Gonna try to give a BRIEF summary of why we decided to relocate.....

We currently live in the Seattle area. Love it, but it is a pretty expensive place and house prices are quite high.
I was born here, moved away as a child, and then moved back here 20 years ago. We stayed here because we like it, we have roots here, our jobs were here, and we owned a house here. But things changed ...

6-1/2 years ago my husband quit his job and started his own business. He works from a home office and really could work from anywhere. The income from this business will not change because of the relocation.

3 years ago I started my own business after the company I worked for relocated (I gladly took a severance package and never looked back). I can't take my business with me, so I will be shutting it down about one month prior to our move. It will be sad for me because it is my "baby" but it represents only about 15% of our total income, so it won't be a huge financial hit. Also, I have confidence that I will eventually find work again, whether as an employee or going the self-employed route again.

We sold our house recently, when the real estate market here was still strong but we were starting to get whiffs that a change was in the air. We are currently renting the home of a friend who had to move but wanted to keep his house, so it's a good deal for both parties (we are renting below market and he has tenants he knows and trusts).

We had originally planned to buy another house in the area, but fairly early on in our search we started asking ourselves: "Why do we need to stay in this area? It is so expensive, and many of the reasons we stayed are no longer true."

We started researching different parts of the country, and time and time again Texas kept coming up as a place that offered low house prices, low cost of living, and quality of life. We looked at several places in Texas before deciding that Austin "looked the best for us on paper." That's why my husband made the scouting trip, and since that was trip was successful, we made the decision to move there.

Thanks for all of the positive, supportive comments so far!