Cost of Living & Housing in West Texas
West Texas is the one region in this dataset where a genuinely reliable, region-wide housing-price comparison isn't possible with the data currently on hand: El Paso ($250K-$280K, a real range across disagreeing sources), Wichita Falls ($204,827, among the most affordable of any Texas market in this whole dataset), and San Angelo ($244,867-$265,000) all have current, sourced figures, but Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, and Odessa's own place records were built during a research-tooling outage and explicitly left their current median home prices unconfirmed rather than guessed. What can be said with confidence: every source and every place record in this region, sourced or not, describes West Texas as running meaningfully more affordable than Austin, Dallas, or Houston.
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Learn moreWhat's Confirmed: El Paso, Wichita Falls, San Angelo
El Paso's median sale price is cited in a $250,975-$279,950 range across sources (call it the high $250,000s), with cost of living running 7%-13% below Texas and national averages. Wichita Falls, at $204,827 (up a real 7.9% year-over-year), is among the single most affordable cities in this entire dataset -- BestPlaces scores its cost of living 23.7% below the national average. San Angelo runs $244,867-$265,000 depending on source and month, with a cost of living 17.0% below the national average per BestPlaces. All three carry Texas's standard no-state-income-tax, property-tax-carries-the-load structure, with El Paso's effective rate (2.03%-2.09%) running notably higher than either Wichita Falls's (1.77% county-wide) or San Angelo's (1.18% county-only, though a combined city/county/school estimate reaches roughly 2.34%).
What Remains Genuinely Unconfirmed: Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, Odessa
This is disclosed honestly rather than papered over: Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, and Odessa's own individual place records in this dataset each state plainly that no current, reliable median home price, property tax rate, or unemployment figure could be confirmed during the research session that built them, given a total research-tooling blackout at the time. For Midland and Odessa specifically, that gap matters more than it would for a stable market -- both cities' housing prices and unemployment rates move dramatically with the oil-price cycle (documented sharp run-ups during 2018 and 2022-2023, corrections during 2014-2016 and 2020), making any historical or general-knowledge figure actively misleading rather than merely imprecise. A reader researching Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, or Odessa specifically should treat this region page as a starting point and verify current pricing directly via Redfin or Zillow rather than relying on any figure implied here.
A Genuinely Lower-Cost Region, Even Accounting for the Gaps
Every place record in this region -- sourced or not -- independently describes itself as one of the more affordable Texas metros, and the three markets with confirmed figures (El Paso, Wichita Falls, San Angelo) all price meaningfully below Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, or Houston satellite pricing documented elsewhere in this dataset. That consistency across both the well-sourced and the research-gap markets is itself a reasonably reliable directional signal, even without a precise number for all seven places.
Key takeaways
- El Paso ($250K-$280K), Wichita Falls ($204,827), and San Angelo ($244,867-$265,000) all have confirmed, current housing figures and consistently price well below Austin, Dallas, or Houston.
- Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, and Odessa's current housing prices, property tax rates, and unemployment figures are explicitly left unconfirmed in this dataset's own place records due to a research-tooling gap -- verify these directly before relying on any implied figure.
- Midland and Odessa's housing and job markets are genuinely, dramatically cyclical with oil prices -- a stale or general-knowledge figure for either city would be actively misleading rather than merely imprecise.
- Every source in this region, gap or no gap, agrees West Texas runs meaningfully more affordable than Texas's major metros -- a directionally reliable signal even without a complete figure set.
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