, and Pearland are all great choices

 

Sugarland rocks...

Takes you 30-45 minutes to get to downtown. an if your speed happy you can get there in 20, all this barring no construction. if they ever widen 59 up it will do wonders.

sugarland has some nice communities, good shopping around, and tons of different ethnicities.

overall I rate it a 8/10 as a place to live

 

I'll add to what others have said instead of repeating.

1 It's primarily residential but it has a significant oil & gas industrial component. Both Schumberger and Fluor Daniel have very large locations there. Both are well separated from residential areas.

2 The commute to downtown is just fine if you can Park & Ride. The West Bellfort 265 is great and runs very often. Saves you car wear and tear along with gas money. If you carpool with just one other person, your can use the HOV lane the P&R buses use.
Hwy 288 from Pearland is rapidly becoming a parking lot because of extreme population growth. It is a shorter distance from downtown but in a few years the commute to downtown could take as long. 4-5 years ago it was wide open but forget it now. IMO, Pearland isn't nearly as nice as Sugar Land for a lot of reasons.

3 Houston's housing market has always been very affordable compared to the rest of the country. The reason Houston, and much of middle America, hasn't seen the price appreciation in homes you've seen in SoCal is because "cheap" land is readily available for new construction. The Houston metro area's huge sprawl virtually guarantees housing will remain affordable indefinitely. In SoCal, your space and population density contraints limit the supply of new housing, which is why existing homes there have appreciated so rapidly.

4 There isn't much to dislike, especially if you have a young family. The school district is very good. One negative that comes to mind is the housing construction in Ft. Bend County as a whole. I am so sick of trucks being all over the place and the deforestation I could scream sometimes. (BTW, I am not an environmentalist)

5 No idea.

 

I have nothing to offer on Sugarland, but I think that you would find just about any suburb to be appeasing and fantastic. I'm a northwest side product, myself. I'd fully endorse somewhere like Magnolia, Tomball, or The Woodlands.

 

Hey. Sugar Land is a great place. It's growing rapidly and it's quite prosperous.
Come visit and see for yourself..it's pretty nice.
It's a place to live and raise family..
http://www.ci.sugar-land.tx.us/
Commute is decent. There's a lot of construction going on..There's going to be traffic sometimes. You have to be able to drive on the highway.
Houses in new Sugar Land are appreciating in value..but not rapidly.
It's diverse.
I don't think being bilingual will help. Spanish maybe.