Neighborhoods built between 50s - 70s with great schools, close to city? (Austin: homes, elementary school)

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

We don't use the term rambler, but I could tell what was meant, pretty well. Yes, "ranch" is the term that would be used here.

"Rambler" is more appropriate for Austin though. It's a friskier, funkier, happier term versus the stodgy and staid "rancher" or "ranch-style", which sounds like an old brick house you'd you'd find in Abilene.

Plus it evokes thoughts of Jim Morrison.

Steve

[doctorjef]

Do you or your colleagues actually use that term, though? I hate it, frankly -- reminds me of a very bad car made by the American Motors company back in early 1960's.

[TexasHorseLady]

Actually, the American Rambler was quite a good car. We had several (including a couple of station wagons) back then. Ran forever. Later we moved to Toyotas, which were the closest we could get as far as reliability was concerned.

I don't use the term rambler to describe a house. Have no problem with the term "ranch" when used to refer to a house, though - I know what it means, and it fits Texas and the wide open spaces (so you can have more room without having to build more stories). Doesn't seem staid or stodgy at all to me. But, then, it doesn't evoke Abilene for me, either, since I first learned of the term growing up in East Texas, about as far from Abilene as you can get while still being in the state!

[brownybaby]

Can you please tell me where to look for homes via internet in Austin. I always get some weird agent that I can only look at houses if I sign up for his emails.....

[TexasHorseLady]

Austin Home Search (http://www.austinhomesearch.com/Static/homeset.aspx - broken link)

I personally hate those sites (real estate or otherwise) that require you to sign up in order to get basic information.

[calel]

I hate registering for real estate searches, too. I got hounded by real estate agents on the last search I signed up for. I've been using realtor.com for searches, which relies on MLS listings.

There are quite a few suburbs from the late 60s/early 70s dotting 183 N, which puts you a little out of the way, but it's still only a 20-30 min. commute to downtown. Anderson Mill, Millwood, Balcones Woods, Gracy Woods... In terms of demos, Anderson Mill leans lower middle class, Millwood in the middle, and Balcones Woods more upper middle class (they have a country club). I honestly can't tell you about schools, but most of these lie within Round Rock ISD. Houses are mostly ranch-style with some other styles sprinkled within.

As for size, it's possible that a two-story or split-level ranch-style home might hit 2500 but a traditional single story is usually closer to 1500 sqft. In my own searches, the larger houses tend to be postmodern-style homes from the 80s and later.

[hound 109]

Too piggyback on what Calel mentions, I would recommend neighborhoods that feed into Canyon Vista MS &/or Westwood HS. (areas in RRISD, but most of the area is "left" of 183 & "under" 620....& is in Austin) These areas feature the highest ranked public schools in Austin & many of the neighborhoods are from the 70s.

Also, draw a 2 mile circle around Anderson HS (in AISD) & you'll see lots of neighborhoods with the homes you're describing (& also have good to great schools).

[christian&amy]

First- thanks so much to all of you who contributed your thoughts to this thread. It's been very helpful for my wife and I to narrow our focus a bit.

• We prefer a neighborhood that has a mix of ages and that would be at least 50% caucasian. We really enjoy having a few senior neighbors, some middle-aged neighbors and some younger families like ours- variety is great!

•*Schools: We don't want our children to be in classes that are focused on getting a significant portion of the classroom up to par with english speaking skills. We'd like the school to put a healthy emphasis on the arts (my children are all very art-brained). Good test scores are always a plus.

• Neighborhood Architecture: We don't want a multi-level home - anything that serves up a series of 3-4 stairs to get to another level will be a no-go. A two-story home is fine, but we'd really prefer a ranch style home (what I previously called a rambler). As for size, we have 4 kids, two german shepherd dogs and I work from home! We don't mind bunking the kids up in two rooms - but a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home is the minimum we can make work. As long as the layout of the home is well thought out, a smaller home (just over 2,000-2,200 sf) will probably do us fine. We are considering building a small structure in the backyard to serve as my office if we find a 4-bedroom house that seems to fit our immediate and future needs.

We're really not into the new HUGE homes that I seem to see a lot of online in Round Rock. We really like some personality, some mature trees and neighbors.

As mentioned earlier, we really like the 50s-70s architecture, but we're willing to toss that requirement aside if the other items we hope to find can fall into place. Our furnishings are treasures that we've collected from estate sales and consignment shops (and a little IKEA). We'd love the style of the home to fit that eclectic feel of our furnishings. Hence the preference, but not rule, for 50s-70s.

• Distance to downtown. This can also be scrapped a little. We're currently a 45-minute drive to Salt Lake City outside of rush-hour. Since our visits to the city will likely always be during off-peak traffic hours, we'd still prefer to have that timing at 20-30 minutes. Whatever that timing takes during rush-hour doesn't really matter to us. We really want to be able to drive in to the city and not have it feel like a "trip".

•*Budget. If necessary, we can move up our budget a bit higher, we would just rather try to keep it down to a reasonable amount. I'm not that interested in spending a fortune on a house that will impress people. It's more about finding a suitable house that fits our needs more than our wants.

• Safe neighborhood. I don't want to have to pack us up in a few years because the neighborhood is getting a little rough. We'd prefer to plant ourselves in a community that is moving up and not down.

My wife and I grew up in these homes and feel they'd be a good fit still with our own family:

6839 Bluefield Ct, San Diego, CA 92120 - Zillow

2283 Elmdale Ave, Simi Valley, CA 93065 - Zillow

(lived here also)
5473 Dorothy Dr, San Diego, CA 92115 - Zillow

That may give you an idea what would work...

Again, we deeply appreciate your help! It is so nice to see so many people offering advice to perfect strangers! Thank you all!

[centralaustinite]

Allandale and Northwest Hills!

[TexasHorseLady]

Okay, that opens things up a bit. I'm out to do a pre-sheetrock walkthrough and drop off some earnest money checks, but when I get back, I'll see what pops up in the way of neighborhoods that fit that description. Right off the top of my head, yes, Allandale, Crestview, Barton Hills, Highland Park might fit the bill. More later.