Moving to the area and need to find great place for fam. (Dallas: low income, section 8)

[jessdine]

New job in Mesquite Tx and will be relocating to the area. We need to find a place to live that has good schools and isn't to far of a commute for hubby.

We have kids pre-school age and would like to be able to pop into downtown for fun stuff and be near good preK's.

Checked Plano and Rockwall when we were there. Stayed in Rockwall for the interview and it seemed like a small town that is growing but I can't seem to find out much about it on-line.

We are moving from Austin and were in San Francisco before that. We like cool vibes but affordable lifestyle.

Any help would be great.

[ChristieP]

What is your price range for a house? That will be the biggest deciding factor on where to live.

Plano is totally out of the question. That would be a horrible daily commute! There's also no reason to live that far away.

Rockwall is very nice and has excellent schools. It has grown like crazy the last 10 years and the housing market there has lots of choices in both existing and new homes.

Sunnyvale has some very nice homes and might be in your price range.

I'm sure Grainraiser will comment about living in Mesquite itself. Again, we need to know your price range...

[jessdine]

We are planning on renting first. We just bought a place 2 years ago when we moved to Austin and it doesn't seem wise to put it on the market right now. Renting for 12 months, I am assuming will be $1000-$1800 depending on a condo or house.

We also rented here before we bought here and that was a great way to make sure we liked the area before we bought. When we do buy it would probably be in the mid 200K

How are the Schools in Sunnyvale? When we buy that will be a top priority....and even though we are going to rent first I am going to try and get us in the area we want to be.......

From what we saw in Mesquite it seemed to be a little run down.


THANKS for the help. When we moved to Austin we moved here "blind" and folks who are this site really helped us out. We ended up in a great short term apartment suggested from someone here. Which lead to looking at Real Estate near the place and finding a GREAT house.

Cheers,

Jessica

[FarNorthDallas]

Sunnyvale schools are very good. Sunnyvale has no apartments, no Section 8 housing, housing lots have to be a certain size (larger than typical) consequently there is a low or non-existent free and reduced lunch crowd in Sunnyvale.

[nsumner]

Mesquite is pretty big and will have some run down areas and some really nice. Two of the nice areas I would suggest looking at is Creek Crossing and Falcon's Lair.

You may want to look at Forney and Rowlett too. Don't give up on Rockwall, it is a wonderful place to live. It was also nominated recently as one of the 10 Best Cities in American and The Best in Texas.

Naima

Naima

[HappyinDallas]

There are some websites out there that give helpful information. For example, here's a right up about Rockwall: Best Places to Live 2009 - City details: Rockwall, TX - from MONEY Magazine. Over to the right, you can type in other locations.

Neighborhood Scout is good too - this particular link will take you to the public school ratings of Rockwall, and show you with "areas" of Rockwall have better schools. I love this resource. You can also click the tabs for crime, etcModerator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed
Another helpful site: Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed And of course, http://www.city-data.com/city/Dallas-Texas.html!!

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by jessdine

From what we saw in Mesquite it seemed to be a little run down.

Thanks for saying this. Grainraiser will deny it, but this is really true! I grew up in Mesquite and the town has changed SO MUCH since I lived there. I still go back occasionally, but it isn't somewhere I'd want to live anymore!

In your price range, DO look at Sunnyvale. They do require low-density housing on large lots, and the community has always been a good one! The schools there have an excellent reputation, and they have just built their own high school so the kids no longer have to go to Mesquite Poteet. Do a search here, but I believe the site is greatschools.net or something like that.

You can find houses in your price range in Creek Crossing, but be very careful of Horne HS and Mesquite HS. They are both pretty rough. I have some relatives who live in Creek Crossing, and many of the large houses in their subdivision are occupied by multiple families. (I was just there on Sunday.) You can hardly drive down the street for all of the cars parked everywhere, and it seems that MANY people there drive taxis for a living! My relatives love their house, but they wonder how the property values are going to hold up over the long-term.

You might have trouble finding a rental in Sunnyvale just because there usually aren't a lot of them there. Hopefully the real estate market has changed that! Finding a rental in Mesquite won't be a problem...

Good luck!!

[pepper131]

Old Lake Highlands, Casa Linda, Little Forest Hills are options in Dallas in east of downtown with an easy commute into Mesquite. Look at zips 75218, 75228

Preschools nearby are:
*Children's Center
*Learning Tree
*White Rock Montessori
*Science School at Museum of Nature and Science (although heading towards downtown)

[jessdine]

THANKS! This is info is great!

[ChristieP]

Having lived in Casa Linda/Little Forest Hills for several years, I can safely say they do NOT have good schools, especially at the High School level. Bryan Adams HS was nice when my Dad went there in the 1960s but it is awful now. The kids who come from the Casa View area are primarily low income and rough. I would not send a child there. There were VERY few kids in our neighborhood when we lived there...that is usually an indicator that the schools are not so good. We left when our vehicles got broken into in front of our house and a motorcycle gang member (not the nice kind) moved in next door...