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If you are working downtown you have to be careful where you decide to live, this metro is very spread out and regular traffic is bad, with daily car accidents it gets worse, for that price range you have many alternatives with better drives that SL or FM, both are beautiful communities but they are not easily accesible to downtown. Stay as close as possible to George Bush, 75, DNT. You can push it and maybe Allen and Frisco as long as you are close to 75 or DNT respectively.
Good luck to you, DFW is a great place to live. My only advise to you would be to seek a balance between wanting a large home and sacrificing an extra 2 hours of your day in a commute. When you are looking for a home its easy to tell yourself is worth the extra time, but when you get to live it daily it's a different story. I work downtown and live in North Richardson close to the border with Plano, commute without traffic is 18 min. But with traffic in the mornings it can go up to 30 min. In the afternoon it can go from 30 min to almost an hour, this having multiple options 75, DNT-635-75, or city streets. Thats just 18 miles, Southlake is 26, and your choices for routes will be more limited.
Wow, around Skillman and University area you can get a 2500-3000 sq ft 4 BR house for 450k or so, even in the bubble market of today. Dan D Rogers Elementary is a pretty good elementary school. Why would you think generica-in-the-exurbs would be like your multi-culti NYC area?
Buy less house than you can afford (especially in the current real estate bubble), save your pennies, and when you need junior high or high school either go for financial aid at a private school, or move to Plano.
I recently bought a house in Southlake and during my several visits to my house I had the chance to meet some of my neighbors, they are very nice and decent people who live in my community for more than 10 years.
Every time I was there I saw kids playing/riding bicycles outside, people jogging/running, so it gives me the idea that it is a very safe area.
Since I haven't moved there yet, I couldn't give advice about school/experience, but I can give you some advice on budget. Since you mentioned you have 8 people, so I would suggest 5 bedrooms and >4000 sqft, that's possible to find such home between 600k and 700k but there probably be a lot of upgrades you need to do. Between 700k and 750k, the house will be sort of move in ready but may still not be what you want.
Check on Redfin every day to get a basic idea about the "reasonable" price, usually to me if such house listing price drops below 650k that means you need to act quickly, tour it the same day & put the offer since the house will be gone within 1-3 days.
Personally I like the communities south of Southlake Blvd, they are old but mature, replacing floor with hardwood and repaint the house won't cost you much but will make the house look totally different if the budget becomes the limitation factor. Buying a house is much like personal feeling so you may have certain community you really like, try to get at least 2 years market data and try to develop a sense of FINAL listing price VS days on market AFTER final listing price, there's always correlation in between.
Good luck on your house hunting!
Thank you for your input! It's so hard sitting in the northeast and flying out to look at houses. The market in Dallas is crazy. I had planned on seeing 9 houses on my trip and 2 went into option contract before I even got on the plane so I saw 7 and of them, 4 went into option contract within days. I really liked 1, south of southlake blvd in SL and it was $750k and on the market only a few days. I felt there would be a price drop based on sold comps but I was wrong! It went into option contract. I'm having sticker shock.
I think you pointed out something I am coming to terms with - that I can buy within my budget and just renovate. I was thinking I would buy in my budget and it would be turn key. Who knew?! Not me.
Any specific communities you saw and liked that you can suggest?
If you are working downtown you have to be careful where you decide to live, this metro is very spread out and regular traffic is bad, with daily car accidents it gets worse, for that price range you have many alternatives with better drives that SL or FM, both are beautiful communities but they are not easily accesible to downtown. Stay as close as possible to George Bush, 75, DNT. You can push it and maybe Allen and Frisco as long as you are close to 75 or DNT respectively.
Good luck to you, DFW is a great place to live. My only advise to you would be to seek a balance between wanting a large home and sacrificing an extra 2 hours of your day in a commute. When you are looking for a home its easy to tell yourself is worth the extra time, but when you get to live it daily it's a different story. I work downtown and live in North Richardson close to the border with Plano, commute without traffic is 18 min. But with traffic in the mornings it can go up to 30 min. In the afternoon it can go from 30 min to almost an hour, this having multiple options 75, DNT-635-75, or city streets. Thats just 18 miles, Southlake is 26, and your choices for routes will be more limited.
Best to you!
Thank you! I agree about the difference about theory and application. I don't necessarily want a big house, but enough to accommodate our family. More important to me is safe and diverse neighborhood, good school district and not being in the boonies (I want access to groceries and other shopping). One of the reasons for the move are quality of life so having a long commute would take away from that. Fortunately, most of work will be from home, God willing, so commute should not be daily. More like once, maybe twice a week. I think that's why the distance hasn't struck me as impossible. Right now I'm 50 miles from the city but with mass transit, commute is more if a "winding up" and "winding down" rather than stressful watching of the road and being stuck in traffic.
I think my next step is corporate housing bc flying out to check out houses is just not cutting it with the market being so incredibly hot. I hope it's as hot when I'm ready to sell my house here, a God willing!
Wow, around Skillman and University area you can get a 2500-3000 sq ft 4 BR house for 450k or so, even in the bubble market of today. Dan D Rogers Elementary is a pretty good elementary school. Why would you think generica-in-the-exurbs would be like your multi-culti NYC area?
