Best place for me to move to? (Dover, Milford: middle-class, real estate)

[jerzygrl]

I'm sorry if my question has been answered already but I'm tired of searching through these blogs to find exactly what I need to know.
I was born and raised in NJ and I recently got married. Unfortunately, I can't afford to stay.
I am from a very nice, rural part of the state. I drive at least 10 minutes to the grocery store and at least 25 to the nearest mall - and that is FINE with me. I don't want to live where I can walk to the store...but I don't want to be in redneck land either. I don't want to live in an overcrowded area. I want to find a town/area in DE that is like where I am from...basically zero crime, predominantly white middle-class, beautiful back roads with close highway access however so that I can commute easily to the more populated areas when I need to shop etc.
I am having a hard time researching this because everytime I think I'm onto something, citydata gives a high crime percentage, or someone's thread says the oppostie to what I think I've found. Can anyone help me? I wan't to spend NO MORE than $200,000 on something...$150,000 if possible. I don't want to live in a dump or a trailer or anything. A nice townhouse or a nice ranch house...is that realistic for those prices??
Some towns that I THOUGHT seemed like where I am from are Milford, Magnolia, Townsend...some others that seemed a bit bigger were Smyrna, Middletown...good schools and a family community are important too.
THANKS FOR ANY HELP!!!

[Honeycrisp]

Am not familiar w/ the different cities to give you any advice but where will you and/or your husband be working?, that would have a large bearing on your ultimate location (also what's the max you want to drive?). In the meantime, would also check realtor dot com as far as prices and locations to get an idea.

[debbiekr]

Have you researched Harrington? Homes are cheap, mostly country roads. It will be 25 minutes from Dover Mall but they do have their own grocery store. I do not hear of much crime in Harrington. We considered moving there ourselves but my husband is military and sometimes is on call so we needed to be closer to the base. Some areas of Felton and Magnolia are also nice and are still far enough away from the "city" of Dover.

[maryCh]

Hi jerzygrl,

I would agree with Honeycrisp in that where you and hubby will be working will factor in to your ultimate decision. We are in central Kent County, south of Dover. Our mailing address is Wyoming, but we are outside of town. You will find this quite frequently in most areas of DE.

As far as housing prices, you should be able to search real estate search engines for that information. I think what you are looking for can be had in DE.

If you can, take a drive down to DE and explore some of the small towns. You'll see more that way, and learn a lot about what you like (or not) about various areas. We had to do that from NC prior to moving here, not an easy task but it can be done.

BTW - congratulations on the marriage!

Mary

[jayman1981]

Did anybody pick up on the fact that she want's to live in a white middle class neighborhood. Good job. Atleast we know your not an undercover racist.

[Joe84323]

Originally Posted by jayman1981

Did anybody pick up on the fact that she want's to live in a white middle class neighborhood. Good job. Atleast we know your not an undercover racist.

I picked up on that, but it doesn't mean she's racist. There is, unfortunatly, an undisputed statistical connection to crime and African Americans. I wish it wasn't like that, but it is.

I, personally, lived in an all-white neighborhood in Philadelphia for a while, with no diversity, and the outcome was a very boring, bland neighborhood. My next move is an area with a mix of white, black, asian and hispanic people because of the bad experience I had in the last neighborhood. I'm not a big fan of any homogenous areas, as they can be very closed-minded areas with little diversity, whether they be all white, all black, all spanish, or whatever.

[anniebleu]

jayman and Joe,

I did pick up on jerzygrl's requirements for where she'd like to live, and decided not to reply to this thread. I noticed there were few responses and wondered if others were expressing their disapproval in the way I chose to.

But here I am, partly because of your responses. First, believe it or not, I think that those who wrote might well have missed "predominantly white middle-class" in a quick read-through. Yes, it happens. I am here rarely, and when I am, I pick a couple threads and fly through them. One can miss--or mis-read--things.

Note: she also doesn't want to be in "redneck land." That is quite often a put down of working class, rural whites. So, one could also find fault there, though I would like to believe that jerzygrl didn't intend it that way.

Just for the record, we're white and we have lived in a racially mixed neighborhood, a very pleasant one, for many years. No race-related crime problems here; in fact, very little crime of any sort in all these years.

Annie

[Ron.]

Come and live with me in chicago!

YOU'LL LOVE IT AND WE WOULD L0VE TO HAVE YOU........

Originally Posted by jerzygrl

I'm sorry if my question has been answered already but I'm tired of searching through these blogs to find exactly what I need to know.
I was born and raised in NJ and I recently got married. Unfortunately, I can't afford to stay.
I am from a very nice, rural part of the state. I drive at least 10 minutes to the grocery store and at least 25 to the nearest mall - and that is FINE with me. I don't want to live where I can walk to the store...but I don't want to be in redneck land either. I don't want to live in an overcrowded area. I want to find a town/area in DE that is like where I am from...basically zero crime, predominantly white middle-class, beautiful back roads with close highway access however so that I can commute easily to the more populated areas when I need to shop etc.
I am having a hard time researching this because everytime I think I'm onto something, citydata gives a high crime percentage, or someone's thread says the oppostie to what I think I've found. Can anyone help me? I wan't to spend NO MORE than $200,000 on something...$150,000 if possible. I don't want to live in a dump or a trailer or anything. A nice townhouse or a nice ranch house...is that realistic for those prices??
Some towns that I THOUGHT seemed like where I am from are Milford, Magnolia, Townsend...some others that seemed a bit bigger were Smyrna, Middletown...good schools and a family community are important too.
THANKS FOR ANY HELP!!!

[jskirwin]

People on the Internet tend to assume the worst about others, so jerzygrl's comment about "predominantly white neighborhood" marks her as a white racist while her comment "red neck land" is ignored. Amazing how little people need on the Web to leap to conclusion.

Anyone consider that a "predominantly white neighborhood" can also be stated as a "mixed neighborhood"? If the girl was a true racist she would NOT have used the word "predominantly." She sure wouldn't have used the term "red neck" as anything but a badge of pride if she was a true white supremacist.

There's enough real racism in the world that we don't need to go around making it up. As far as Delaware goes, it's a predominantly white state. It's also a mixed state and one where the racism isn't as palpable as it is in some places.

[jayman1981]

While that was a nice speech, let me school you on something, cause quite frankly you don't get it. Redneck statement I will admit is a negative statement. However "predominately white neighborhood" is an extreme left field statement. Why doesn't she want to be in a safe middle class neighborhood regardless of race? I take offense to that because it implies to me that you just want to be surrounded by white people. You feel white people will not bring about crime or problems. It would have been okay to say Where is a nice middle-class neigborhood. That would have been alright. I'm not okay with black people (which I am) say I want to live in an all black neighborhood either. Both are ignorant statements. The problem with people in general is that we are afraid, that having diversity can bring so much awareness and understanding to our lives. Just because I'm black or latino doesn't mean I'm going to bring down your property value. I think a lot of people are aware that Deleware is predominately white. She is from Jersey not California. I'm pretty sure she is aware of this fact as well. I just don't get why she had to put that out there.

While this is about what white neighborhood she wants to be in. I just can't let ignorance be tolerated to this degree.