Cedar Hill areas (Dallas, Lancaster, Howe: foreclosures, rent, how much)

[SuperSara2007]

Hi
My husband and I are looking to buy a home. We currently rent in Cedar Hill, like the area and like the commute to work. We are not interested in living in North Dallas and are mostly interested in staying in Cedar Hill. We have no children and no plans for children for quite awhile. I did read the other recent thread on areas of cedar hill but it was mostly a 7 page argument of why people should live in the Northern burbs and why the schools in CH are no good. I'm not interested in that information. We live here and we like it and want to stay here. So please just give me the information I'm asking for.

We would ideally like to stay in the neighborhood that we are in (Hillcrest) and did put an offer in on a house near where we are renting. Unfortunately, the sellers seems to have an inflated idea of what their home is worth and for what they are asking (and refusing to negotiate) my husband and I realized we can get more house for our dollar. We have looked at a couple other houses in other areas and there are a few we really like. However, we have been kind of bad about reasearching the actual neighborhoods.

We are a young quiet couple and would prefer a quiet neighborhood. We want to get a dog so we would like a neighborhood where we can comfortably walk a dog. We don't mind kids playing outside as long as they aren't in large loud gangs. We want to be able to talk to our neighbors and feel comfortable sitting outside on our porch. We don't care about the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. We want a clean well kept neighborhood and I would like to live in an established neighborhood preferably one with lots of trees.

There is one house we like that is in the stonewood heights neighborhood. We like the house and think we can get them to take a reasonable offer but I don't know about the neighborhood. We drove around for about 30 mins at about 730 pm. It was quiet, there were a few people mowing their lawns all the houses were well kept and had very nice cars parked in the driveway, no vandalism, no large groups of kids hanging out anywhere and nothing that seemed overtly to affect quality of living in the area. We're concerned though because the house's value has dropped almost $30,000 according to DCAD in the past year. I know many of hte homes we have looked at have taken a hit but this seems pretty big. Does anyone know anything about this neighborhood?

Some of the other houses we have looked at and liked have been in the Bradford Park Neighborhood and in some of the other neighborhoods near High Point. We've also looked in the Waterford Oaks area.
Are these all pretty good areas? What areas do we need to stay away from?

Thanks so much

Sara

[BigDGeek]

Everything I've heard about Cedar Hill from people who live there has been positive but there is one issue that seems to have people talking: a potential new tollroad to be built through the city, for which they may have to tear down houses. Maybe the one you looked at with the lower appraised value would be adjacent to a proposed tollroad?

[Acntx]

I don't live in Cedar Hill, but I did look at a few homes in the Stonewood Heights neighborhood while house hunting in 2006. The neighborhood was nice and the homes were well kept in my opinion.

I wouldn't worry about the drop in appraised value since, according to DCAD, 92% of the residential properties in Dallas County experienced a decline or no change in value this year. Foreclosures could have played a role as well. In my Lancaster neighborhood, there were a few foreclosed properties and this year's appraisal values for our area fell. For people who plan to stay in a home for the next few years, it means lower taxes for homeowners in this sluggish economy. As long as it appears that the homes in a particular neighborhood continue to be well maintained, the values will increase again.

It is always nice to see people from the southern suburbs posting on this forum since there aren't that many of us on here.

Welcome and best of luck in your home search!

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Everything I've heard about Cedar Hill from people who live there has been positive but there is one issue that seems to have people talking: a potential new tollroad to be built through the city, for which they may have to tear down houses. Maybe the one you looked at with the lower appraised value would be adjacent to a proposed tollroad?

The proposed Loop 9 toll road is planned to run through the far southern portion of Cedar Hill and would not be adjacent to or directly impact any of the neighborhoods mentioned in the original post.

[southern living]

have you had a chance to look at sleepy hollow? there is also a very neat, quiet community on pleasant run opposite target, i cant remember the name. I dont know how much you are willing to spend but there are two gated communities off of main with beautiful homes. then ofcourse there is lake ridge.

good luck

[rosscountry]

Originally Posted by SuperSara2007

Hi
My husband and I are looking to buy a home. We currently rent in Cedar Hill, like the area and like the commute to work. We are not interested in living in North Dallas and are mostly interested in staying in Cedar Hill. We have no children and no plans for children for quite awhile. I did read the other recent thread on areas of cedar hill but it was mostly a 7 page argument of why people should live in the Northern burbs and why the schools in CH are no good. I'm not interested in that information. We live here and we like it and want to stay here. So please just give me the information I'm asking for.

We would ideally like to stay in the neighborhood that we are in (Hillcrest) and did put an offer in on a house near where we are renting. Unfortunately, the sellers seems to have an inflated idea of what their home is worth and for what they are asking (and refusing to negotiate) my husband and I realized we can get more house for our dollar. We have looked at a couple other houses in other areas and there are a few we really like. However, we have been kind of bad about reasearching the actual neighborhoods.

We are a young quiet couple and would prefer a quiet neighborhood. We want to get a dog so we would like a neighborhood where we can comfortably walk a dog. We don't mind kids playing outside as long as they aren't in large loud gangs. We want to be able to talk to our neighbors and feel comfortable sitting outside on our porch. We don't care about the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. We want a clean well kept neighborhood and I would like to live in an established neighborhood preferably one with lots of trees.

There is one house we like that is in the stonewood heights neighborhood. We like the house and think we can get them to take a reasonable offer but I don't know about the neighborhood. We drove around for about 30 mins at about 730 pm. It was quiet, there were a few people mowing their lawns all the houses were well kept and had very nice cars parked in the driveway, no vandalism, no large groups of kids hanging out anywhere and nothing that seemed overtly to affect quality of living in the area. We're concerned though because the house's value has dropped almost $30,000 according to DCAD in the past year. I know many of hte homes we have looked at have taken a hit but this seems pretty big. Does anyone know anything about this neighborhood?

Some of the other houses we have looked at and liked have been in the Bradford Park Neighborhood and in some of the other neighborhoods near High Point. We've also looked in the Waterford Oaks area.
Are these all pretty good areas? What areas do we need to stay away from?

Thanks so much

Sara

How is your search going?

[SuperSara2007]

Originally Posted by rosscountry

How is your search going?

Bad. We've looked at 20 houses, found 4 that we've really liked, put bids on 2 and still don't have a house. 1 house wanted too much and refused to negotiate, 1 house had foundation issues, 1 house we lost to being outbid and the last house we were able to look at, fell in love with only to be told that they weren't accepting offers on it anymore (Than WHY did you let us look at it!?) We haven't found anything else we want to look at. For this being a buyers market we sure are having difficulties.

We'll keep looking though

[Acntx]

Originally Posted by SuperSara2007

Bad. We've looked at 20 houses, found 4 that we've really liked, put bids on 2 and still don't have a house. 1 house wanted too much and refused to negotiate, 1 house had foundation issues, 1 house we lost to being outbid and the last house we were able to look at, fell in love with only to be told that they weren't accepting offers on it anymore (Than WHY did you let us look at it!?) We haven't found anything else we want to look at. For this being a buyers market we sure are having difficulties.

We'll keep looking though

I experienced the exact same thing while searching for somewhere to live in 2006. Many of the 20-25 homes we looked at had costly issues, particularly foundation cracks. Just like you, there were two properties in particular (one was in Cedar Hill) that the realtor showed that we really interested in only to find out that offers had already been placed on it. The process was very frustrating, but in the end were able to find a great home.

Hang in there and keep us informed on your progress.

All the best!