Opinions on Westland, Superior Township and general advice (Warren, Livonia: real estate market, apartments)

[sanctifyer]

Hi everyone,

I'm in my mid 20s and recently moved to Canton with my wife (about 3 months ago) to work as an software engineer for an auto supplier in Livonia.
We're renting at the moment on the east side of Canton near I-275.

We are looking to buying a house (a new consutrction) but puzzled about where to live. We have seen great offerings from Centex Builders in Westland just south of the mall and also, in Superior Township by Big name builders (Centex and Pulte).

We've considered Canton, Plymouth, Livonia, Novi but we just can't afford a 4 bedroom single family home in these places. They are $60k-$100k more than we can afford.

Westland and Superior Township are the two candidates at the moment for our perfect new home for a great price.

I have the following questions:

1) What is the School District really like in Westland? I'm finding a great deal of trouble getting info on the web. What's the city like in general?

2) Why are the 2 biggest home builders (Centex and Pulte) eyeing up Superior Township? Will this very small town boom one day as a result?

Plus any advice any of you might have would be very appreciated.

Thanks!

[Rohan]

Nowhere is a "Boom" in Michigan right now.. Period.. These big builders can't even sell the properties they have built last year.

My advice, buy where you can find the cheapest deal in the best area. Pretty much anywhere these days in Michigan with housing values plummeting.

[mstarrs16]

I moved from Westland to Brighton. Better area I say. I lived in Westland , Garden City are all my life. The better school areas are Canton and Livonia. You can live in Westland and go to Livonia or Canton schools by living on the boarder of the school district. Westland schools are alright for lower grades, but I wouldn't want my kids going to the middle schools or high schools there.

[quietcastle]

What about condos in Canton? Everything seems to be on "sale"

[and the]

The Livonia School District just played some games to consolidate several schools while closing othes. They pitched it as necessary fiscally. I believe it had the effect of putting all of the Westland kids who live in the border areas in the same schools, away from the Livonia students. Westland has a lot of apartments on the borders, so it effectively put them in the same schools. You can live on one side of a street and the kids on the Westland side go to a different school than the kids on the Livonia side. I think they've effectively "segregated" the schools on the border areas.

Wayne Westland schools aren't that great. I don't think the Livonia schools on the border are that great either. If you've got kids, I'd go with Superior Twp. or send them to private schools. There are some decent houses in Westland off of Hix between Warren and Joy. They're along Holiday Nature preserve, which is pretty much just a wooded flood-plane, ravide area along a creek. You'll get deer in your yard along with plenty of mosquitos. Nice houses though.

[dmetro]

Originally Posted by Rohan

Nowhere is a "Boom" in Michigan right now.. Period.. These big builders can't even sell the properties they have built last year.

My advice, buy where you can find the cheapest deal in the best area. Pretty much anywhere these days in Michigan with housing values plummeting.

This is true, but this phenomenon is sweeping the whole country, not just Michigan. Every state in the Union has a huge glut of inventory right now, even those with extremely hot real estate markets. And new home building is basically stagnant anywhere you go.

[lorihoop]

I live in Westland, and am not sorry to have moved here.

We moved here from Chicago about 5 years ago, rented an apartment in Canton for a while and were in the same situation you are in when we were finally ready to buy a house.

Canton and Plymouth were our first choices because of the school systems, they're much better than Westland, but we couldn't afford to purchase a home there there so we ended up here.

The taxes are decent. We pay about 4k a year on a house with a HUGE lot and the homes here are reasonably priced.

If you do choose Westland, I'd suggest moving West of Wayne Road, and North of Palmer. If you go any farther out than that, you will be bordering cities that aren't so great. Our house borders Canton, we are one street over from the Canton city limits.

The elementary schools are great, the middle school my older daughter attends is also fine. Great teachers, and both my daughters do well.

In a few years my daughter will be going to High School. John Glenn is not a great school, and we will be looking into private schools at that time.

Good luck with your search.

[Briolat21]

First of all I would say as a place to LIVE - Superior Twp. is awesome. It is 15 mins to AA, 15 mins to I-275, 12 mins to Ford Rd, and 5 mins to Ypsi's Depot Town.

AWESOME. Plus you're looking at the houses along Geddes Rd, so that's a really pretty area. Lot's of nature areas.

However, I would check into the school districts extensively. Superior doesn't have its own schools. Depending on where you buy you will either be in the Willow Run district (crappy) or the Ypsilanti district (mediocre to average). Possibly the AA district (good) in some parts of the TWP, but not where you're looking along Geddes.

That's one of the reason's housing was cheaper in Superior -- its still a TWP., no schools, no police (we use county sherrif), less taxes, etc...

Also, hopefully it will NEVER boom, as its one of the last natural areas between AA and Canton. Alot of the GREEN SPACE moneny that AA passed a few years ago has gone towards locking up space in Superior Twp to keep the area natural. As such the Geddes corridor wll probably end up being heavily developed, but that hopefully will be it.

If you can get over the schools, or pay for private/charter.. i would definitely say Superior is the place to be. Its really really lovely.

good luck!

[and the]

If you live in Westland, West of Wayne, out to say Newburgh, and south to, I think, Warren, the high school is Churchill. Still a decent high school in the Livonia school district. We went to a football game last week at Franklin, the next high school east of that in Livonia, and I wasn't impressed with the kids. They were playing Plymouth Canton, and you could tell which kids came from which school without looking at the colors they were wearing. Best high school in Livonia is Stephenson, but that doesn't include Westland.

[jamyed]

i live in superior and love it, but need to move due to space constraint and job location. like the other poster, willow run schools are not very good.. granted they are getting better but they are still below average. Lomardo just started building south of geddes on ridge with some great houses with great pricing.