Michael, I feel your pain. I just want to warn you about Austin, it's not as cheap as it used to be. I was living in Boulder, had been reading the Austin hype o

Michael, I feel your pain. I just want to warn you about Austin, it's not as cheap as it used to be. I was living in Boulder, had been reading the Austin hype on HN and then watched the movie Slacker (set in Austin) and a month later I was on a plane to Texas. But I was deceived by craigslist apartment ads. The apartment locators in the city were posting beautiful downtown apartments for ridiculously low rents, it seemed amazing. When I got there I found that occupancy at the mega rental complexes was running over 99% and it was incredibly difficult to find a place to live. I also found that most of those postings were fake. The MO is to post a nice place for low money and when a prospect calls say that one is gone but they can show you others. I eventually took over a lease from someone at a nice complex right next to the Google office. I had heard Austin was easy to get around without a car, but that wasn't really true. I was an hour ride from downtown on the bus and felt stranded up in NW Austin. The bus stopped running around midnight, and if you missed that the closest bus dropped you off an hour walk from your home on a desolate and dark highway. The buses are ok if you are going north/south, but east/west involves a lot of transfers. I wouldn't want to live in Austin again without a car, as the summers get so hot (100+ for 60 days in a row) you can't show up for a meeting with a client without being a sweaty mess by the time you get there. My rent was raised almost 20% when I renewed my lease, and I am sure the rents are even higher now. I moved to NYC and am only paying $150 more a month to live in great studio in Astoria. It's a little smaller, and I miss the outdoor pool and hot tub I had in Austin but other than that everything else is better here. Austin can definitely be cheap if you buy a single family home, but beware the insane rental market as the city is growing rapidly.