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I have been living in buffalo area for about 8 years, the last 3 in the suburb of Williamsville. All of these years i have been renting and now my wife and I are ready to start a family and are looking to buy our first home. The areas we have been looking at are East Amherst/Amherst(Williamsville School District), Clarence & Lancaster. We are looking for relatively newer homes built (1980-2010) that are 3 bedroom, at-least 1 1/2 bath, 1500-2000 square feel with an attached garage. Our price limit for a house is 225-230K and we have a limit on how much taxes(7k- excluding star credit) we are willing to pay. So far have been outbid twice(despite putting in bids slightly over the asking price) and it seems like many of the newer houses that we like are being bought out within a day of being on the market with multiple offers. My wife and I will not get into bidding wars because we believe people are already paying far more of a premium than what these houses are worth.
I was hoping for some advice on what areas to expand our house search to surrounding Buffalo downtown(within a 25 minute radius) that have as good or at least nearly as good school districts as Williamsville, Clarence and Lancaster. I understand that parenting is huge part of providing a better education to your children but we still want a good school district. Can you please provide me with options based on your experience in the area?
It is relatively hard to find a house under $200,000 in Clerance, and it is a little far out. 14051 and 14221 supposedly have the best school system. I live in Amherst, and I like it a lot and I wouldn't want to move to other town. So I assume you are looking for an updated house on a neighborhood street in Williamsville Central School?
There is a shortage of listing in Amherst, especially for houses under $250,000. If you search houses in 14051 that under $230,000, there are only 10 listings... several of them are on busy road(Transit, Dodge, etc.). I think it suggests that this is an up and going area, and your investment will appreciate.
Following seems nice to me, but Zillow doesn't have the most updated info, these could already be under contract:
I have been living in buffalo area for about 8 years, the last 3 in the suburb of Williamsville. All of these years i have been renting and now my wife and I are ready to start a family and are looking to buy our first home. The areas we have been looking at are East Amherst/Amherst(Williamsville School District), Clarence & Lancaster. We are looking for relatively newer homes built (1980-2010) that are 3 bedroom, at-least 1 1/2 bath, 1500-2000 square feel with an attached garage. Our price limit for a house is 225-230K and we have a limit on how much taxes(7k- excluding star credit) we are willing to pay. So far have been outbid twice(despite putting in bids slightly over the asking price) and it seems like many of the newer houses that we like are being bought out within a day of being on the market with multiple offers. My wife and I will not get into bidding wars because we believe people are already paying far more of a premium than what these houses are worth.
I was hoping for some advice on what areas to expand our house search to surrounding Buffalo downtown(within a 25 minute radius) that have as good or at least nearly as good school districts as Williamsville, Clarence and Lancaster. I understand that parenting is huge part of providing a better education to your children but we still want a good school district. Can you please provide me with options based on your experience in the area?
--First, get a school district map form each town. On my road in Lancaster, kids can, within 3 miles, be in Lancaster or Clarence or Alden or Iroquois districts. You have the same anomalies with Clarence
--If you are willing to live at the outskirts of Lancaster ( toward Alden, where I live) you can save massive taxes by being on septic. You have to look. What you save a year? Stick it in the bank for house emergencies. (we have our original septic, have it tested annualy. It works fine). Lots for that are over 1 acre, should you go that route. Look into buying and building, on a septic lot (I'm not kidding) You won't get outbid building.
--Out where I live you can find lots of newer homes in your price range. ( I amend that - 3 houses on my road sold in the past 2 mos. Nothing out this way)
@wamot: Thank you for your reply. That ranch on Brockmoore seems pretty good and its well under our budget. I will take a look at that. Definitely not looking for a split level and my wife does not like those, a ranch or a 2 story home(col) is what we are looking for. We cant go past the 230,000 home budget because we want the mortgage to be 185,000 and under after we put 20% down and considering the taxes of these areas and our income that's the parameters we came up with. Yes, we are looking for an updated house(or recently made) and the preference definitely is the Williamsville School District but it seems like unless you go into East Amherst, Williamsville (village proper) in general has older less up-to-date houses. Our preference though is a house at the least made in the 1970's.
@BuffaloTransplant: Thank you for your reply. That school district Map is definitely a good suggestion, i will look into how to get it. I wish these real estate websites like Zillow, etc would give us the option to search based on School district. We looked in building vs buying and its too expensive for the size of the house(prefer 1600-1900 square feet) and the area we prefer to be in. We definitely do not want to live deep in Lancaster(Walden and Transit is the border and range we would look at there). We are going to stick to Amherst(W'ville School Dst), Clarence and Lancaster for now. It does not seem like there are any other viable options out there.
@wamot: Thank you for your reply. That ranch on Brockmoore seems pretty good and its well under our budget. I will take a look at that. Definitely not looking for a split level and my wife does not like those, a ranch or a 2 story home(col) is what we are looking for. We cant go past the 230,000 home budget because we want the mortgage to be 185,000 and under after we put 20% down and considering the taxes of these areas and our income that's the parameters we came up with. Yes, we are looking for an updated house(or recently made) and the preference definitely is the Williamsville School District but it seems like unless you go into East Amherst, Williamsville (village proper) in general has older less up-to-date houses. Our preference though is a house at the least made in the 1970's.
@BuffaloTransplant: Thank you for your reply. That school district Map is definitely a good suggestion, i will look into how to get it. I wish these real estate websites like Zillow, etc would give us the option to search based on School district. We looked in building vs buying and its too expensive for the size of the house(prefer 1600-1900 square feet) and the area we prefer to be in. We definitely do not want to live deep in Lancaster(Walden and Transit is the border and range we would look at there). We are going to stick to Amherst(W'ville School Dst), Clarence and Lancaster for now. It does not seem like there are any other viable options out there.
Walden Transit is actually Depew. Look around Bowmansville near Transit. For what you want to spend, its is a better place than Depew.
I will check into Bowmansville, Thank you for the suggestion.
That did not work. I sent you a private message.
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