Baton Rouge Suburbs (Jefferson, Zachary, Westminster: condo, houses, neighborhoods)

[chuckypixie]

Hi everyone,

Please forgive me if this has been covered before; I did do a search but I didn't see an answer to my question exactly.

I have lived in BR for four years and my husband, a Baton Rouge native, and I are now looking to buy a house here. In my time living here, myself and almost all of my friends have lived in downtown or Midcity areas- I've lived in the Garden District, the South Acadian/Ogden Park area and we currently live in the College Drive/Westdale area. When we began looking at houses to buy, we were initially very firm that we would hold out for a house in the cheaper parts of our current neighborhood, Hundred Oaks, the Garden District, the Zeeland Street area, Capital Heights, or Southdowns (though Southdowns seemed like a bit of a pipe dream from the beginning).

My husband works in the hospitality industry and I am almost done formal schooling for a so-called "professional" profession (though my husband's supposedly "non-professional" job pays more than mine will). He has an unconventional work schedule and commutes out of town for work, and there is a good chance that when I start my career I will be working in the rural areas outside BR at first. Therefore we feel we have even more reason to make living in a neighborhood we really like a high priority, since proximity to work is kind of impossible for both of us.

We are not planning on children for at least 3 more years but would like to have at least 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms for when we hopefully do have a family.

So....upon looking at our projected finances, we have recently realized that even a smaller home in the cheapest of our preferred neighborhoods will be, if not an impossibility, then a strain on our budget that could limit our finances for travel, savings, potential kids' potential college, relaxation, etc. We have realized that we can get a lot more house, probably in better condition, for an average of $50,000 less if we're willing to move a little further afield. We (well, mostly I ), have realized we need to be more open minded to other neighborhoods, since our financial situation isn't likely to change and while we aren't going to be "poor", we may end up scrimping and saving to live in a small house in a potentially somewhat dicey area just because I can't let go of my desire not to be a suburbanite and to live somewhere "cool"

So if you have a moment I'd like your imput on any of the more suburban areas of BR. We don't want to move out of the parish or to the Jones Creek area (too far from our nearest and dearest), but we are looking at stuff in the Westminster/Drusilla area, the Quail Ridge/St. George area over by Seigen Lane, possibly the Jefferson Terrace area, the area between Perkins and Anselmo (between Bluebonnet and Essen) with the names like Burmuda, Corsica, Samoa St. etc, Magnolia Woods, and some other stuff along Highland Road (we like the location of Highland Creek, but getting out of that neighborhood onto Highland's traffic seems like too much of a nightmare).

I'd like to know what anyone knows about any of these areas....just what the vibe is like. We're late 20's/early 30's and would have dogs and cats...we're not big party people but we'd like to have groups of friends over to chill out on a somewhat regular basis....we're politically liberal and have gay friends and relatives who are a major part of our lives, and I'd like to know if there's any area we may feel particularly out of place in in any of these regards. I feel kind of stupid asking this, but we know very few people living in any of these areas and I don't want to make a mistake and move into the "most wrong" neighborhood for us when it was kind of an open secret as to why it wasn't our best choice, but we didn't know anyone to tell us the secret, if that makes any sense.

Also, if there are any areas that I didn't mention there that you'd like to reccommend or provide insight into, I would love to hear it...I've just been thinking of what we've looked at most recently.

Sorry so long winded and thanks for reading!

[MetroBTR]

Where are you working. If you are working Downtown or in Mid-city the commute from Zachary might be tolerable.

[chuckypixie]

Hey, thanks for the reply! I may actually end up working in or around Zachary, but we don't want to live there. We're pretty social and all our friends and family live in BR proper, and we're also not interested in living in anyplace that's smaller than Baton Rouge itself already is. But thanks!

[Rosinante]

You didn't specify a price range, nor did you mention whether you wanted a single family home or whether a condo would do.