I’ve been to Dallas many times, for company businesses.
Housing is definitely cheaper than east coast, and even looks like nothing if compared to west coast. Using east coast’s money, I can buy 3 houses for the price of 1. If I use west coast’s money, I can buy 5 houses with the price of 1. It’s that economic. It’s pretty easy to live in Dallas, lots of strip malls, big mall and smaller malls. There are at least 3-4 Chinese super markets in places like Richardson. They are as big as Safeway. As Asian, I think life is pretty convenient although not as Asian centric as in Fremont, CA. Salary is not bad, about 85-90% of Bay area’s level. For IT workers, they pay as high as either coast. Dallas is a great place to save money. The environment is newer than most east coast regions, even newer than California. Places like Plano/Richardson gives you typical newer American suburban life.

People are saying that: “Once you move into Texas, you will never move out”. I think they mean that price hasn’t kept up with either coast, it will become very difficult to move from a low price area to a high price area. The reality is that the price gap is only widening, not shrinking.

Texas has a lot of advantages, low cost of living, okay weather, a little humid and stuffy in the summer. Winter is very mild. The two disadvantages I perceive is 1) slow housing price growth 2) Kinda far from either coast, a little isolated, maybe just a personal feelings.