Recommend Suburb Please (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Livonia: real estate market, 2014, crime)

[tcourtneysk]

My family is considering relocating. Spouse would work in Dearborn. Wiling to have up to a 40 minute commute (tops).

My list of needs -

great schools
home in 375-450k range
I prefer not to live in a new or cookie cutter neighborhood
home resell outlook good

The searches I've done have been depressing. It looks like houses have been on the market forever which really scares me and the great school ratings are really poor. I am looking for 9 and 10s for elementary schools only. Birmingham looks great until I see the home prices! Also I have been only searching on national websites such as realtor.com or zillow. If you could let me know the name of a local website that is good please let me know.

Any advice is much appreciated!

[jaynarie]

Resell is actually quite good right now. Houses aren't sitting. My brother in law sold both of his houses in 2014. Both resulted in bidding wars within days of being listed, going under contract in under a week. One was in Livonia and one was in White Lake.

If you are looking at Great Schools for rating, they can give you an idea, but they can also be a joke. There are dozens of great school districts in Metro Detroit.

[WayneCounty]

Farmington Hills north of 10 mile is nice and well established. Most homes in that area are around $250k, and the really nice ones sell in your price range. The commute time is 25-30 minutes. It is a safe area and the schools are good.

[DTWflyer]

Welcome!

Dearborn, is one of the business centers of Southeastern Michigan and the home of Ford Motor Company. There are a lot of people who work in Dearborn. The downside of working in Dearborn that there literaly a donut ring of areas surrounding that area that are not desirable based on your criteria. That means at a minimum your spouce is looking at 20-30+ minute commute. Western Dearborn has some pockets of nice older homes, but the public schools are mediocre at best.
The areas directly north and east of Dearborn are in undesirable parts of Detroit, and then anywhere immeidately surrounding Dearborn to the south and west is heavily working class/blue collar with mediocre school districts and somewhat depressed real estate markets.

Thus the areas you are likely looking at include:

Birmingham
Bloomfield Township/Franklin/Bingham Farms
Beverly Hills

Birmingham is one of Metro Detroit's toniest suburbs, and one of the highest priced suburbs and hotest real estate markets. Older established suburb with a mix of heavily remodeled older homes, and tear-down new custom home construction. $300-400k will only get you into some of the smaller, sub-2000 sq ft homes, and/or ones in need of heavy renovation. Downtown Birmingham has numerous higher-end restaurants, bistros, bars, and botique shops and is the main commerical district for the Birmingham/Bloomfield area. Numerous high-end grocery stores in the area too.

Beverly Hills is a somewhat less expensive option than Birmingham, located directly south of it. Homes may be somewhat lower priced but also feeds into the Birmingham school district.

Bloomfield Township is generally a mix of 1950s-1970s era homes on larger lots. Portions attend Birmingham schools, other parts in Bloomfield Hills schools

Franklin has an small old village, but is really just an extension of Bloomfield Township. Attends Birmingham schools. A mix of old homes, large lots, and high-end new custom construction.

I grouped all of these together since they all (for the most part) are within the Birmingham School District attendance boundaries. Some feed into different schools within the district, but all are some of the top in the state.

Huntington Woods
Pleasant Ridge


Huntington Woods and Pleasant Ridge along the Woodward corridor are known for their nice, older, and historic homes. I can't speak for the schools in this area.


Plymouth
Northville
Novi
Farmington Hills

Known as the western suburbs, a popular option for those working in Dearborn. Plymouth has a walkable downtown commercial district, and good community events. Northville has the same, but also generally more pricy than Plymouth.

Novi is a popular area for families and known for its excellent schools. However, Novi generally falls into the cookie-cutter suburban sprawl category, at it is full of 1990s-2000s-2010s era new construction.

Ann Arbor:
Ann Arbor is on the high end of your commuting range but it is an option. I know several people who commute from Ann Arbor to Dearborn every day and generally have no issues, except on the ~10 days per year of bad snow/ice. People do this for the energy, culture, and vibe of the more-liberal and college town atmosphere. Ann Arbor also has excellent public schools.

[amac626]

Try looking in Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe, and Grosse Pointe Park. All of the schools are highly rated, you'll find tons of charm and character in the housing stock, and you can find houses in your price range. You'll be within 40 minutes of Dearborn even with traffic (straight shot down I-94). You can search these boards for GP opinions they tend to vary since the area shares a hard border with the City of Detroit, but generally the closer to the Lake, the nicer the area.

[dave w]

Originally Posted by amac626

Try looking in Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe, and Grosse Pointe Park. All of the schools are highly rated, you'll find tons of charm and character in the housing stock, and you can find houses in your price range. You'll be within 40 minutes of Dearborn even with traffic (straight shot down I-94). You can search these boards for GP opinions they tend to vary since the area shares a hard border with the City of Detroit, but generally the closer to the Lake, the nicer the area.

The Pointes are nice but if I'm spending up to 450k for a house I wouldn't want to be bordered by Detroit, Harper woods, S.C. Shores. I'd want an area with better malls and amenities, safer surrounding areas.

[chh]

Grosse Isle. Great schools, expensive houses, and not new or cookie cutter.

[gameguy56]

Originally Posted by dave w

The Pointes are nice but if I'm spending up to 450k for a house I wouldn't want to be bordered by Detroit, Harper woods, S.C. Shores. I'd want an area with better malls and amenities, safer surrounding areas.

Someone not looking for cookie cutter homes is probably not going to be concerned by the kinds of shopping malls are closest to them.

[dave w]

Originally Posted by gameguy56

Someone not looking for cookie cutter homes is probably not going to be concerned by the kinds of shopping malls are closest to them.

You still have to eat ,buy cloths, AMENITIES

[MS313]

Originally Posted by dave w

You still have to eat ,buy cloths, AMENITIES

Your acting like there are no grocery stores or restaurants in and around the Grosse Pointes, there are.

Assuming the OP has a car, there are also about 5 or 6 malls within a half hour drive of the Grosse Pointe area, I'm not even thinking about strip mall shopping centers that you can also buy clothes at but actually shopping malls. But seriously, how often are you really shopping for clothes?

Also Amenities? Aside from it's own amenities, the Grosse Pointe area is 20 minutes from downtown Detroit, closer than any other suburb except maybe Dearborn. Also close to the riverfront/ lake with easy access to Belle Isle and the Riverwalk. They also have a park themselves with a beach, a pool, playground, basketball courts, ect. I have been there before and it's somewhere on the Grosse Pointe coastline.

OP: for someone who doesn't like cookie cutter, the GP area is a great place to live if you can find something affordable there. Yeah you might not have Somerset in your back yard but it is great for families, I can't give much advice on schools but from what I hear they are excellent (another poster can correct me if I'm wrong?), the crime is also low, and you have beautiful scenery especially near Lake St Clair not to mention MANSIONS, some celebrities even live there. Very nice area you should check out, if you prefer better access to high end or mega mall shopping then OC will be the place for you, either way, you can't go wrong, just avoid Pontiac in Oakland County.