Older communities in North Ft Worth (Fort Worth, North Richland Hills: upkeep, work, new home)

[marinewife91]

Are there any nice older communites to purchase in that are also in the Keller or northwest ISD? While its tempting to buy a new home, we would prefer a house with lovely mature trees.

[ChristieP]

What about HEB (Hurst Euless Bedford) ISD? Lots of older homes there with huge trees, and a very well-regarded school district.

[Chamisa]

Some parts of North Richland Hills are in the Keller school district. The school district is large and encompasses parts of several cities; Watauga is another option but it is more a "blue collar" town. The parts of Fort Worth that lie in the district are all relatively new; the area only started building up about 25 years ago and took off within the last 6 or 7 years. The Northwest school district is geographically huge, and there are cities like Decatur that have older homes.

[Amyund]

Originally Posted by marinewife91

Are there any nice older communites to purchase in that are also in the Keller or northwest ISD? While its tempting to buy a new home, we would prefer a house with lovely mature trees.

Older homes may have trees, but they need to be really big to help cool your house in the summer months. I would not rule out new construction. The energy efficiency of a new home vs. one built just 5-10 yrs. ago is astounding. I had a house built in '99 and my elc. bills were $350 in the summer for a 1700 sq. ft. home. My new home is 3200 sq. ft. with about $300 a month. Look for an energy star certified home..will help greatly!

[marinewife91]

I like the idea of an older home with Character, and trees for privacy and well I just like the idea of having trees and a larger yard, which in a new community is almost impossible,if not IMPOSSIBLE to find in our price range. I am willing to pay more in updating the energy efficentness of a home for yard that has a grassy area larger then a postage stamp, and where my neighbor isn't able to see into my back yard from his bedroom window > I lived all my married life ontop of my neighbors and I am tired of it!

[loves2read]

older parts of Trophy Club have trees but smaller lots from what I have seen

parts of Northwest ISD around Haslet and Roanoak and parts of Keller were grazing land or planted fields so any native trees were cut and there was time when developers were all into smoothing out the land to maximize number of buildable lots--and the city council did not have the tree ordinance in effect
so many developments are the 2tree per lot type---
your best bet is to look for homes that were more custom than tract built because they were more likely to have design built around site and thus keeping the trees...


will send you an mls site that lets you search by lot size in addition to other info like price
you will be surprised to see perhaps how dates some of the older homes are and still have a very aggressive price per sq ft--when you add in the cost of redoing the house it makes you stop and think--
this area is not really seeing a dropping of pricing like some others--the inventory is just staying on the market longer but in some sections, pricing is higher than it was a year ago...
I don't think the click box on the MLS link about heavily treed really works that well and some MLS descripts don't put lot size when the lot is really small--like less than .25 but it is something to work with..you can get idea of subdivision locations and see photos for tree sizes...

[R.B.]

If you want trees for privacy, make sure that they are evergreen. Otherwise, you will have totally different view during the winter.

My neighbor's backyard faces the busy street, but the builder installed tall brick wall. With pool and water fountain, you don't hear anything. He loves how private it is.

Even smaller house can provide the privacy depends on how they are placed. Most of our neighbor's houses are 1-story. We have only 1 windows on one side of our house that faces our neighbor's windows side and our windows side faces another neighbor's 1 window side. So considering how small our yard is, we hardly see each other.

Just keep your option open, because maintenace of older house, large yard and trees are not cheap...

[marinewife91]

I totally understand, and yes I am familiar with deciduous and conifers trees .....being from NYS..... anyways.... its just our preference , just as someone might really desire travertine tile, or granite counter tops... Or,A pool or Jaquzzi( which is a hassle and added expense). If I had my druthers I would own acerage, however thats not in the cards right now. We are keeping our options open, but the cost of an older home upkeep, yard maintenance etc is just not a deterrant. We are willing to pay that to get what we want.

[loves2read]

the best way IS to have diciduous trees--shade in summer and then they shed leaves to give you sun's warmth in winter

there might be some privacy loss and the hassle of dealing with leaves debris but that is more energy efficient arrangement that having evergreens...

[5stones]

another place you might want to look as well is Roanoak. It's a small little town just on the edge of trophy club. It's NWISD and has a small little downtown area. I don't know much about it, but my vet is there and it seems pretty quiet, but close to shopping etc...