Buy less house than you can afford (especially in the current real estate bubble), save your pennies, and when you need junior high or high school either go for financial aid at a private school, or move to Plano.
I agree about buying less than one can afford. That is the intention but I was hoping to buy MUCH less lol. I was unaware that while Dallas is less expensive than NY, it is still fairly expensive.
I think with 8 ppl, I should probably get 3500 sq ft. While that size near the city in some areas is not above budget (although is very dated), I can't rest on the chance that maybe I'll get financial aid or on the plan of uprooting all the kids to move to a city with a good HS when one is about to begin freshman year. That seems like a lot of work plus I imagine hard on the kids.
i don't know, turf, it's so much to consider but the only thing deterring me is cost being higher than I expected. Everything else I thought I had figured out. Like I found areas with good schools and safe neighborhoods. I even did random convos with ppl in their yards or walking their dogs to see what residents say. I got great vibes. And while the commute is an issue, bc it's not daily, it didn't bother me too much. It's just the price. I wish this move happened a few years ago when prices were still where I wanted them to be.
I am also from a lovely suburb of New York, and after living in Oak Lawn for a few years, I married and moved to Coppell.
While it does not have the character and cool factor of NY, it's was a great place to raise 3 kids, excellent schools, and it's near a few good highways to get you downtown. There's lots of diversity, parks, and reasonably priced homes (if you don't go for a McMansion on a tiny lot...)
I would take a look-I was very content here, and the people were very liberal-minded, surprisingly.
I am also from a lovely suburb of New York, and after living in Oak Lawn for a few years, I married and moved to Coppell.
While it does not have the character and cool factor of NY, it's was a great place to raise 3 kids, excellent schools, and it's near a few good highways to get you downtown. There's lots of diversity, parks, and reasonably priced homes (if you don't go for a McMansion on a tiny lot...)
I would take a look-I was very content here, and the people were very liberal-minded, surprisingly.
She's avoiding Coppell due to the high property taxes. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but easy to miss given all the back and forth discussions.
Thank you for your input! It's so hard sitting in the northeast and flying out to look at houses. The market in Dallas is crazy. I had planned on seeing 9 houses on my trip and 2 went into option contract before I even got on the plane so I saw 7 and of them, 4 went into option contract within days. I really liked 1, south of southlake blvd in SL and it was $750k and on the market only a few days. I felt there would be a price drop based on sold comps but I was wrong! It went into option contract. I'm having sticker shock.
I think you pointed out something I am coming to terms with - that I can buy within my budget and just renovate. I was thinking I would buy in my budget and it would be turn key. Who knew?! Not me.
Any specific communities you saw and liked that you can suggest?
There was a very lovely house in my neighborhood on the market last time when I was reading this post, the house was listed around 730k but it went into option period days after it was listed.
The biggest neighborhood I toured are Timmaron and Timber Lake, they both have lots of houses but I think Timarron (south of Continental) is a little more expensive. Between Southlake Blvd and Continental there was also Timarron Add, I think it is also part of Timarron (I might be wrong) but the price is much more reasonable, these house are built on smaller lot which means most of them don't have big yard or pool.
I really didn't come across any "not-nice" neighborhood in Southlake, only the price is something I can afford or something I can't afford...
I am also from a lovely suburb of New York, and after living in Oak Lawn for a few years, I married and moved to Coppell.
While it does not have the character and cool factor of NY, it's was a great place to raise 3 kids, excellent schools, and it's near a few good highways to get you downtown. There's lots of diversity, parks, and reasonably priced homes (if you don't go for a McMansion on a tiny lot...)
I would take a look-I was very content here, and the people were very liberal-minded, surprisingly.
I really liked the ppl/diversity of Coppell but synch is right (and I'm surprised synch remembered!) that the taxes are pretty high for me.
Another thing, which maybe you can empathize with coming from a NY suburb, is the back alleys for accessing garages. I'm so unfamiliar with that. Where I am now, I talk a lot to my neighbors as we are all entering or exiting our garages. Also, often my kids are playing with chalk or riding their bikes on the driveway and a bunch of neighborhood kids come by to join. I love it. I feel it's counterintuitive to being friends with your neighbors but bc I have not actually experienced it, I could be wrong.
Nonetheless, I'm keeping Coppell open bc I do like the location, schools and ppl (except for some new construction communities which are super homogenous). But I try to limit the search to the front entry garages and affordable to me taxes.
Thanks for your response! It's nice to hear the experience of someone who has been there, done that. Gives me more confidence in my search areas.
She's avoiding Coppell due to the high property taxes. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but easy to miss given all the back and forth discussions.
Synch - I totally thought I bored you and lost you! I was in SL 2 weeks ago. I checked out the Town Center and spoke to some random pedestrians. They were all so nice. I wonder if I crossed paths with you?! Lol
Will keep you posted on my search. I almost put an offer in a home but before I could, the house went into option contract. Can you believe it?! I'm sure you can as you are familiar with your market. Anyhow, I'm considering corporate housing bc I can't just keep spending money to fly out on the hope that a house I like online might still be available by the time I fly out there.
It's cray!
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