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There is a 50/50 chance that I'll be moving to the Detroit area for a job in downtown Detroit. Might not happen as I'm not a very lucky(?) person these days. But if I get it, it'll be between $50 and $60 grand a year. Outside chance of $65, but I'm not holding my breath. Side-track question... is that kind of salary pretty good for the area?
Anyway, we're looking for a 3 bedroom, 1 or 2 bath rental house--with a two car garage--under $900/month where the commute to downtown wouldn't be more than 30 minutes on average. My wife is a stay at home body, our kids are grown and gone so schools are not an issue. We are fairly conservative in our life outlook. Not Tea Party... but borderline. I'm very social but my wife isn't.
We would need a New Testament church, Baptist-type or solid community church. We have three Westies, under 20 lbs., and would need a fenced yard. And being Westies, they tend to bark... a lot. Now, with all of that having been said...
What I've found on this forum is consistent contradiction about places to live:
* "Southfield is a ghetto."
* "No it's not!"
* "Parts of (fill in the city) are bad so don't go there."
* "Stay above 8 Mile and east of Detroit."
* "Stay away from the area east of Detroit, except for (fill in the city)."
* "Grosse Pointe is great if you have money (the most consistent point made)"
* "This place is too black."
* "No it's not!"
* "This place is diverse"
* "No it's not!"
Do you see how confusing it can be for a left-coaster to make a decision? I have a hard enough time with "paper or plastic?"
We're not much on night life and a fairly secluded location might be best for my wife since she doesn't really associate with anyone but me. That may be a problem in and of itself, but that's another topic for discussion.
Now with all of that having been said, what do you guys and gals suggest?
There is a 50/50 chance that I'll be moving to the Detroit area for a job in downtown Detroit. Might not happen as I'm not a very lucky(?) person these days. But if I get it, it'll be between $50 and $60 grand a year. Outside chance of $65, but I'm not holding my breath. Side-track question... is that kind of salary pretty good for the area?
Anyway, we're looking for a 3 bedroom, 1 or 2 bath rental house--with a two car garage--under $900/month where the commute to downtown wouldn't be more than 30 minutes on average. My wife is a stay at home body, our kids are grown and gone so schools are not an issue. We are fairly conservative in our life outlook. Not Tea Party... but borderline. I'm very social but my wife isn't.
We would need a New Testament church, Baptist-type or solid community church. We have three Westies, under 20 lbs., and would need a fenced yard. And being Westies, they tend to bark... a lot. Now, with all of that having been said...
What I've found on this forum is consistent contradiction about places to live:
* "Southfield is a ghetto."
* "No it's not!"
* "Parts of (fill in the city) are bad so don't go there."
* "Stay above 8 Mile and east of Detroit."
* "Stay away from the area east of Detroit, except for (fill in the city)."
* "Grosse Pointe is great if you have money (the most consistent point made)"
* "This place is too black."
* "No it's not!"
* "This place is diverse"
* "No it's not!"
Do you see how confusing it can be for a left-coaster to make a decision? I have a hard enough time with "paper or plastic?"
We're not much on night life and a fairly secluded location might be best for my wife since she doesn't really associate with anyone but me. That may be a problem in and of itself, but that's another topic for discussion.
Now with all of that having been said, what do you guys and gals suggest?
It can be done. The rental market for that size house is quite strong and at $900 a month you're not going to be in a wonderful area. You won't have to be in the ghetto at that price, though. Avoid the city of Detroit. You'll thank me for it later. Seclusion is hard to find within a half-hour of downtown. Southfield has a bad rap from some because it's half Black or a little more so. It's okay, but not great. The northeast corner has Birmingham Schools, a highly esteemed district, but you won't get a three bedroom for $900 a month in that corner of the city. That area still looks pretty good. The Southfield district is average at best and probably a little worse than that nowadays. (Some suburban schools are having their standardized test scores dragged down because some of the kids transferring out of the Detroit Public Schools are to put it kindly functionally illiterate.) A co-worker of mine who lives in Southfield just got broken into a week or two ago, but that happens.
You can go below Eight Mile. Portions of Harper Woods (again, about half Black if you care) are in the Grosse Pointe schools, nearly as good as Birmingham and $900-$1000 a month is doable there. It's also about as close to downtown as you're going to get with us Debbie Downers telling you where to go. If you look in that city, stay on brick house streets. (Same advice works in a lot of areas in the inner ring.) Places like Southgate and Allen Park may be fine, too. Downriver has a "white trash" reputation, but then again, so do many places north of Eight, such as Roseville (Roachville, but there are areas which would work great), Hazel Park (Hazeltucky), and a third of Clinton Township, among others.
By the way, diversity is avoided and feared by at least half the locals.
P.S. Many municipalities have a two dog limit. Most of these areas will let you have three with a "kennel license" which depending on the surrounding neighbors may only be a formality. Some of these are well enforced, some maybe not so much.
Last edited by us66; 11-21-2011 at 05:33 AM..
Reason: dogs
$50-$60K is pretty good. It's probably near the middle-ish depending on if you're looking at the whole Metro.
The thing about Southfield is that it's one of the few suburbs north of 8 Mile that has a larger amount of Black people than most other suburbs directly north of 8 Mile. Personally, whether that makes it ghetto seems sort of racist (for which this area is no stranger of). You might hear loud music, but it's faaaaar better than the ghettos of Detroit. It's a very nice suburb aside from that little tidbit. I haven't actually lurked the Southfield thread but I've spent time in Southfield.
