Best Community to live in (Houston, Dallas: apartment, daycares, new home)

[AreWeThereYet??]

Hello all,

We are possibly moving from Houston to For Worth. My wife and I will both be working in the downtown Fort Worth area. We are looking for a good family-oriented community with the following:

1. Easy commute to downtown (No more than 25 minutes)
2. Excellent schools (We have a 3 year old daughter)

We are looking for 250K -350K range for housing. Which area of Fort Worth should we be looking in? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Squirl]

Tanglewood area near TCU

[AreWeThereYet??]

It seems, after watching traffic patterns, that traffic from the east side of Fort Worth has the least amount of traffic going into downtown. Is this true?

If so, are there any areas east of Fort Worth that has good schools? Thanks

[Squirl]

This might help you alot; it is a map showing school ratings for 2010. You need to input the school district. Look at Aledo, Burleson, Mansfield, Arlington, Ft. Worth, Saginaw, etc. Look for blues (Exemplary) or greens (Recognized). sometimes everything looks red, just refresh the address and it should work; also click on the icons to get school name and rating info. If it doesn't work, I'll send you another site.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...?isd=fortworth

[FTWRunner]

Squirl is right the Tanglewood area is perfect. Lots of young kids, great schools, 20 mins to downtown and you could find something in your price range, though it might need a bit of modernization as these are older homes.

We have been in this area for almost a year and love it, right by Trinity Trails and Overton Park, parents walk to pick their kids up from school. Good private school are near by if you feel later on you want to go that route.

While the homes are older most are custom build and have great trees and pretty good sized lots. Lots of younger families are moving into the area. We both work in downtown and the commute is not a big deal, in fact I drive right by TCU everyday.

The zip code is 76109, search on Tanglewood Elementary.

[AreWeThereYet??]

Just found out today we will be moving to Fort Worth. I will be working in downtown Fort Worth, my wife will most likely be working in downtown Dallas.

We are looking for a community with good daycares and good elementary schools. We also would like to have a newer house rather than an older house. We would like both of our commutes to be no more than 25-30 minutes. Is there any communities that bit the bill? Thanks

[Squirl]

Grapevine and Colleyville. Also check out Hurst, Euless and Bedford. I think North Richland Hills and are Keller is too far for your wife.

[Squirl]

You could also consider Grand Prairie.....though its just not a big fav because Grand Prairie has no real local flavor or community identity; its a bedroom community..... but there are some very nice areas with new homes and its well located for your commute and has some great elementary schools.

[loves2read]

no Colleyville probably in that price range
no new homes in Bedford or Grapevine in that price range
few new ones in Euless in that price range either

you need to check out what you want on a good MLS site and see where you are looking--
if you want a split commute where each of you drive about the same time each day
then Grapevine/Euless/North Arlington/Grand Prairie/NRHills/Bedford--
the towns along the 183 Airport Frwy and some distance away from there would be best choice-
Keller because is it NE of Dallas by good bit would probably be much farther for your wife's commute than yours--even though there are people who post here who love Keller and recommend it anything someone moved to DFW area
some parts of NRHills are not that far from 183--the HOme Town subdivision off Hwy 26--for example--but there are some negatives about what it has to offer (small lots/alleys/crowded streets with parked cars) but it is in good location for parks/activities/retail shopping/schools

BEST schools in Arlington are in SW part of town--
you can get from Mansfield to downtown FTW in 25 min--my husband has guy who works in his dept who lived in Mansfield just east of 287 who makes drive

BETTER ISDs are Southlake Carroll (out of your price range probably)
Grapevine Colleyville ISD--also probably out of your price range except older home in Grapevine
HEB ISD--great stats, multicultural district with strong IB program, will suffer very little from state's budget cuts to education this year--towns there are Hurst, Bedford, Euless, one or two neighborhoods in Colleyville and FTW
Birdville ISD (NRHills and north Hurst) good schools for most part but may be hardpressed to make cuts after funding from state is reduced

EAST of Grapevine--like Flower Mound is going to run YOUR commute time higher especially with road work on 114/121 and Airport Frwy taking now and over next 2-3 years
but Flower Mound has some great neighborhoods and good schools
Coppell ISD is very strong but houses likely outside your price range and commute to FTW more time consuming

Arlington ISD has some good schools but frankly lots of socio-economic hardship that brings down school ratings--and most of the data on Arlington says that per capita education/income ratings are dropping each year

Grand Prarie ISD--problems like Arlington--you might have pockets of relatively middle class but also have high numbers of apartment dwellers, lower-socio-economic groups

[ChristieP]

Good post by L2R.

The problem is that most of the suburbs in this area were built out a LONG time ago, so there just isn't desireable land to build a new home unless you tear down an existing one. If you could deal with buying a 20+ year old home that has been updated, your choices will increase dramatically. There are LOTS of homes in all of the communities L2R mentions within your price range.