I have family in Collin County which hangs off the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. Ive been there many times and very recently. Its not a shithole. It very clean and very Red. I could get a new construction home in one of the new developments for less then I could get anything for here in the rustbelt. And they are easily half or 1/3 the cost of what anything would cost in the Bay Area. Unlike the blue states TX is actually building homes as fast as they can. The family member's new home I visited is still an empty field on GoogleEarth. The whole neighborhood doesn't even exist on there yet.
The whole area has a boomtown or up and coming vibe to it.
I thought about moving there but its just not for me. But if I was a WFH software engineer or in to aerospace that area is the place to be.
3. TAXES... DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! There are MANY places in TEXAS that property taxes and other easements are HIDEOUS. 2% of the cost of the assesed price of a house AND THEN being regularly accessed to what they state is FAR MARKET VALUE.
Using my town's millrate a home assessed for 400,000 would be 9,800 a year in taxes.
Using your 2% figure they would only be paying 8,000 a year.
We also get "reval'ed" every 5-7 years. So the people scraped and over extended to buy homes in 2020+ are about to be buttfucked hard when they get reval'ed this year because home prices are up 50-100% accross the board since most places did their last reval.
I don't know how TX does the car taxes but using my towns millrate a car with a bluebook of 30K would be $735/yr plus $90-$190 every 2 years for tags.
No I don't live in NJ. It even worse there.
So I am not seeing how TX is "HIDEOUS" on the taxes. And on the SHITHOLE question. Even if you go in to actual DFW. Its not a "shithole". Not even close. NYC, SF, Chicago, LA, Newark, Baltimore, etc.. Those are real actual "shitholes".