Now for $900 a month, you won't be too far from 8 Mile (which could be good or bad depending on your perspective). You'll have more options if you look inside Detroit proper. I'd try to keep your options to Bagley or Green Acres. They're pretty good neighborhoods with pretty nice homes with a few in that price range. Oak Park would also be a good option if you're not comfortable inside Detroit and being that it's close to that area. There's also a lot of options in Eastpointe and Roseville, but if people are calling Southfield ghetto, I can't wait to hear what they'll say about Eastpointe.
I don't know about any specific churches, but I know that you'll have a plethora of churches to choose from. Metro Detroit has a church literally on every corner. Some Catholic, some Baptist...there's quite a few denominations, actually. So I don't think you'll have a hard time finding what you're looking for there.
It is easy to find inexpensive secluded or semi secluded places. Just stay in between towns. The further South you go, the more open/secluded you get. When you get to Flat Rock, things really open up, but as long as you swinf inland away from the River, you will find open areas from about Southgate on down.
If you stay away from th epopular and densely settled orth Oakland County, Southern Macomb County areas, you will find a lot of very nice options. How far from the City are you willing to go?
Lyon Township, Nothville township, Brighton, Salem, Plymouth Township, Ann Arbor Township, outlying areas of Romulus, Huron township, New Boston, Willow, . . .
The Townships adjoining towns are pretty rural in places and probably better options for noisy Dogs. In some places you can rent an old farmhouse on a large property. You price range will make things a bit difficult. Keep looking, you will find something. A very small house or a single property with a trailer home on it are probably your best bets.
Anyway, we're looking for a 3 bedroom, 1 or 2 bath rental house--with a two car garage--under $900/month where the commute to downtown wouldn't be more than 30 minutes on average. My wife is a stay at home body, our kids are grown and gone so schools are not an issue. We are fairly conservative in our life outlook. Not Tea Party... but borderline. I'm very social but my wife isn't.
We would need a New Testament church, Baptist-type or solid community church. We have three Westies, under 20 lbs., and would need a fenced yard. And being Westies, they tend to bark... a lot. Now, with all of that having been said...
Taylor is not very pleasant, not awful, just not too nice. There are some neat small homes that border heritage park that woudl be pretty neat if you do not mind heavy traffic in front of your house. Tayloe also has some semi-rural areas both east and west of the main mass of Taylor. You cannot say east and west of the City, becasue there is no city. It is just sprawl. It woudl be cheap though. And all those jokes about people in Taylor not having many teeth is mostly undeserved.
Some of Taylor may be just fine for your needs. Not the greatest place, but the problems came largely from the public housing which has been mostly cleaned up. Houses on land are available if you want to put a bit of space between you and your neighbors.
Southfield, hate to say it, looks a bit raggedy compared to how it used to look. It could just be getting old, it could be the storm cloud the metro has sat under for the last several years, it could be that the houses cost a bit less there than comps in other cities, but a lot of the 50s-60s-early 70s housing stock isn't being taken care of all that well. The same can be said of that vintage in other areas, too, though, it's just that Southfield always gets the mention on here so I'll mention it, too. Same goes for Eastpointe's housing stock (again, mentioned in this thread so I'll talk about it). Their housing stock is a few years older mostly, but is hit or miss when it comes to being kept up. Some of the streets with the best houses east of Kelly (50s customs) are not aging well these past few years. A lot of those houses need work if you look closely.
Eastpointe? Some areas are still decent, some areas are in decline. East Detroit Schools are held in fairly low esteem and not worth the tax dollars unless you're comparing them to Detroit's schools. Owner-occupied areas and brick areas tend to fare a bit better, frame areas, blocks without many basement house, and high percentages of rentals on some blocks aren't doing the city any favors. The city, contrary to popular belief, is not turning into Detroit, as long as crime stays where it's at (high by Macomb County standards but really not that bad, mostly, except for garage breakins and auto theft) and code enforcement keeps up...it's going to be more along the lines of south Warren or Redford Township, maybe Oak Park.
He only has 900 a month to spend renting, and sounds like he wants a place with southern culture. Why people think Taylor doesn't fit his needs is baffling to me. Most other places people have mentioned are out of that price range or don't fit any of the criteria you mentioned. People on this forum don't seem to realize not everyone makes six figures and don't have unlimited funds to put towards housing.
Warren or Center Line would work. I would normally second Harper Woods but it I lived there and it is liberal. Center Line has fairly low crime, cheap housing, and close to downtown. Warren north of 10 mile would also be fine. Warren sometimes gets a bad rap because it doesn't have the yuppy downtown like Royal Oak and is filled with 1200 square foot brick ranches, but it's still pretty safe and has an older population that tends to keep to themselves. I'm pretty sure you could find something to rent in that price range in Warren.
Downriver would probably be ideal. Though Taylor-tucky can be rough, the central area within the Ecorse/Beechdaly/Mortenview/Northline boundaries has the housing and proximity to chain stores and Detroit via I94. I would be leary about the neighborhood in the SE corner of Goddard and Telegraph, but generally speaking the other hoods just might work.
Brownstown, but that is spread out and less hit and more miss when it comes to finding a family values point of view. Riverview creates a communte problem as there is really no easy way to downtown. You cold run Sibley to I75, not sure how traffic is in the morning or that stretch of freeway from there to Deroit?
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