Help please! / Moving from Florida to Dallas... (Plano, Irving: apartment, rental)

[dallasnewbie]

We are a young couple, early-thirties, no kids (yet) and just found out that my husband's company has asked him to relocate to Dallas. Although we have to give up the beach and surfing we are looking forward to experiencing some urban life. The first questions that comes to our mind of course is...:

...Where to live?
We would like to rent for the first year to get a better feel for the area. My husbands office is in Irving and i have family close to Fair Oaks Park off Hillcrest Rd. We would like to live close to family and less than 20 min drive to Irving. Would love to live in an urban neighborhood close to shopping, dining, arts, theater etc but not so loud it keeps us up at night. Prefer not to live in a rental community based on cookie cutter houses. We used to live in Germany and really enjoyed walking to places and having neighborhood mom and pop shops around the corner. I know in most cities this would be too much to ask but it would be nice..

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[FarNorthDallas]

Are you sure Fair Oaks Park is off Hillcrest? I thought it was off Walnut Hill.

[dallasnewbie]

The street my sister lives in is "Baxtershire Drive" - and THAT is off Hillcrest Road. Just wanted to give a rough ball park with Fair Oaks Park...sorry for the confusion.

[FarNorthDallas]

Oh, yeah, Baxtershire, North Dallas. Do you like that area? I am a bit north of there up Hillcrest on the other side of the 635 loop. There are some condos near 635 and Hillcrest called Williamsburg. Maybe they have a rental. You can get to Irving on 635. I don't know about 20 minutes though. Maybe 30. It would just be a couple of miles north of your sister. Where does your sister think you should rent? Has she made suggestions?

[dallasnewbie]

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

Oh, yeah, Baxtershire, North Dallas. Do you like that area?

They moved there recently and i have not got to know the area ( before they used to live out in Plano).
As far as recommendations from my sister, she had mentioned that the uptown area would be one option???

we wanted to do some overall "research", as we are not familiar with dallas city and the irving area.

[FarNorthDallas]

Oh, the uptown area would be nice. You can get an apartment within walking distance to places. I was in the West Village area not to long ago and I remember thinking, man, this is cool. It's off Blackburn and Hwy 75 just north of Lemmon (west of Hwy 75). Not sure what the drive to Irving would be like though. Might not be too bad.

[prim2007]

I moved from Florida to Dallas and I have been happy with the move - though I miss the beaches and the weather in TX isn't as nice. I think the Uptown area is one of the best, centrally located areas for renters. Depending on where you rent, you can walk to shops and restaurants as well as catch a movie. Irving is a central location and there are plenty of nice rental properties in the Los Colinas area. I'd avoid having to travel on the hi-five at least until you buy a home. There's just too much available rental property in other locations that won't require you to deal with the traffic.

[Lakewooder]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/dalla...-lakewood.html