You Moved to Austin. Now How Do You Actually Make It Feel Like Home?

After helping people relocate to Austin for more than 20 years, I've learned that finding the house is only one part of a successful move.

There is usually so much energy leading up to closing. You're deciding where to live, learning neighborhoods, figuring out schools or commute times, negotiating a purchase, packing your old house and coordinating an actual move. Then suddenly the boxes arrive, you have the keys and everyone says, “Welcome to Austin!”

And you're standing there thinking, okay…now what?

This is actually one of my favorite parts of relocation. I grew up here, and after more than two decades of helping people move to Austin, I have accumulated people and resources for just about everything. Contractors, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, restaurants and all sorts of other things you don't think about until suddenly you need one.

But I also tell people that settling into Austin isn't really about creating the perfect vendor list. It's about rebuilding the little routines that made your life feel normal before you moved.

Start With Your Everyday Life

One of my first suggestions is incredibly unglamorous: go figure out which H-E-B is going to be your H-E-B.

People who aren't from Texas may laugh at that, but Austinites will understand exactly what I mean. H-E-B stores can feel surprisingly different depending on the neighborhood and community they serve. You may have two or three within a reasonable distance of your house, so explore them and figure out which one works best for the way you shop.

Then find the other places that make your normal week work. Maybe you're a Central Market person—I happen to love Central Market—or perhaps you prefer Sprouts, Trader Joe's or People's Pharmacy for certain things. Find your coffee shop, the park where you'll walk the dog, your favorite nearby trail and the restaurant you can call when nobody feels like cooking.

Those things seem small compared with choosing a house, but they aren't. They're your creature comforts, and they can have an enormous impact on how quickly a new neighborhood begins feeling like yours.

This is also the time to start rebuilding your practical network. Make a list of the doctors and specialists your family uses and begin establishing those relationships before you urgently need them. Do the same with dentists, veterinarians and the other professionals who keep everyday life moving. I tell my relocation clients to ask me. After this many years in Austin, if I don't personally know someone, chances are I know someone who does.

And take care of the boring Texas paperwork. Update your driver's license or state ID to your new address. Among other things, a Texas ID showing the property address is generally part of the documentation you'll need when applying for your residence homestead exemption. Your appraisal district handles the actual exemption, so don't let that important post-closing item get lost among the moving boxes.

Learn How Austin Actually Moves

One of the biggest adjustments for newcomers is learning that distance in Austin doesn't always tell you how long it will take to get somewhere.

I-35 is a major interstate and freight corridor, not simply a local Austin freeway, and it carries an enormous amount of traffic through the center of our city. Depending on where you live and where you're going, a relatively short trip involving I-35 can feel very different from traveling the same number of miles somewhere else.

Over time, you begin understanding Austin more in terms of corridors and sides of town than mileage alone. Mopac/Loop 1, 360, east-west routes and the smaller roads you discover after living here awhile all become part of your mental map.

My advice is not to fight Austin geography. Learn it.

Figure out where your life happens most often—work, school, children's activities, friends, restaurants, recreation—and learn the routes that connect those pieces of your life. Eventually you'll have the route Google Maps recommends and the route you take because you're an Austinite and you know better. Sometimes Google will be right. Sometimes you'll still take your route.

Respect the Heat

If your first Austin summer makes you question some of your life choices, you're not alone.

June through September is hot, and late July through August can be downright brutal. You learn to stay hydrated and move outdoor activities that don't involve water toward the morning or evening. You also learn that air conditioning isn't simply a nice feature in Texas; during the hottest months, it works hard.

New homeowners can be surprised by how much their utility costs fluctuate seasonally. Air conditioning, watering landscaping and maintaining a pool can make summer electric and water bills considerably different from other parts of the year. The rest of the year can be wonderfully manageable, but I would rather someone moving from another climate know what to expect than receive their first August utility bill and wonder what happened.

And please remember your pets. They are experiencing that same Texas summer while wearing a fur coat, and pavement can become dangerously hot for their paws. Austin is an outdoor city, but summer changes when and how we enjoy it.

Now Go Experience Why You Moved Here

Once you've gotten the practical pieces underway, get out of your neighborhood.

Go experience Austin from the water. Spend time at Barton Springs. Walk South Congress and enjoy some of the funky things that still make it South Congress. Climb the steps at Mount Bonnell and look out across the city. Walk through the UT campus. Eat great Tex-Mex and barbecue, but don't stop there because one of my favorite things about modern Austin is how diverse our food scene has become.

Then start going a little farther.

Spend a day in Georgetown and walk the square, especially when there's a market happening. Head to Fredericksburg for wine and a change of scenery. Drive toward Marble Falls or Llano and explore the Hill Country, particularly during wildflower season. Austin is wonderful on its own, but part of living here is realizing how much is within reach when you get outside the city.

Food is another great way to learn Austin. I might send someone to Fonda San Miguel for a completely different expression of Mexican food, Clay Pit for Indian food in a historic Austin setting, or somewhere serving really good Southern food. Around Christmas, go sit by the lake at Mozart's with a coffee and see the lights. Some of these will become your traditions and others won't. That's the point. You're figuring out your version of Austin.

Finding Your People Matters More Than Finding Your Places

This may actually be the most important advice I give someone who has relocated here: find your tribe.

Moving is lonely if all you've changed is your address.

What do you genuinely enjoy? There are soccer leagues around Zilker, boating communities, mountain bikers, supper clubs, golf groups, volunteer organizations, book clubs, arts organizations and a million other ways people connect here. Don't choose something because you think it's what Austinites are supposed to do. Choose something you actually like enough to keep showing up.

That's how friendships happen.

Austin has historically been a friendly city. People say hello. They hold doors. Someone may start talking to you while you're standing in line. When that happens, don't be so busy that you miss it. Say hello back. Have the conversation. Some of the best parts of living somewhere aren't amenities you can put on a relocation spreadsheet.

They're people.

Become Part of Austin

Eventually there are little signs that Austin is starting to get into you.

You develop strong opinions about Mexican food. Maybe you buy your first pair of boots or a cowboy hat. You go to a music festival, spend a Saturday paddleboarding, find your favorite lake or discover a breakfast taco you'll defend with unreasonable intensity.

More importantly, you stop comparing everything to the place you left.

That's when a relocation starts becoming a life.

If you've recently moved here, you don't need to understand Austin immediately. Explore it. Be curious. Find the H-E-B you like, the trail you'll return to, the restaurant where they eventually recognize you and the people who make you want to stay.

And if you need a doctor, contractor, veterinarian, restaurant recommendation or someone for that strange house problem you didn't know existed until yesterday, call me. There is a very good chance I have a person.

Helping someone find their home is my profession. Helping them actually feel at home in Austin has always been part of the job, too.

Brandy Finnessey is an Austin real estate broker with more than 20 years of experience, specializing in West Austin neighborhoods including Northwest Hills, Tarrytown, Westlake Hills, and Rollingwood. She serves clients through The Finnessey Group at Sotheby's International Realty.